From: stevens@eatdust (John Stevens)
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity
Subject: Re: About those UnBornThi
Date: 21 Jul 92 19:25:59 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Only when forced to. . .

In article <Jul.21.12.09.01.1992.9014@gandalf.rutgers.edu> shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan) writes:
>stevens@eatdust (John Stevens) writes:
>
>>In article <Jul.17.11.45.51.1992.25073@gandalf.rutgers.edu> shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan) writes:
>>>stevens@eatdust (John Stevens) writes:
>>>
>>>>In article <Jul.13.13.45.36.1992.15647@gandalf.rutgers.edu> shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan) writes:
>>>>>stevens@eatdust (John Stevens) writes:
>>>>>>In article <Jul.10.14.41.22.1992.12484@gandalf.rutgers.edu> shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan) writes:
>>>
>
>>>There is a difference between intercourse and conception.  This is the
>>>point upon which we disagree.  I have seen no evidence to support your
>>>assumption and until I do, I don't see any point in continuing.
>
>>Which assumption are you talking about?  This paragraph does not seem
>>related to what went before.
>
>Your assumption that a consent to sex implies a consent to get pregnant.
>
>I will explain the difference once more, and then I give up.

No need.  I understand (and have all along, if you had actually read what
I've written) the difference between having sex, and conception.

Feel free to give up at any time.  No one is holding a gun to your head.
But at least admit that the difference here is not a factual one, it is
a difference in opinion as to what is fair and just.

Obviously, I consider your position to be unfair to the father.  You do
not.

>A consent to sex implies a consent to accept responsiblity for whatever may 
>result.  This is true.  However accepting responsiblity for a pregnancy 
>does not necessarily mean carrying it.  It can also mean terminating it.

Agreed.  But this is not the issue.  The issue is equal rights.

>>And how is changing your minde later (bailing out) different than a woman
>>having an abortion?
>
>Because if you change your mind, I am stuck with the financial burden of a
>child.  If I change my mind, you are not stuck with the financial burden of 
>a child.

Yes, but if your are the sole responsible person (as you have so often
stated) and therefore should be the only person who has any rights to
your body and *YOUR* fetus, it doesn't matter whether I agree to support
you and your baby or not.  I should have no responsibility for the
products of your body at all.  If I *DO* have responsibility, don't you
consider it to be unfair to give me no rights (no say) in the matter?

If we cannot force a woman to carry a child, even if she agreed before
the pregnancy to carry it, then we cannot force a man to support the
child, even if he agreed to support it.

>>>>>No, I don't.  If you tell me before I get pregnant or when you discover
>>>>>that I'm pregnant that you don't want it, then its my problem if I want
>>>>>to keep it or our financial problem if I want to terminate it.  But, if
>>>>>you tell me, when I'm 1 month pregnant that you want the child and that
>>>>>you are prepared to help support us, convincing me to carry the pregnancy
>>>>>to term, and then you back out, I definately will be after you for 
>>>>>child support.
>
>>Why?  I'm just exercising the male equivalent of abortion.
>
>It is not an equivalent. I have already explained why.  

No, you haven't.  You have explained why IN YOUR OPINION it is not equivalent,
but you have failed to address the questions that I have raised in relation
to the unfairness of your position.

I have used the litmus test of equal rights, and you have said that in
this case, women and men should NOT have equal rights, due to biology.
Suspiciously, this is one area where you want women to have MORE rights/power
than men.

I have warned you that this is a very dangerous precedent to set, as
it would set the equal rights movment back at least a decade.  You
responded by stating that this is the only ABSOLUTE difference.  Ignoring
for the moment that it does not require an absolute difference to pass
a law that gives more rights to one or the other sex, we still have to
address the other side of the story.  In other words, if the absolute
difference is that women bear children, then the absolute difference
for men is that they father them.  If bearing the child gives you
rights that men should not have, then fathering a child should give
the father rights that the woman does not have.

All along, I've said that less rights, should mean less responsibility.
More rights should mean more responsibility.

You seem to be saying that the man should have NO rights, but should still
bear responsibility.  This is unfair.

>>>If you tell me you want a child and then I decide to have it,
>>>then you change your mind.  I have gotten myself into one hell of a 
>>>financial predicament based on your promise.  Therefore you are financially
>>>responsible to me and the baby.  On the other hand, by choosing to abort,
>>>when I originally said I wouldn't, may be a scummy thing to do, but it
>>>certainly doesn't place similar burdens on you.
>
>>No financial burden.  But it does place other burdens on me.
>
>But we can only accurately measure, prove, and defend financial burdens, not
>emotional one.

Wrong.  In a court of law, emotional damage is OFTEN the basis for a
monetary award.

>>Yup.  The inherent danger of throwing yourself out of an airplane CANNOT
>>be nullified by putting on a parachute.
>
>But it can be rectified by wearing a cast as a pregnancy can be terminated.

Wearing a cast won't bring you back from the dead if you bounce.

>>Nope.  Makes it possible to get his sperm back.
>
>How?  Can he separate it from the ovum at that point?

Yes.

>You are ridiculous.

You have no answer, so you have a knee jerk attack reaction.

Not ridiculous at all.  An abortion does not make it like you never got
pregnant, it TERMINATES a pregnancy.  Aborting would not make it like the
sperm and the egg never got together, but it would give the same end
result as if the father had had his sperm returned.  After all, you wouldn't
be pregnant without that sperm.

Therefore, according to your own reasoning, the father should be able to
require you NOT to use his sperm to get pregnant.  This would mean requiring
the mother to have an abortion, as it is the only way, with current
technology, for this to be done.

You are the one being ridiculous.  By your own arguments, it follows that
it is only fair to allow the father to decide that he did not want his
sperm to be used to make a baby.  After all, if the woman should have
the right to make abortion a unilateral decision because it is her
body the fetus is growing in, shouldn't it be the father's right to
require that his sperm be used ONLY for the purposes that he agrees to
allow it to be used for?

Or is the right to decide what to do with your body only a right that
women have?

>>>That is still no reason to imply consent to pregnancy when giving consent
>>>to sex.
>
>>If it is not for women, then it should not be for men.
>
>Again, I agree with that.

Of course.  We have agreed on some things all along.  What I cannot seem
to communicate to you is that pregnancy is a different condition from all
others.

Pregnancy is, by it's very nature, the sharing of a woman's body by both
the mother and father, to grow a baby.  Your body is the one that shelters
and sustains the baby, but you would not even be pregnant without the
father.  That baby is not solely owned by either party, it is an
ireversible joining of sperm and egg.

The end outcome can be avoided by abortion.  And because the abortion
affects something that is the combination of both parents, it seems only
fair that the decision to abort should be made by both parents.

What to do if there is a disagreement is the issue.  You claim that the
mother should have the right to terminate her pregnancy unilaterally
at any time.  But what you seem to just blithely ignore is the fact that
the woman is NOT the only interested or involved party.  There is at
least one, and possibly two other people who have and interest in the
abortion, the father of the baby, and the baby.  In other words, the
interests of all three parties are iretrievably intertwined, and it is
an unfair to simply ignore the rights and interests of ANY of the parties
involved.

I have attempted to give a LIST of possible solutions that allow the
rights and responsibilities of at least the mother and the father to
be represented equally from the standpoint of law, if not biology.

You have consistently made statements about a woman's rights, without
acknowledging that the interests of the other parties involved should
give them rights as well.  This seems to be because you don't believe
that they should have any rights.

>Susan R. Hagan (shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu) 

If you are getting tired of this debate, it may be because you are repeating
yourself.  Try addressing the issues from the standpoint of creating a set
of laws that are just and fair.

So far, when your reasoning is applied to both men and women, you complain
that the resulting scenario is unfair.  It would seem that you are advocating
different standards of justice and fairness for women and men.

John
stevens@uswest.com
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity