From: kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l)
Subject: Re: rights and responsibilities
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 03:48:23 GMT

jbrindle@halcyon.com (Jennifer Brindle) writes:

>In article <Bw4vD1.KA1@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l) writes:
>>
>>Certainly.  If abortion is illegal, child support laws have to be given
>>some very real teeth.  Men have to be made to be responsible for their 
>>actions.  However, if abortion is legal, men should be able to shuck 
>>child support (i.e. legally "abort" the unviable tissue mass and all
>>that might ensue).  You can't have one without the other.

>This is the second time in as msny days this thought has been posted.
>While at first glance it seems to make sense, but if you think about it
>for a minute you'll see why it doesn't.

>First of all WHY have child support at all?  Why is it necessary?
>Because of the child.  The child has certain needs and some of these
>needs require finances.  Sometimes the woman is not able to meet these
>financial needs by herself.  The logical choice to which to turn is the
>natural father, if he is able.  Child support exists because the child
>needs it. 

Nonsense.  That was the mother's decision.  If her decision was in error,
then it's her problem.  She made an economic decision and it failed.
Anonymous sperm donors cannot be held for child support.  Why should it
matter if you happen to know the guy's name?  The child has no "natural
father" if you believe the logic of legal abortion.  ONly women create
children.  Men just supply a bit of raw material.  They are no more
responsible then the O/B that delivered the kid, or the one that supplied
prenatal care (less even, since the O/B has more voice in how the woman
carries to term than the man does).  Why not hit O/B's for child support?  

>SEcondly, why punish the _child_ because the mother didn't want an
>abortion?  Why should _her_ decision about this put undue stress on
>her child's life, especially when there is a father who is financially
>able to support his child?

Talk to the woman!  She was the one who decided to bear a child when 
she wasn't financially able!  Isn't that what abortion is all about?
Make sure those women abort so that children don't grow up in households
that can't supply them with steak every night?  Stick with your own 
logic please!  I thought pro-aborts wanted the stigma removed from 
abortion so that no women would ever make such a stupid choice!  How
much more would it dissuade her from carrying to term if she KNEW she
didn't have a prayer for male support?  Pro-choice means putting
yourself first at every turn.  Any woman who made such a poor choice
was not properly educated about the beauty and wonder of abortion.
A failure of pro-abort policy that cannot be laid at the doors of 
the man.  Make the people who failed to educate her pay for the child.

>What you are advocating is that financial considerations be the sole
>determination of whether or not to continue a prenancy.  PErsonal
>feelings mean nothing at all.  IF the woman coulnd't afford to raise
>the child alone, then she should abort, even if she doesn't believe in it.

WEll, we wouldn't want the kid to grow up in a poor home, would we?
I mean, that child should be aborted if she doesn't have the means to
care for it, right?  What if the woman got desperate and started abusing
the kid?  That would be a fate worse than death!  That child would probably
not ever have wnated to be born at all, right?  We've GOT to put such
principles first, it's best for the child, after all.  What sort of cruel
inhumane person are you?  Are you a Nazi?  Hey, you're not one of those
scummy pro-lifers in disguise, are you? 

>Well, that surely let's the man off the hook, doesn't it?
>And, forces a woman into a medical procedure in which she may not believe,
>or think is morally right.

Well, it's up to her whether or not to have the child - it's HER choice,
isn't it?  I mean, the man doesn't have any rights here.  It's not like
we wanted to keep him ON the hook.  We wanted him the hell out of the
way so we could get this abortion done if we decided we wanted one.  
The woman isn't FORCED into a medical procedure.  It's her decision.
And it's better if she knows up front that the man will walk, isn't it?
I mean, what if he LIED and she had the child and he WALKED, and she
fell on hard times and beat up the kids, and the kids cried, and oh
that would be WORSE than if she had just aborted them to begin with, right?

And it's not like men aren't going to walk.  They're going to do it 
anyway.  We might as well make it safe and legal.  Don't you just
cringe when you hear those terrible stories about how a man was put in
jail and raped by homosexuals and got AIDS and DIED because he didn't
pay child support?  We can't let that evil continue.  We ought to just
legalize non-payment.  It's better for everyone that way.

>But what if we have that thinking, then if a man WANTS to support his
>child, and is able to do so, then the woman should not be permitted to
>abort at all--because the money is there.  If money is the sole criteria
>for aborting, then it surely must be the sole criteria for continuing.

>Kinda sounds like baby-selling, doesn't it?

>I don't know about you, but this kind of thinking really turns me off.

Oh good heavens, we can't have that.  No, the pro-choice crowd is right.
Better to keep the man completely out of it.  I mean COMPLETELY.  
Don't let him pay a cent.  We don't want to impose a patriarchal, 
paternalistic subjugating form of economic tyranny on women.  They should
be completely independent of men.  Completely.

>Sometimes I don't think people think about the child--and it is a child,
>there's no doubt about that, once its born.  

Yes, Jennifer, but only AFTER it's born.  That's why it's completely 
the woman's problem.  I'm sure you agree, because you're so logical.

>Jennifer

Steve Kellmeyer
-- 

Steve Kellmeyer 
kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu