From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: I'm Pro-Male-Choice
Summary: Moral reasoning where the wrongdoer's rights prevail.
Keywords: RU 486; FEMINISMUS DELENDUS EST
Date: 21 Jul 92 13:08:19 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.

Let's try to follow Kevin Darcy's moral reasoning here.  For the sake 
of argument, we'll make a few assumptions:

1)  The first assumption is that there is no child until a child is
    born.  I derive this assumption from the following exchange, in
    Article <1992Jul14.214743.27549@cfctech.cfc.com>:

>>If he makes the decision to take that risk,
>>and conceives a child, he *is* a father,    [Matt Rosenblatt]

>Legally, of course, he's not a "father" at the moment of conception, 
>since there is no legal "child" until much later.
> 
>(I thought I smelled a pro-life mentality here somewhere.)  [Kevin Darcy]

2)  The second assumption is that a man has a right to engage in sexual
    intercourse with any consenting woman, and therefore does not do
    anything wrong when he does so.  This is the "Stud'n'Sluts" morality,
    but Mr. Darcy seems to believe that such a man has done nothing wrong.

3)  The third assumption is that if the man reasonably believes, when
    he is having intercourse, that precautions have been taken to prevent
    an unwanted birth, it is wrong to hold him responsible for 
    supporting a child who is born as a result of that intercourse:

>As far as "irresponsible pleasure", how can you generalize so glibly? Not 
>all accidental pregnancies are the result of irresponsibility -- condoms
>break, pills fail, etc.. For that matter, it might not have been 
>particularly pleasurable, either :-)   [Kevin Darcy]

4)  The fourth assumption is that deception is wrong.  This is my own
    assumption.  It implies that a woman who tells a man that she is
    using birth control, that she is "safe," when she really is not,
    has done something wrong.  Mr. Darcy may disagree with this
    assumption.

5)  The fifth assumption is that it is wrong to bring a child into the
    world who will have only one parent, and that "the right thing" to
    do with respect to such a child is to abort it.  I derive this from
    Article <1992Jul18.004123.15973@cfctech.cfc.com>:

>>I go along with the "chicken" poster in the Baltimore subway.  It 
>>derides boys who get their girlfriends pregnant and then "fly the coop."
>>The poster says in so many words that *real men* live up to their
>>responsibilities and "do the right thing."  [Matt Rosenblatt]

>The "right thing" in many cases is to abort. Why bring a child into the 
>world which is probably NEVER going to have the continued company of 
>both its natural parents?  Seems rather cruel to me.  [Kevin Darcy]

So now let's look at the situation before and after the child is born.
Before the child is born, there are only two people involved, since by
assumption, no child exists yet.  One of those two people, the man, is
innocent of wrongdoing, having exercised his right to consensual sex in
the reasonable belief that the woman was taking precautions against
pregnancy.  The other person, the woman, is a wrongdoer, having deceived
the man into his belief when in truth she is hoping to have a child in
order to get money out of the man to supplement her welfare payments.

After the child is born, there are three people involved.  The man, 
by assumption, is still innocent of wrongdoing, and surely, so is 
the newborn child.  In fact, the newborn child is the victim of his
mother's wrongdoing, because it is "rather cruel" of her to have
brought "a child into the world which [sic] is probably NEVER going
to have the continued company of both its natural parents."  We 
are faced with the choice among three alternatives, each of which, 
in one way or another, hurts the interests of an innocent party.  
One alternative deprives the child of any support from his father.  
A second alternative (the present law) actually imposes financial
responsibility on the father for an "accident," so that he has to 
"pay" for eighteen years to atone for his "sin" of having had sexual
intercourse.  The third alternative ranges even farther afield, 
reaching into the paychecks of taxpayers who have had absolutely
nothing to do with creating the child's need to be supported.

Before the child is born, the man will soon have the opportunity to
use RU-486 to terminate this accidental pregnancy.  He'll obtain it
from the same pusher who now sells marijuana and cocaine.  He'll be
able to grind up the pill and put it into his girlfriend's drink or
her salad when she is looking the other way.  This course of action
harms only one person, the woman, by violating her right to bring a
child into the world if she so chooses.  Using RU-486, then, harms
someone who, by assumption, is acting as a wrongdoer both towards
the man she has deceived and is getting ready to hold up for money,
and towards the child whom she is "cruelly" about to bring into the
world with no hope of ever having "the continued company of both its
natural parents."  What does Mr. Darcy think of this?

>He has no right, moral or legal, to modify her body chemistry without 
>her consent, IMO.   [Kevin Darcy]

So, even though Mr. Darcy believes that the woman is doing wrong, 
she not only has the "right" to perpetrate this wrong, but that right
supersedes any rights that her future child will have, not to have
been born into such an undesirable environment.  Her right to perpetrate
this wrong supersedes the man's right not to be deceived, not to suffer
financial harm for eighteen years as a result of her deception.

There are rights that every citizen has.  However, if he exercises 
his rights in a way that harms other people, it is OK to restrict 
those rights to keep him from harming those others.  The principle
runs, "My right to swing my fist ends when it gets near your nose."
Under the assumption that no human child exists until birth, that
the only thing inside her is a clump of cells that she is using as
a loaded gun to hold me up, I would have no hesitation in getting 
RU-486 and attempting to prevent the birth of an unwanted child,
any more than that lady who attempted to smuggle the pill into
the U. S. would have any hesitation in using it to prevent the
birth of an unwanted child.

For all the talk of "male choice," the fact that Mr. Darcy seems to
value a *wrongdoer's* right to non-interference with her "body chemistry"
higher than the rights of an innocent child and a man whom he assumes
to be innocent -- that fact indicates to me that he has swallowed the
feminist ideology, hook, line, and sinker.  Let me advise him, and 
any other man who is thinking of swallowing that ideology, that when 
it comes to reproduction, feminism recognizes *no* "male choice" rights 
that a woman need respect.  No matter how reprehensibly she may have 
acted, her rights remain absolute, and override anyone else's.  That's 
one more reason why I write, "FEMINISMUS DELENDUS EST."

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit."