From: robert@informix.com (Robert Coleman)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,soc.men,alt.dads-rights
Subject: Re: Biological Reasons fo
Date: 21 Nov 92 00:09:49 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) writes:

>In article <BxsMAv.93I@ddsw1.mcs.com> karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger) writes:

>>I suppose then that you won't mind if all of us men who see it as terribly
>>unequal that women can choose AFTER sex whether or not to have a child,
>>while we cannot, make damn sure you LOSE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE.

>Ah, here's another one, Will.

>This fellow isn't out to equalize the situation between parents.  He's out
>to take away a woman's bodily autonomy because he can't get a legal 'out'
>to a biological reality.

>Do you really think this argument is about male choice, Will?  Maybe in
>alt.dads_rights, but not in talk.abortion.

	The two are interrelated topics.  Just imagine, for a moment, how much
more likely men would be to support right to choice if they knew it didn't
correspond to making the act of sex into an act of financial submission,
man to woman.
	Let's just imagine, for the moment, that most people look out 
primarily for themselves.  It's not the ideal we all hope for, but it's a
much closer approximation to reality.
	Right to choice has, under the current legal situation, no advantages
and significant disadvantages for men.  Remove those significant disadvantages,
and you remove a barrier that is currently keeping those "selfish" men from
supporting your cause.
	Fortunately, this solution is not unequal, because right to choice is
simultaneously the right to decide whether your body is to be used as an
incubator, and the right to decide whether you will become a mother.  The first
is biological imperitive and cannot currently be equalized; the second can
be equalized under law, making it an elegant, simple way to simultaneously
guarantee your rights and extend your rights to cover others (you don't want
legal rights that others don't have, do you?)

>>Support reproductive rights for all, or none.  But don't be a hypocrite and
>>try to play the "I'm a woman and its my body" game and then turn around and
>>say that a man's choice ends when he pulls down his zipper.

>"reproductive rights for all" completely ignores the biological reality of
>gestation, which is the only justification for abortion.

	It is, however, not the only effect of abortion.  The effect of
being able to decide whether to become a parent, with all the relevant
legal responsibilities, can be balanced with additional legal work.

>>This is unequal, wrong, and has nothing to do with "privacy".  It has
>>everything to do with making men a walking wallet.  It is time that this 
>>is stopped - permanently.

>Which *again* ignores the woman's financial contribution!

>AGAIN.  

>You people who constantly make the mistake of ignoring the woman's financial
>contribution are going to be constantly IN ERROR by setting up a false
>dichotomy,

>and are going to get precisely NO WHERE in affecting change!!!!!!!

>A woman's wallet AND a man's wallet play into the game.

	This is the real reason I responded.

	I'm prepared to stand corrected if I'm wrong, but as I recall, you
took a stand against itemization of how the custodial parent spent money
on the children.
	That being the case, the only trackable money comes from the
non-custodial parent, and since it's visible, it naturally gets the attention.
If you want to demonstrate that in the case of a compliant non-custodial
father, the mother is doing her share financially, then you must track the
spending somehow.  I have to tell you, given the amounts of current custody
grants compared to the actual cost of raising children, I doubt if the mother's
contribution in general matches the father's.
	I would love to be proved wrong, just 'cause I love the Truth.  But
that means gathering stats, which means tracking expenditures, and, as I said,
I seem to recall that you were not in favor of that.

	Meanwhile, you will never, never get recognition for the woman's 
monetary contribution because it **is** *legally* *invisible*!  

>>Women - you're on notice.  You want equality?  Fine.

>Fine my ass.  You can't even see that her contribution not only equals the
>man in the eyes of the law, but significantly exceeds it and it is on hte
>basis of the PHYSICAL reality of pregnancy that she retains a rigth to
>abort.  It has zip, nada nothing to do with money.

	You're right, in an idealistic sense.  One wrong doesn't justify
another.  However, in reality, wrongs often form complementary systems, and
this is such a case.  You may complain that it is wrong, and you'd be right.
That doesn't make it untrue, unforunately.  Until men don't actually stand
to lose, greatly, from the affirmation of your rights, there will be men
who work against your rights because of way their rights are ignored.
Sometimes the war to tear down the resistance is to remove the supports...

>Yet another example of the INVISIBLE woman, only this time it's her money
>that is rendered invisible.  We take here in this spurious argument to
>equating her PHYSICAL SELF with a man's wallet. Sheeeesh.

	Again, her money is invisible because her contribution is, really,
truly, invisible.  Make it visible, and such arguments will automatically
disappear.

Robert C.
-- 
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Newsgroups: talk.abortion