From: dgp@atlas.wustl.edu (Don Porter)
Subject: Re: Biological Reasons fo
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 07:10:13 GMT

<BxuK2B.32F@ddsw1.mcs.com> (Karl Denninger) writes:
> Remember one thing -- at best you can get 50% of the population to support 
> you if you don't play with men on this issue.  Your odds of getting what you 
> want codified into federal law increase radically if you decide to be 
> cooperative with the other half of the population of this country.

Marilyn Quayle resents it when alumni of the counter-culture claim to
speak for her entire generation.  Phyllis Schlafly resents it when
NOW claims to speak for all women.  And I resent it when you claim
to attribute your position to all men.  I am one man who does not
demand an entitlement to infertile sex, nor a right to abandon
his children.

> If I, as 
> a man, cannot determine that my sperm is NOT to be used for reproductive 
> purposes against my will, as women can determine that their eggs are not to 
> be used for reproductive purposes against their will, then there is no 
> equality under the law.  This is unconstitutional and sexual discrimination --
> forbidden in this country at the federal level.

You are aware, I assume, that gender distinctions in the law are
not held to the highest "strict scrutiny" standard of review?
They are held to a lesser "heightened scrutiny" standard.  In particular,
policies based on rational distinctions based on actual differences
in the physical capabilities of the sexes are constitutional.  I can
think of no aspect of human existence in which the physical capabilities
of the sexes are more fundamentally different than in the bearing 
of children.

But I have an open mind.  If you have any case law at all to back
up your claim that child-support laws are unconstitutional, I'd be
glad to look it over.

> Women can either decide to fight >with< men for reproductive freedom, or
> against men.  If they fight WITH men then both genders gain rights codified
> in law.  If they fight against men then they risk losing what they already 
> enjoy.  Men have nothing to lose from this position; we already have no 
> reproductive rights under the current legal context.

"No reproductive rights."  Hogwash.  You have the right to choose
your wife.  The state may not match you up with an appropriate mate.  
Thanks to Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird you have 
the right to make use of contraceptives in your pursuit of a childless 
life.  On the other side of the coin, the state can't set an upper 
limit on the number of children you can beget.  True, the state has 
not granted you the privilege of abandoning your children, but you 
are far from having "no reproductive rights".

Futher, men have to lose what every citizen has to lose by your 
suggested policy -- the notion that parents raise chlidren.  The
expectation that parents have an obligation to their children to
provide for their safety, welfare, and upbringing.  That this 
obligation derives from a natural biological relationship, not
a contrived legal arrangement that can be repealed as easily
as it is enacted.

Your entire proposal turns the philosophical basis of our
government on its head.  Individuals and families predate
the state.  They bind together and create the government to
serve their needs.  Your proposals have the government creating
families via the processing of legal paperwork, filing of
notarized contracts and the like.  Surely it is only a matter
of time before the state is not content with solving the "equity"
issue with your proposed contracts.  Why stop there?  Through
government monitoring, we could decalre invalid any contracts leading
to children in the custody of "unsuitable" parents.  Then we
would "solve" the problem of substandard upbringing as well as
the "fairness" problem.

No, I fear your proposed policies would do far more to take away
reproductive rights than they would to enhance them, precisely 
because they put the entire reproductive process into a framework of
legal trappings subject to manipulation by the state.

-- 
|   Don Porter | dgp@saturn.wustl.edu | Washington University in St Louis   |
|  "The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they     |
|   please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we       |
|___risk congratulations." -- Edmund Burke._________________________________|