Feud wrote:First of all, welcome to the forums!
Thank you!
Feud wrote:Second, due to the nature of where you have chosen to bring this argument, I'm going to try to deal with the topic very delicately, so if I err on the side of subtlety then so be it. If I offend, then I sincerely apologize, I did not mean to do so.
I am not easily offended, so you need not worry about that. I do not intend to offend, either, but I would like you to consider a different point of view.
Feud wrote:If the mother is in direct danger, then she should be able to take what steps necessary to save her life. But, just the fact that pregnancy is dangerous is not reason in and of itself. Driving is dangerous, flying is dangerous, lot's of things might happen. A competent, licensed medical authority should first feel that there is a grave and pressing threat that if allowed to come to term that the mother will likely die before the rights of the father are terminated.
Driving and flying are both things I have choices about. If I choose not to fly because the danger is too much for me, you do not get to say that I *must* fly, do you? I am a reasonable adult. I should be able to decide if something is too dangerous for me at this point in my life, be it due to the pregnancy taking my ability to work and keep my house, causing massive depression, or causing actual physical danger. Each person's perceptions of danger are different. Why do you get to decide if a pregnancy is too dangerous for me? Why should I leave that to a medical professional who does not know (or, possibly, care, if I happen to be low-income) why I think the pregnancy is a danger to me? Sounds to me like you are implying that I am not able to perceive whether or not I am in danger. I think that is my decision. I know what is going on, and I can make decisions based on that which someone from the outside cannot. You don't get to tell me what danger is; I'm smart enough to figure that out myself.
Feud wrote:Babies don't just show up....Birth control isn't 100% effective, and that is a risk that both parties take should they decide to use it. If a man decides not to use any, then the woman has the right not to be with him.
You may live in a place where both parents are expected to be equally responsible for birth control. That isn't the case in many places. I grew up in a lower class neighborhood in the inner city. Life is not the same there as it is where you seem to be coming from. The woman is responsible for birth control because the man can't be bothered. She is then responsible for the child. Where do you think welfare moms come from? They are women who can't afford birth control or haven't been educated about it, do not have health care (do you have any idea how much BC pills cost, by the way, if you don't have insurance?), and have many fewer choices than you do. You think this is an easy decision because you have had, I would bet, always had access to choices in this matter. You think men automatically support their children once they are born? I guess that's why so many people have their wages garnished due to lack of paying child support. Women get left with children. That's pretty consistent throughout the world, especially in lower class areas. This fetus is going to be a part of the woman's life and she will be responsible for the raising of it. I think what you aren't seeing here is that you are assuming men stick around to help raise kids, and that is often not the case. This needs to be a woman's decision because she is left with the results. Men can leave at any point. Women can't leave until after they give birth. This is the base of the discussion, and the piece you are not accepting.
Feud wrote:If the man or woman does not want a child, then they should not be having such relations.
I do everything I can to avoid pregnancy. The pill is 99% effective. I think that's good enough odds. I know I am not quite ready to have a child, for many reasons, and I resent the idea that I should stay a virgin until I am ready to have a child. Sex is a pretty basic desire, if you hadn't noticed, and people will have relations, as you so carefully put it. Teenagers are having sex as I write this. They don't want a child. Drunk people are having sex. All kinds of people are having sex, and procreation is not their main, um, thrust. It feels good. It has positive effects on mood. You want me to not have sex, ever, because I'm not ready to be pregnant? Also, we are back to this - I can have sex in a moment of weakness and end up knocked up. You can have sex in a moment of weakness and walk away. That's a really basic difference.
No sex until you are ready to have a kid is rather naive, I think. Better living through chemistry is here. If it doesn't work, I have options that will make sure that when I am ready to have a child and support it, I will be the best parent possible. I will only have a child that is loved and wanted. I refuse to bring a child into this world if it is not loved and wanted. That's my idea of being responsible.
Feud wrote:Hospital bills and the cost of caring for the mother fall to the father.
*choke* I'm sorry, this is rude, but where, exactly, are you from? Father's responsibilities, according to the law of the land, begin at birth. They have no legal reason to pay for hospital bills. Moral reasons, sure, but legally he has no cost, and he doesn't have to care for the mother. Other than in upper class white enclaves, prenatal care is catch-as-catch-can and the woman's family provides most of the support. If the hospital bills for the birth are outrageous, she goes bankrupt. He doesn't.
Feud wrote:I am aware of a number of adoption agencies that specialize in single mother situations, who will step in and provide for the mother's needs should a situation like you described happen. Other answers do exist.
Adoption agencies don't pay for rent and food, don't make it easier to explain a break in employment, don't make it easier to find a job in a slow market. Especially if you are talking about little babies who are not white or who have disabilities, many of these services simply do not exist.
Feud wrote:As for "deciding things" for the mother, my argument is that they should have equal say in things....a father can have a profound connection to an unborn child. That relationship can affect his mental, emotional, and physical health.
Your equal say is that a man should be able to deny a woman a termination because he added sperm to the mix. That is not equal because his physical health and well-being is not nearly as wrapped up in the fetus as the mother's is. Your "physical connection" is an emotional connection. While I agree it can be important to the man, it is not, actually, a physical
connection - it is a feeling. Fetus gets sick, woman gets sick. Fetus kicks, woman feels it. That is a physical connection, and very different from the
emotional connection you are describing.
Feud wrote:Yes, pain. I know many couples who have faced the tragedy of a miscarriage, and the husband deals with very real pain....An unwanted abortion can cause the same pain to the father.
We're talking about different kinds of pain. I'm talking physical, intimate, bleeding and cramping kind of pain; you're back to saying that the man's emotional pain is just as bad as the woman's physical plus emotional pain. That's bullshit. Yes, he's hurt emotionally. I get it. It's only a piece of what the woman is dealing with, though, and you are trying to make them the same. They aren't. It's different.
Feud wrote:As for the person most affected, I raised the example of a father who would be willing to assume full responsibility for a child after it is born. 18 years vs. 9 months. Granted, pregnancies are risky by nature, but so are abortions. Unless a competent doctor feels the mothers life is in immediate peril, an abortion is just trading one risk for another.
I can't think of many men who would agree to take a newborn baby from the mother and agree to raise it on his own. Glad to hear that, according to you, there are a bunch of them out there completely willing to take on a child with no help. Funny, then, how many child support issues are due to fathers who decided it was too much work...
As to the risk of a termination, they are actually very low, especially early in the pregnancy. I think you may be confusing legal, fairly safe terminations with the back-alley coat hanger terminations that happen when terminating a pregnancy is not legal. Oh, and we're back to a competent physician deciding whether or not my life is in enough danger to terminate a pregnancy. I'm a big girl. That's my decision.
Feud wrote:Further, I am not talking about forcing a woman to do anything beyond making an equal decision with the male.
Equal decision:
Man: "No termination"
Woman: "Termination"
The way you are discussing this, the man's view would win because it is more equal, somehow. Thus, the woman would be forced to carry a fetus she does not want.
Feud wrote:Again, as I have pointed out in this thread and others (which you either ignored intentionally, or for the sake of your argument) when a woman's life is in immediate danger then she should have the final say.
I just started reading threads because you seemed so buried in your fine, middle or upper class world that you couldn't see what most of the world deals with. I understand that if I were dying you'd allow me to terminate. How kind of you. Other than that, though, other people get to decide what happens to my body? I don't think so.
Feud wrote:Saying that the "man goes on, maybe feeling sad" is a bit of an understatement.
Yes, it is an understatement. It is ridiculous for you to say, however, that the man's pain is equal. He may commit suicide, yes, that's his choice. Yes, depression sucks. He has a choice, he has access to drugs, he has all kinds of options. The mother ends up dead no matter what in this scenario, though, so I think perhaps it is not as much of an understatement as you think.
Feud wrote:I feel that if a couple does not want children, or is unwilling to accept the potential consequences of their actions, they should abstain until they feel otherwise.
Got it. No sex until a stable marriage is achieved. That's going to happen. Does this apply to men, too? Because I live in Reno, and with the number of titty bars and hookers in the general area (aimed at men) I'm kind of seeing a double standard here.
My basic stance is this:
Men can walk away from a pregnancy at any time. Lacking a paternity test, there is no definite knowledge of who the father is. There is never any question about who the mother is, though, since she shows up at the hospital, pregnant. She is responsible for her own well being before that of the fetus, as she will be unable to care for a fetus effectively if she cannot take care of herself. If, for whatever reason, she does not see herself as able to take care of the fetus or, in the future, the child, she should have the right to decide whether or not to carry to term.
Men can leave. Women can't. Until that changes, men should not have any say until the point at which both parents have an equal ability to walk away.
wendryn