If nature had made it so that men were put in a unique position to kill their children also, then I'm sure there would be lots of discussion about the moral nature of that as well.
If you are attempting to justify policies that only affect members of one biological sex on the basis that biology makes them different, you should understand that your reasoning is circular.
How so?
I was primarily replying to your first sentence. It appears to be saying that, say, a policy banning abortions would only be sexist in a superficial sense, due to biology, whereas that is actually the entire reason something is sexist in the first place.
Whether advocating for a sexist policy is, on balance, the right thing to do is, as seen by your second sentence, a somewhat different question. (Incidentally, I disagree with that sentence and its assumptions.)
Actually, the fact that abortion policy only applies to female-sexed people (which can include trans-men, or people with other gender identities) is pretty solid evidence that it is an issue of sexual equality. It would be difficult to argue that a policy that restricts the actions of only one sex regarding their own bodies (such as one that would force pregnant people to bring those pregnancies to term) is helping the members of that sex to participate fully in their society.
I put that example in a footnote, and took care to phrase it neutrally, because I really don't want this thread to get sidetracked into the abortion debate. I trust that you're familiar enough with the explosive nature of that debate to appreciate this. I am also going to table the issue you raised of transgenderism for much the same reason. I'm just going to clarify my statement, while continuing neither to endorse nor to attack either the pro-choice or the pro-life position.
Men and women, ideally, have equal freedoms. Anything one sex has the power to do, the other should have the power to do. Men and women also, ideally, have equal responsibilities to others. Anything one sex is restricted from doing, the other should be restricted from doing. The controversy over abortion arises because it is an area where these two basic principles uniquely collide. An abortion is both an act of bodily freedom and the termination of another living thing. Since we generally allow both men and women freedom over their own bodies and we generally restrict both men and women from killing living things, we as a society have to do a balancing act, deciding which principle overrides the other in this case. (Whether the living thing in question is a fully-fledged human being yet or something else is of course the main factor in weighing the second principle. I'm not going to get into that. Just be aware that even if you give the principle very little weight, you're still doing this balancing act; it's simply a very lopsided one.) The key point here is that because only women become pregnant, then the decision we make only applies to women whichever way we decide.
A man cannot invoke his freedom to terminate a fetus, because he's never in a situation where he'd be able to. But neither can a man be forced to carry a fetus against his own free wishes, because again he's never in a situation where he'd have to. If you say a woman's freedom overrides a fetus' life, that's a power a man doesn't have; if you say that a fetus' life overrides a woman's freedom, that's a restriction a man doesn't have. Either way, the situation is unequal. It is not at all comparable to gender equality issues like property ownership or the vote or military service, where men have the power to do something and women face a restriction. It's not power vs. restriction; it's nothing vs. power/restriction. The only way to equalize the situation would be either to give men the same power/restriction by giving them functioning uteri, or to make it nothing vs. nothing by removing the uteri from all women.
Barring that unlikely development, equality between the sexes is simply not a concern. We have to decide the right thing to do for women completely independent of what's going on in man-space, because nothing that is going on in man-space is relevant to the question. There's nothing a man is allowed to do that a pro-choicer can point to and say, "Women are restricted from doing that, and equality says they shouldn't be!" And there's nothing a man is restricted from doing that a pro-lifer can point to and say, "Women are allowed to do that, and equality says they shouldn't be!"
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Barring that unlikely development, equality between the sexes is simply not a concern. We have to decide the right thing to do for women completely independent of what's going on in man-space, because nothing that is going on in man-space is relevant to the question. There's nothing a man is allowed to do that a pro-choicer can point to and say, "Women are restricted from doing that, and equality says they shouldn't be!" And there's nothing a man is restricted from doing that a pro-lifer can point to and say, "Women are allowed to do that, and equality says they shouldn't be!"
I understand your concerns re: abortion debate. (Re: transgender issues, I was merely being thorough.) So I will limit myself to saying that whether abortions are allowed can't be analyzed as a question of one-shot decisions that can be isolated from everything else in life (like what's "going on in man-space") because they do affect things outside of pregnancy itself. For instance, a pregnancy may make it more difficult to hold down a job or advance one's career. Thus, a pregnancy could be a barrier to "success" in life that male people don't have to face. Restrictions on access to abortion and birth control reinforce such barriers or potential barriers.
I understand your concerns re: abortion debate. (Re: transgender issues, I was merely being thorough.) So I will limit myself to saying that whether abortions are allowed can't be analyzed as a question of one-shot decisions that can be isolated from everything else in life (like what's "going on in man-space") because they do affect things outside of pregnancy itself. For instance, a pregnancy may make it more difficult to hold down a job or advance one's career. Thus, a pregnancy could be a barrier to "success" in life that male people don't have to face. Restrictions on access to abortion and birth control reinforce such barriers or potential barriers.
I don't think anyone is denying this. I'm certainly not. The debate isn't over whether there exists a barrier, it's over whether removing the barrier is worth the ethical sacrifices required (whatever they may be). Every day, countless people find themselves in circumstances that other people will never find themselves in. Some of these circumstances present barriers to them. Some of these barriers we as a society have decided are worth removing, some we only dismantle partially, and some we think are justifiably left alone. But you can only really say that there is an equality issue when some people face a barrier and other people in the same circumstance face none. For instance, if you had the misfortune to come down with a disease that hurt your job performance, it wouldn't make sense for you to complain of inequity between yourself and your healthy coworkers. There would only be inequity if some other people were also sick, but they got access to treatment and you didn't. (This is not a perfect analogy, because of course there is no ethical principle that might weigh against people getting treatment if it's available. The point I'm making here is just about equality, not about the balancing act.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Men and women, ideally, have equal freedoms. Anything one sex has the power to do, the other should have the power to do. Men and women also, ideally, have equal responsibilities to others. Anything one sex is restricted from doing, the other should be restricted from doing. The controversy over abortion arises because it is an area where these two basic principles uniquely collide. An abortion is both an act of bodily freedom and the termination of another living thing. Since we generally allow both men and women freedom over their own bodies and we generally restrict both men and women from killing living things, we as a society have to do a balancing act, deciding which principle overrides the other in this case. (Whether the living thing in question is a fully-fledged human being yet or something else is of course the main factor in weighing the second principle. I'm not going to get into that. Just be aware that even if you give the principle very little weight, you're still doing this balancing act; it's simply a very lopsided one.) The key point here is that because only women become pregnant, then the decision we make only applies to women whichever way we decide.
A man cannot invoke his freedom to terminate a fetus, because he's never in a situation where he'd be able to. But neither can a man be forced to carry a fetus against his own free wishes, because again he's never in a situation where he'd have to. If you say a woman's freedom overrides a fetus' life, that's a power a man doesn't have; if you say that a fetus' life overrides a woman's freedom, that's a restriction a man doesn't have. Either way, the situation is unequal. It is not at all comparable to gender equality issues like property ownership or the vote or military service, where men have the power to do something and women face a restriction. It's not power vs. restriction; it's nothing vs. power/restriction. The only way to equalize the situation would be either to give men the same power/restriction by giving them functioning uteri, or to make it nothing vs. nothing by removing the uteri from all women.
I believe this is a very good analysis of the issue. Ideally we want to balance negative and positive aspects of the issue so that women come out close to net parity, which of course would put them equal to men. However, I do think there is some merit to the argument "men shouldn't have a say in abortion". As you have mentioned, women must bear the cost of bodily autonomy when we deem that their fetus must be protected. A man may realize some benefit of protecting an unborn fetus, but he will never have to suffer the cost. A man arguing for a hard-line pro-life position is ultimately asking others to bear the cost of his beliefs. And yes, people who ask others to do things they cannot or will not do themselves tend to have less credibility.
But the main feminist objection I (and many other) women have to Pro-lifers is their parallel stance on birth control is that a large number of Pro-lifers seem to believe anything that stops a woman from carrying a fetus to term once she's conceived it is inherently wrong. It sets up a situation where women can't have sex without the risk of bearing a child, which facilitates sexual inequality between men and women. It is because of this that feminism sometimes views the pro-life movement as intellectually dishonest; while they claim to be trying to "protect unborn children", they seem far more interested in making sex as costly for women as possible. These views create a situation where being forced to bear a child becomes a "punishment" to sexually active women. This gives the impression that those pushing the agenda are legitimately against the idea of women having rights equal to those of men as far as sexuality is concerned.
These views create a situation where being forced to bear a child becomes a "punishment" to sexually active women. This gives the impression that those pushing the agenda are legitimately against the idea of women having rights equal to those of men as far as sexuality is concerned.
This strikes me as a reframing that ascribes a motive to the pro-life movement that may very well be true in some cases but may also simply be melarky.
Yet many pro-choice women say "If he didn't want to pay child support he should have kept it in his pants." and due to abortion (and other options) eliminating forced motherhood from the equation it strikes me as a hell of a moral hazard for women to talk about child support.
How about men have no say on abortion and women have no say on child support (at least as long as they have options out of an unwanted pregnancy aka pretty much always).
This strikes me as a reframing that ascribes a motive to the pro-life movement that may very well be true in some cases but may also simply be melarky.
It's true in a lot of cases, unfortunately. It's often a short hop from a pro-life stance to more specifically gendered (and rather regressive) norms. I'm not sure how it's distributed among individuals but if you look at the main pro-life political voices they're very much in that sort of place. Nobody's framing it like Blinking_Spirit did, but a lot of people are framing it like LadyLuck described.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
These views create a situation where being forced to bear a child becomes a "punishment" to sexually active women. This gives the impression that those pushing the agenda are legitimately against the idea of women having rights equal to those of men as far as sexuality is concerned.
This strikes me as a reframing that ascribes a motive to the pro-life movement that may very well be true in some cases but may also simply be melarky.
Yet many pro-choice women say "If he didn't want to pay child support he should have kept it in his pants." and due to abortion (and other options) eliminating forced motherhood from the equation it strikes me as a hell of a moral hazard for women to talk about child support.
How about men have no say on abortion and women have no say on child support (at least as long as they have options out of an unwanted pregnancy aka pretty much always).
This is actually a very interesting point. Child support becomes a "punishment" for sexually active men, just as forced motherhood is a "punishment" for women. Would eliminating both be a net parity? If this were in effect, would men have to sign into (at the mother's request/permission) gaining parental rights and shouldering parental obligations?
Ideally we want to balance negative and positive aspects of the issue so that women come out close to net parity, which of course would put them equal to men.
You're missing my point. There's no such thing as "parity" here. The question "Does this make women equal to men?" is simply meaningless.
However, I do think there is some merit to the argument "men shouldn't have a say in abortion". As you have mentioned, women must bear the cost of bodily autonomy when we deem that their fetus must be protected. A man may realize some benefit of protecting an unborn fetus, but he will never have to suffer the cost. A man arguing for a hard-line pro-life position is ultimately asking others to bear the cost of his beliefs. And yes, people who ask others to do things they cannot or will not do themselves tend to have less credibility.
Maybe a little less credibility, but it's ridiculous to take this to the extreme. Try applying this logic to other allegedly-harmful acts that people perform for their own benefit. Say, theft. Is it wrong for us to ask would-be thieves to bear the cost of our beliefs about property rights?
It is because of this that feminism sometimes views the pro-life movement as intellectually dishonest; while they claim to be trying to "protect unborn children", they seem far more interested in making sex as costly for women as possible.
Do you know why the abortion debate is so acrimonious?
It's this.
How do you expect to have a conversation with people if you're going to assume a priori that they must be lying and have secretly sinister motives?
Coming the other way, some pro-lifers say stuff like "The pro-life movement sometimes views pro-choicers as intellectually dishonest; while they claim to be trying to 'protect women's bodily rights', they seem far more interested in killing as many babies as possible." Can you not see how absurd this is? And how it shuts down any possibility of real conversation before it begins? Well, what gives you the right to impugn your opponents' motives when they can't impugn yours? Babies are cute. People like babies. It should not be hard to understand that pro-lifers honestly just want to protect babies. Just as people like freedom, so it should not be hard to understand that pro-choicers honestly just want to protect freedom. But if you cannot understand these facts, if you cannot wrap your head around the idea that someone might, honestly and with the best of intentions, disagree with you, then what you have to say has zero credibility.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Ideally we want to balance negative and positive aspects of the issue so that women come out close to net parity, which of course would put them equal to men.
You're missing my point. There's no such thing as "parity" here. The question "Does this make women equal to men?" is simply meaningless.
Earlier you stated: "The debate isn't over whether there exists a barrier, it's over whether removing the barrier is worth the ethical sacrifices required (whatever they may be)." If only women face a barrier that men don't, then there's no equality.
Coming the other way, some pro-lifers say stuff like "The pro-life movement sometimes views pro-choicers as intellectually dishonest; while they claim to be trying to 'protect women's bodily rights', they seem far more interested in killing as many babies as possible."
That they are capable of making a claim doesn't make it true. LadyLuck's statement is also not an a priori assumption because LadyLuck already gave the reasons for making the statement; in other words, there's a basis in fact. You can dispute the conclusion, but it's not unfounded like the potential statement you posed above.
Earlier you stated: "The debate isn't over whether there exists a barrier, it's over whether removing the barrier is worth the ethical sacrifices required (whatever they may be)." If only women face a barrier that men don't, then there's no equality.
The paragraph that contains the sentence you quoted also explains why this is not the case.
LadyLuck's statement is also not an a priori assumption because LadyLuck already gave the reasons for making the statement; in other words, there's a basis in fact.
She really didn't. All she said was that "a large number of Pro-lifers seem to believe anything that stops a woman from carrying a fetus to term once she's conceived it is inherently wrong". Which follows pretty readily from the imperative "protect unborn children" and absolutely does not require a hidden imperative "punish women". And even if it did, LadyLuck would still have been committing a dialectic sin, because not one person in this conversation has actually said they believe that. She is producing a position out of the air, attributing it to pro-lifers generally, and using it to accuse pro-lifers generally of being dishonest. Do you really want to endorse this behavior?
Earlier you stated: "The debate isn't over whether there exists a barrier, it's over whether removing the barrier is worth the ethical sacrifices required (whatever they may be)." If only women face a barrier that men don't, then there's no equality.
The paragraph that contains the sentence you quoted also explains why this is not the case.
The primary part of that paragraph was: "Every day, countless people find themselves in circumstances that other people will never find themselves in. Some of these circumstances present barriers to them."
But this isn't a valid comparison. Individual barriers can't be compared to barriers that affect entire groups.
The primary part of that paragraph was: "Every day, countless people find themselves in circumstances that other people will never find themselves in. Some of these circumstances present barriers to them."
But this isn't a valid comparison. Individual barriers can't be compared to barriers that affect entire groups.
Special pleading. A group is just a collection of individuals. If you have, say, a higher risk of heart disease based on your family history, then you're part of the group "people with a higher risk of heart disease based on their family history".
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The primary part of that paragraph was: "Every day, countless people find themselves in circumstances that other people will never find themselves in. Some of these circumstances present barriers to them."
But this isn't a valid comparison. Individual barriers can't be compared to barriers that affect entire groups.
Special pleading. A group is just a collection of individuals. If you have, say, a higher risk of heart disease based on your family history, then you're part of the group "people with a higher risk of heart disease based on their family history".
Vacuous truth and equivocation. Any individual is a group of one. I was obviously not referring to arbitrarily defined groups constructed for specific purposes.
Vacuous truth and equivocation. Any individual is a group of one. I was obviously not referring to arbitrarily defined groups constructed for specific purposes.
What magic makes a faulty heart an "arbitrarily defined" group but a uterus not?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Vacuous truth and equivocation. Any individual is a group of one. I was obviously not referring to arbitrarily defined groups constructed for specific purposes.
What magic makes a faulty heart an "arbitrarily defined" group but a uterus not?
You were saying that any barrier faced by anyone can be described as a barrier faced by people who face that barrier. This isn't really meaningful.
The initial issue is whether reproductive policy can make women unequal to men. The results of some such policies will be that women face a barrier that men don't; and the results of others will be otherwise.
You have claimed that this isn't meaningful to whether they are equal because a group of people who face a barrier face that barrier. Yet had the question been whether that group of people and everyone else were equal, the answer would depend on whether that barrier existed.
Hypercube
This is actually a very interesting point. Child support becomes a "punishment" for sexually active men, just as forced motherhood is a "punishment" for women. Would eliminating both be a net parity? If this were in effect, would men have to sign into (at the mother's request/permission) gaining parental rights and shouldering parental obligations?
"Sign into" is an interesting concept. "A mother's permission/request" is in a way how it works now as the mother is under no obligation to inform the biological father of the pregnancy. This is one of the things that really annoys me, that the biological mother can wait years making any attempt for the biological father to gain visitation/custody rights impossible then "surprise" and get back child support. If children benefit from having a relationship with their father but father's have the right to a "financial abortion" I would argue that both bio parents should have the right to be or not be parents but it is a package deal (Parental Rights=Parental Responsibilities). Since children benefit from having a father the focus should be there. Unless you can make a good argument for a bio mother having a right that trumps the father's rights and child's best interests. I would think mother's and the state would be very interested in encouraging/enabling father's to take on those financial responsibilities, which is why we have forced child support in the first place $$$$.
How do you expect to have a conversation with people if you're going to assume a priori that they must be lying and have secretly sinister motives?
Normally, I don't. I personally am totally ok with people who are against abortions but encourage the use of contraception. While I might not agree with their position, at least it makes sense. The people I tend to take issue with are those that adamantly believe life begins at conception. It's a view that happens to result in a woman never being able to have safe sex. If you ask why they have that view, it's almost universally on a religious (and Christian) basis. A basis which also happens to believe women who have sex for non-procreation purposes are evil. I DON'T want to believe there's a conspiracy here or anything. But the coincidence between those who dislike the idea of women having sex, and those who want to make sure a woman can't get out of a pregnancy, is far too high to ignore.
You're missing my point. There's no such thing as "parity" here. The question "Does this make women equal to men?" is simply meaningless.
I'm not claiming it makes them equal - you're correct that such a thing would be impossible. What we can do is try to make the burdens and freedoms balance out - a woman will have some burdens/responsibilities that men don't have, but in return they'll also have certain freedoms.
Maybe a little less credibility, but it's ridiculous to take this to the extreme.
And I would agree. Hence why I said there is merit to the argument, but did not say that I actually believe such a thing. I definitely do believe women's voices should carry more weight and possibly trump those of men in the conversation. But that doesn't mean men wholesale get no voice at all.
"Sign into" is an interesting concept. "A mother's permission/request" is in a way how it works now as the mother is under no obligation to inform the biological father of the pregnancy. This is one of the things that really annoys me, that the biological mother can wait years making any attempt for the biological father to gain visitation/custody rights impossible then "surprise" and get back child support. If children benefit from having a relationship with their father but father's have the right to a "financial abortion" I would argue that both bio parents should have the right to be or not be parents but it is a package deal (Parental Rights=Parental Responsibilities). Since children benefit from having a father the focus should be there. Unless you can make a good argument for a bio mother having a right that trumps the father's rights and child's best interests. I would think mother's and the state would be very interested in encouraging/enabling father's to take on those financial responsibilities, which is why we have forced child support in the first place $$$$.
The concept of allowing men to have a "financial abortion" is a difficult one. On the one hand, I definitely don't like that a man has no say in whether or not he ends up financially responsible. On the other hand, a financial abortion would be nowhere near as difficult as an actual one both in terms of physical and emotional hardship, so allowing it to be just as simple wouldn't exactly result in the fairness we're looking for. I think one way to meet halfway would be to give fathers an option to make a single flat payment, and then be absolved of responsibilities, but also release all parental rights. The idea would be that said upfront payment would cover the cost of abortion or adoption. If the woman then refused to take either adoption, then its clearly all on her. It would at least fix some of the problem with women going all gold-digger. There would definitely be details that need working out.
Hypercube
This is actually a very interesting point. Child support becomes a "punishment" for sexually active men, just as forced motherhood is a "punishment" for women. Would eliminating both be a net parity? If this were in effect, would men have to sign into (at the mother's request/permission) gaining parental rights and shouldering parental obligations?
"Sign into" is an interesting concept. "A mother's permission/request" is in a way how it works now as the mother is under no obligation to inform the biological father of the pregnancy. This is one of the things that really annoys me, that the biological mother can wait years making any attempt for the biological father to gain visitation/custody rights impossible then "surprise" and get back child support. If children benefit from having a relationship with their father but father's have the right to a "financial abortion" I would argue that both bio parents should have the right to be or not be parents but it is a package deal (Parental Rights=Parental Responsibilities). Since children benefit from having a father the focus should be there. Unless you can make a good argument for a bio mother having a right that trumps the father's rights and child's best interests. I would think mother's and the state would be very interested in encouraging/enabling father's to take on those financial responsibilities, which is why we have forced child support in the first place $$$$.
Without arguing for or against abortion, I'm considering the equality in allowing a man to have the same level of freedom to choose whether or not to be a parent as a woman does. So if you are pro-choice, it would be "most correct" for you to say that a man is not obligated to pay child support either.
The concept of allowing men to have a "financial abortion" is a difficult one. On the one hand, I definitely don't like that a man has no say in whether or not he ends up financially responsible. On the other hand, a financial abortion would be nowhere near as difficult as an actual one both in terms of physical and emotional hardship, so allowing it to be just as simple wouldn't exactly result in the fairness we're looking for. I think one way to meet halfway would be to give fathers an option to make a single flat payment, and then be absolved of responsibilities, but also release all parental rights. The idea would be that said upfront payment would cover the cost of abortion or adoption. If the woman then refused to take either adoption, then its clearly all on her. It would at least fix some of the problem with women going all gold-digger. There would definitely be details that need working out.
An awkward 2 minute google search informed me that an abortion can cost anywhere between $300 and $3000, depending on the type and timeline... Would you be comfortable with a man cutting you a check for $150-$1500 and having no further parental obligation, if it gives you full control over your body? The sentiment that financial abortion would be "easier" shouldn't factor at all, because in this hypothetical scenario, you are now entirely in control of whether or not you take the "harder" option.
When I first encountered this topic about opting out of finical obligation I thought it should be required for a man and a woman to sign a contract before sex occurs if the man wants to opt out of responsibility. Then upfront before any decisions had to be made the woman and the man would know where each other stands. If the man does not sign the contract then he is liable for responsibilities of any and all costs associated with the pregnancy and care of the child for 18 years.
When I first encountered this topic about opting out of finical obligation I thought it should be required for a man and a woman to sign a contract before sex occurs if the man wants to opt out of responsibility. Then upfront before any decisions had to be made the woman and the man would know where each other stands. If the man does not sign the contract then he is liable for responsibilities of any and all costs associated with the pregnancy and care of the child for 18 years.
That is ridiculous, and would be the equivalent of forcing a woman to sign a contract prior to sex that requires her to get an abortion should pregnancy occur. Should I bring a lawyer with me when I ask her out for coffee, too?
When I first encountered this topic about opting out of finical obligation I thought it should be required for a man and a woman to sign a contract before sex occurs if the man wants to opt out of responsibility. Then upfront before any decisions had to be made the woman and the man would know where each other stands. If the man does not sign the contract then he is liable for responsibilities of any and all costs associated with the pregnancy and care of the child for 18 years.
That is ridiculous, and would be the equivalent of forcing a woman to sign a contract prior to sex that requires her to get an abortion should pregnancy occur. Should I bring a lawyer with me when I ask her out for coffee, too?
Any decision after sex would have too much coercion/emotion mixed in it. Yes the man would sign away any obligation before sex. Then the decision of abortion would be squarely on the shoulders of the woman. Since she signed the contract before sex too, she accepted that responsibility.
An awkward 2 minute google search informed me that an abortion can cost anywhere between $300 and $3000, depending on the type and timeline... Would you be comfortable with a man cutting you a check for $150-$1500 and having no further parental obligation, if it gives you full control over your body? The sentiment that financial abortion would be "easier" shouldn't factor at all, because in this hypothetical scenario, you are now entirely in control of whether or not you take the "harder" option.
I don't know, it was just an idea. As I said, there are lots of details that would have to be worked out. The exact amount could possibly be negotiated based on the financial circumstances of the couple in question. It's enough of a halfway point that men can't just cut and run just because their girlfriend can't get an abortion on her own, but men who genuinely aren't interested in having a child can step back from doing so. This plan is also predicated on abortions being of sufficient availability... an idea which most feminists would support in principle.
But as far as financial abortion being "easier"... perhaps a better way to think of it is, a man inherently bears less responsibility for the child as is, since he doesn't have to go through the process of pregnancy/abortion/adoption. Any and all of these paths have consequences that can be both physically and emotionally draining for the woman in question, consequences that are often not passed on to the man. It does not make sense to me to give more power to the party which is taking on less responsibility and fewer adverse consequences. As it stands right now, child support is the only thing remotely bad about a man having a child he doesn't want. A woman bears that responsibility plus having to deal with actually carrying the child. Allowing men to dump child support with no strings attached would be to simply claim men should have no responsibility at all, which certainly isn't true.
Men should have some obligations, and some decision-making power. As of right now they have the former but not the latter. We need a solution that give men some options, but not without letting them completely off the hook.
Men should have some obligations, and some decision-making power. As of right now they have the former but not the latter. We need a solution that give men some options, but not without letting them completely off the hook.
To be clear, the reason child support law exists in its current form has absolutely zero to do with either women's rights or men's rights. It has everything to do with children's rights. The child will get better food, clothing, education, etc., if it has two parents supporting it rather than one. From what little I remember of parent/child law (learned it for the bar and then forgot it as quickly as possible), this is how almost all decisions are made. The rights of the parents mean basically jack squat, the court will look to the best interest of the child as the overriding factor.
I'm not saying this is good or bad, but it's an idea that's very deeply entrenched in family law right now. I just want to point this out to those who have been discussing "financial abortions" and the like, since the whole discussion has centered on balancing men's rights versus women's rights. The law pretty much only cares about the child.
I was primarily replying to your first sentence. It appears to be saying that, say, a policy banning abortions would only be sexist in a superficial sense, due to biology, whereas that is actually the entire reason something is sexist in the first place.
Whether advocating for a sexist policy is, on balance, the right thing to do is, as seen by your second sentence, a somewhat different question. (Incidentally, I disagree with that sentence and its assumptions.)
Men and women, ideally, have equal freedoms. Anything one sex has the power to do, the other should have the power to do. Men and women also, ideally, have equal responsibilities to others. Anything one sex is restricted from doing, the other should be restricted from doing. The controversy over abortion arises because it is an area where these two basic principles uniquely collide. An abortion is both an act of bodily freedom and the termination of another living thing. Since we generally allow both men and women freedom over their own bodies and we generally restrict both men and women from killing living things, we as a society have to do a balancing act, deciding which principle overrides the other in this case. (Whether the living thing in question is a fully-fledged human being yet or something else is of course the main factor in weighing the second principle. I'm not going to get into that. Just be aware that even if you give the principle very little weight, you're still doing this balancing act; it's simply a very lopsided one.) The key point here is that because only women become pregnant, then the decision we make only applies to women whichever way we decide.
A man cannot invoke his freedom to terminate a fetus, because he's never in a situation where he'd be able to. But neither can a man be forced to carry a fetus against his own free wishes, because again he's never in a situation where he'd have to. If you say a woman's freedom overrides a fetus' life, that's a power a man doesn't have; if you say that a fetus' life overrides a woman's freedom, that's a restriction a man doesn't have. Either way, the situation is unequal. It is not at all comparable to gender equality issues like property ownership or the vote or military service, where men have the power to do something and women face a restriction. It's not power vs. restriction; it's nothing vs. power/restriction. The only way to equalize the situation would be either to give men the same power/restriction by giving them functioning uteri, or to make it nothing vs. nothing by removing the uteri from all women.
Barring that unlikely development, equality between the sexes is simply not a concern. We have to decide the right thing to do for women completely independent of what's going on in man-space, because nothing that is going on in man-space is relevant to the question. There's nothing a man is allowed to do that a pro-choicer can point to and say, "Women are restricted from doing that, and equality says they shouldn't be!" And there's nothing a man is restricted from doing that a pro-lifer can point to and say, "Women are allowed to do that, and equality says they shouldn't be!"
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I understand your concerns re: abortion debate. (Re: transgender issues, I was merely being thorough.) So I will limit myself to saying that whether abortions are allowed can't be analyzed as a question of one-shot decisions that can be isolated from everything else in life (like what's "going on in man-space") because they do affect things outside of pregnancy itself. For instance, a pregnancy may make it more difficult to hold down a job or advance one's career. Thus, a pregnancy could be a barrier to "success" in life that male people don't have to face. Restrictions on access to abortion and birth control reinforce such barriers or potential barriers.
I don't think anyone is denying this. I'm certainly not. The debate isn't over whether there exists a barrier, it's over whether removing the barrier is worth the ethical sacrifices required (whatever they may be). Every day, countless people find themselves in circumstances that other people will never find themselves in. Some of these circumstances present barriers to them. Some of these barriers we as a society have decided are worth removing, some we only dismantle partially, and some we think are justifiably left alone. But you can only really say that there is an equality issue when some people face a barrier and other people in the same circumstance face none. For instance, if you had the misfortune to come down with a disease that hurt your job performance, it wouldn't make sense for you to complain of inequity between yourself and your healthy coworkers. There would only be inequity if some other people were also sick, but they got access to treatment and you didn't. (This is not a perfect analogy, because of course there is no ethical principle that might weigh against people getting treatment if it's available. The point I'm making here is just about equality, not about the balancing act.)
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I believe this is a very good analysis of the issue. Ideally we want to balance negative and positive aspects of the issue so that women come out close to net parity, which of course would put them equal to men. However, I do think there is some merit to the argument "men shouldn't have a say in abortion". As you have mentioned, women must bear the cost of bodily autonomy when we deem that their fetus must be protected. A man may realize some benefit of protecting an unborn fetus, but he will never have to suffer the cost. A man arguing for a hard-line pro-life position is ultimately asking others to bear the cost of his beliefs. And yes, people who ask others to do things they cannot or will not do themselves tend to have less credibility.
But the main feminist objection I (and many other) women have to Pro-lifers is their parallel stance on birth control is that a large number of Pro-lifers seem to believe anything that stops a woman from carrying a fetus to term once she's conceived it is inherently wrong. It sets up a situation where women can't have sex without the risk of bearing a child, which facilitates sexual inequality between men and women. It is because of this that feminism sometimes views the pro-life movement as intellectually dishonest; while they claim to be trying to "protect unborn children", they seem far more interested in making sex as costly for women as possible. These views create a situation where being forced to bear a child becomes a "punishment" to sexually active women. This gives the impression that those pushing the agenda are legitimately against the idea of women having rights equal to those of men as far as sexuality is concerned.
This strikes me as a reframing that ascribes a motive to the pro-life movement that may very well be true in some cases but may also simply be melarky.
Yet many pro-choice women say "If he didn't want to pay child support he should have kept it in his pants." and due to abortion (and other options) eliminating forced motherhood from the equation it strikes me as a hell of a moral hazard for women to talk about child support.
How about men have no say on abortion and women have no say on child support (at least as long as they have options out of an unwanted pregnancy aka pretty much always).
It's true in a lot of cases, unfortunately. It's often a short hop from a pro-life stance to more specifically gendered (and rather regressive) norms. I'm not sure how it's distributed among individuals but if you look at the main pro-life political voices they're very much in that sort of place. Nobody's framing it like Blinking_Spirit did, but a lot of people are framing it like LadyLuck described.
Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
This is actually a very interesting point. Child support becomes a "punishment" for sexually active men, just as forced motherhood is a "punishment" for women. Would eliminating both be a net parity? If this were in effect, would men have to sign into (at the mother's request/permission) gaining parental rights and shouldering parental obligations?
Maybe a little less credibility, but it's ridiculous to take this to the extreme. Try applying this logic to other allegedly-harmful acts that people perform for their own benefit. Say, theft. Is it wrong for us to ask would-be thieves to bear the cost of our beliefs about property rights?
Do you know why the abortion debate is so acrimonious?
It's this.
How do you expect to have a conversation with people if you're going to assume a priori that they must be lying and have secretly sinister motives?
Coming the other way, some pro-lifers say stuff like "The pro-life movement sometimes views pro-choicers as intellectually dishonest; while they claim to be trying to 'protect women's bodily rights', they seem far more interested in killing as many babies as possible." Can you not see how absurd this is? And how it shuts down any possibility of real conversation before it begins? Well, what gives you the right to impugn your opponents' motives when they can't impugn yours? Babies are cute. People like babies. It should not be hard to understand that pro-lifers honestly just want to protect babies. Just as people like freedom, so it should not be hard to understand that pro-choicers honestly just want to protect freedom. But if you cannot understand these facts, if you cannot wrap your head around the idea that someone might, honestly and with the best of intentions, disagree with you, then what you have to say has zero credibility.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Earlier you stated: "The debate isn't over whether there exists a barrier, it's over whether removing the barrier is worth the ethical sacrifices required (whatever they may be)." If only women face a barrier that men don't, then there's no equality.
That they are capable of making a claim doesn't make it true. LadyLuck's statement is also not an a priori assumption because LadyLuck already gave the reasons for making the statement; in other words, there's a basis in fact. You can dispute the conclusion, but it's not unfounded like the potential statement you posed above.
She really didn't. All she said was that "a large number of Pro-lifers seem to believe anything that stops a woman from carrying a fetus to term once she's conceived it is inherently wrong". Which follows pretty readily from the imperative "protect unborn children" and absolutely does not require a hidden imperative "punish women". And even if it did, LadyLuck would still have been committing a dialectic sin, because not one person in this conversation has actually said they believe that. She is producing a position out of the air, attributing it to pro-lifers generally, and using it to accuse pro-lifers generally of being dishonest. Do you really want to endorse this behavior?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The primary part of that paragraph was: "Every day, countless people find themselves in circumstances that other people will never find themselves in. Some of these circumstances present barriers to them."
But this isn't a valid comparison. Individual barriers can't be compared to barriers that affect entire groups.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Vacuous truth andequivocation. Any individual is a group of one. I was obviously not referring to arbitrarily defined groups constructed for specific purposes.Edit: technically just equivocation.
What magic makes a faulty heart an "arbitrarily defined" group but a uterus not?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You were saying that any barrier faced by anyone can be described as a barrier faced by people who face that barrier. This isn't really meaningful.
The initial issue is whether reproductive policy can make women unequal to men. The results of some such policies will be that women face a barrier that men don't; and the results of others will be otherwise.
You have claimed that this isn't meaningful to whether they are equal because a group of people who face a barrier face that barrier. Yet had the question been whether that group of people and everyone else were equal, the answer would depend on whether that barrier existed.
"Sign into" is an interesting concept. "A mother's permission/request" is in a way how it works now as the mother is under no obligation to inform the biological father of the pregnancy. This is one of the things that really annoys me, that the biological mother can wait years making any attempt for the biological father to gain visitation/custody rights impossible then "surprise" and get back child support. If children benefit from having a relationship with their father but father's have the right to a "financial abortion" I would argue that both bio parents should have the right to be or not be parents but it is a package deal (Parental Rights=Parental Responsibilities). Since children benefit from having a father the focus should be there. Unless you can make a good argument for a bio mother having a right that trumps the father's rights and child's best interests. I would think mother's and the state would be very interested in encouraging/enabling father's to take on those financial responsibilities, which is why we have forced child support in the first place $$$$.
Normally, I don't. I personally am totally ok with people who are against abortions but encourage the use of contraception. While I might not agree with their position, at least it makes sense. The people I tend to take issue with are those that adamantly believe life begins at conception. It's a view that happens to result in a woman never being able to have safe sex. If you ask why they have that view, it's almost universally on a religious (and Christian) basis. A basis which also happens to believe women who have sex for non-procreation purposes are evil. I DON'T want to believe there's a conspiracy here or anything. But the coincidence between those who dislike the idea of women having sex, and those who want to make sure a woman can't get out of a pregnancy, is far too high to ignore.
I'm not claiming it makes them equal - you're correct that such a thing would be impossible. What we can do is try to make the burdens and freedoms balance out - a woman will have some burdens/responsibilities that men don't have, but in return they'll also have certain freedoms.
And I would agree. Hence why I said there is merit to the argument, but did not say that I actually believe such a thing. I definitely do believe women's voices should carry more weight and possibly trump those of men in the conversation. But that doesn't mean men wholesale get no voice at all.
The concept of allowing men to have a "financial abortion" is a difficult one. On the one hand, I definitely don't like that a man has no say in whether or not he ends up financially responsible. On the other hand, a financial abortion would be nowhere near as difficult as an actual one both in terms of physical and emotional hardship, so allowing it to be just as simple wouldn't exactly result in the fairness we're looking for. I think one way to meet halfway would be to give fathers an option to make a single flat payment, and then be absolved of responsibilities, but also release all parental rights. The idea would be that said upfront payment would cover the cost of abortion or adoption. If the woman then refused to take either adoption, then its clearly all on her. It would at least fix some of the problem with women going all gold-digger. There would definitely be details that need working out.
Without arguing for or against abortion, I'm considering the equality in allowing a man to have the same level of freedom to choose whether or not to be a parent as a woman does. So if you are pro-choice, it would be "most correct" for you to say that a man is not obligated to pay child support either.
Does this line of thought hold up under scrutiny?
An awkward 2 minute google search informed me that an abortion can cost anywhere between $300 and $3000, depending on the type and timeline... Would you be comfortable with a man cutting you a check for $150-$1500 and having no further parental obligation, if it gives you full control over your body? The sentiment that financial abortion would be "easier" shouldn't factor at all, because in this hypothetical scenario, you are now entirely in control of whether or not you take the "harder" option.
That is ridiculous, and would be the equivalent of forcing a woman to sign a contract prior to sex that requires her to get an abortion should pregnancy occur. Should I bring a lawyer with me when I ask her out for coffee, too?
Any decision after sex would have too much coercion/emotion mixed in it. Yes the man would sign away any obligation before sex. Then the decision of abortion would be squarely on the shoulders of the woman. Since she signed the contract before sex too, she accepted that responsibility.
Your coffee analogy is ridiculous.
I don't know, it was just an idea. As I said, there are lots of details that would have to be worked out. The exact amount could possibly be negotiated based on the financial circumstances of the couple in question. It's enough of a halfway point that men can't just cut and run just because their girlfriend can't get an abortion on her own, but men who genuinely aren't interested in having a child can step back from doing so. This plan is also predicated on abortions being of sufficient availability... an idea which most feminists would support in principle.
But as far as financial abortion being "easier"... perhaps a better way to think of it is, a man inherently bears less responsibility for the child as is, since he doesn't have to go through the process of pregnancy/abortion/adoption. Any and all of these paths have consequences that can be both physically and emotionally draining for the woman in question, consequences that are often not passed on to the man. It does not make sense to me to give more power to the party which is taking on less responsibility and fewer adverse consequences. As it stands right now, child support is the only thing remotely bad about a man having a child he doesn't want. A woman bears that responsibility plus having to deal with actually carrying the child. Allowing men to dump child support with no strings attached would be to simply claim men should have no responsibility at all, which certainly isn't true.
Men should have some obligations, and some decision-making power. As of right now they have the former but not the latter. We need a solution that give men some options, but not without letting them completely off the hook.
To be clear, the reason child support law exists in its current form has absolutely zero to do with either women's rights or men's rights. It has everything to do with children's rights. The child will get better food, clothing, education, etc., if it has two parents supporting it rather than one. From what little I remember of parent/child law (learned it for the bar and then forgot it as quickly as possible), this is how almost all decisions are made. The rights of the parents mean basically jack squat, the court will look to the best interest of the child as the overriding factor.
I'm not saying this is good or bad, but it's an idea that's very deeply entrenched in family law right now. I just want to point this out to those who have been discussing "financial abortions" and the like, since the whole discussion has centered on balancing men's rights versus women's rights. The law pretty much only cares about the child.