Better to just employ a system where the man can call "opt-out", suggest that the woman do the same, and if not, she bears the burden entirely upon herself.
Again, you want more rights for a man than a woman. That's silly.
Again, you want more rights for a man than a woman. That's silly.
It's only silly because you are waiting for some ideal solution to arise that never will. For the rest of us, it is a step forward that brings things closer to equal than it was before.
Quote:
Opt-out /= abortion.
This is entirely beside the point. There is no cosmic rule stating that it need be. You're repeating it only shows your intent to prevent the progression of this topic. "Opt-out" is a solution that brings the playing field closer to level. Some would say it would be functionally level, but I'll give you "closer" just to placate the sensitive types. At the very least, it blocks a major exploit in the system that women are fond to utilize at their whim.
It's only silly because you are waiting for some ideal solution to arise that never will. For the rest of us, it is a step forward that brings things closer to equal than it was before.
I'm not waiting for anything, you guys are. Opt-out wouldn't be a step forward in the least. You guys just want no responsibility. Sorry.
If there are flaws in the system, opt-out doesn't fix them. Go fix them instead.
We can't protect men from women lying. It's just not possible. She has to be given the benefit of the doubt until proven guilty.
Of course it is possible. There are plenty of attempts to legally force women to name the father. They are fought tooth and nail by women's groups. Why? Because of course they make it harder for a woman to opt out of parenting via adoption. The real crux of this is women opting out of parenting. Letting her not name a father has absolutely nothing to do with innocent or guilty. Unless we believe in immaculate conception, there was a father and she should be compelled to name it.
Quote:
See, you want to push all the blame on to the mother. You want extra rights for men, not equality. Certainly the system can be exploited, but it can only be done by a women willing to lie, cheat and steal. Any system can be exploited by people willing to do that. You want to codify that right for men and that's wrong.
How it unequal or pushing the blame on the mother? I said the mother could still choose abortion if she didn't want to raise the child alone. If she chooses to abort before he makes any sort of decision, then it really doesn't matter what he chooses. I had to name a scenario where he chose first because the other is of no relevence. Men and women being allowed to opt out of parenting is equal, regardless of what you want to believe.
Quote:
No. It's her choice because it's her body. Like getting a tattoo or a piercing.
Don't side step. It is about reproductive rights. Any website you look into that is pro-choice calls abortion a reproductive rights issue. It isn't about privacy or just her body. It is about whether or not she chooses to parent.
I'll link to someone I think you would agree has a little experience with this. Planned Parenthood.
Many hard battles have been fought to win political and economic equality for women. These gains will not be worth much if reproductive choice is denied. To be able to choose a safe, legal abortion makes many other options possible. Otherwise an accident or a rape can end a woman's economic and personal freedom.
Quote:
6. Compulsory pregnancy laws are incompatible with a free society.
If there is any matter which is personal and private, then pregnancy is it. There can be no more extreme invasion of privacy than requiring a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. If government is permitted to compel a woman to bear a child, where will government stop? The concept is morally repugnant. It violates traditional American ideas of individual rights and freedoms.
Just a little more..
Quote:
At the most basic level, the abortion issue is not really about abortion. It is about the value of women in society. Should women make their own decisions about family, career, and how to live their lives? Or should government do that for them? Do women have the option of deciding when or whether to have children? Or is that a government decision?
It is as clear as day. Change compulsory pregancy to compulsary parenting, and you have my argument through this entire thread.
The arguments are clear. Parenting is a choice. Compulsary pregnancy/parenting is incompatible with a free society. Lastly abortion isn't about abortion. It is about making your own decisions regarding family, career, and how you want to live your life. Take the last sentence, "Do women have the option of when or whether to have child?" and you will see that men should have the same right.
Quote:
50-50 isn't 100% correct. I believe the decision has to go up in front of a judge and that's where the situation is decided. Going to a 50-50 system would create problems just as it fixes some. As I told you, I know of a case where the father was given custody. If it had gone 50-50 likely one of his children would be dead right now. The judge made the right choice.
Judges aren't always correct, but I trust them more than I do a blanket 50-50 situation.
Default means it would be the starting point. Believe it or not right now most custody does not start out equal. Obviously the judge still has discretion or even the ability to deny custody, especially with compelling reasons like one parent might kill the child. What I am speaking about is many women request sole custody, many men request joint and the court often awards men something like 3 out of 4 weekends per month with absolutely no compelling reason for the inequality. Those scenarios, where both parents are competent, caring and safe should default joint.
I'm not waiting for anything, you guys are. Opt-out wouldn't be a step forward in the least. You guys just want no responsibility. Sorry.
No, that would be "default release of liability"- an unconditional release of responsibility. What has been suggested here is simply "opt-out". Each partner is given the choice to parent or not to parent, with the associated responsibility. If the would-be father wants to have the baby, then there would be responsibility. Right there, your description is not consistent with what is possible with an "opt-out" system in effect. Maybe you are expecting every would-be father to bolt, given this "equality". Maybe they would. However, that would also strongly indicate a whole lot of cases of births that should not be allowed to proceed (should the mother be capable to acknowledge the reality of the situation), instead of railroading their way to motherhood, everyone else be damned. The better father would be one that is so willingly, not one that is compelled to do so, and certainly not one that is forced to do so simply as a means of monetary child support. The babies that are born will then be the ones who benefit from 2 willing partners or 1 willing partner with focused determination, not 1 willing partner plus one legally-sanctioned labor slave to provide the actual child support.
Quote:
If there are flaws in the system, opt-out doesn't fix them.
Only from your narrow, inflexible viewpoint. Repeating over and over that nothing is fixed won't make it so. You just refuse to accept it (in exchange for no better solution, I might add). Functionally, it accomplishes quite a bit for real people involved in real situations.
The woman already has her rights wrt opt-out (though not precisely analogous, functionally it accomplishes the same). I thought this would be obvious, but maybe not for some people. It's either that or you are intent on grabbing at any remaining inconsistency you can think of and proclaiming, "ha-HA! I told you it won't fix anything!"
The woman already has her rights wrt opt-out (though not precisely analogous, functionally it accomplishes the same). I thought this would be obvious, but maybe not for some people. It's either that or you are intent on grabbing at any remaining inconsistency you can think of and proclaiming, "ha-HA! I told you it won't fix anything!"
That's precisely my point: abortion /= opt-out.
A woman can abort because it's biologically connected with her body. Shawn posted a good few paragraphs a little while ago. Give it a read.
Here's my opinion sans a throrough reading of the thread...
Choice means responsibility. If a woman has the choice to end her pregnacy then she can't obligate a man to pay for her choice to keep it.
HOWEVER, if a man and women are married then it is implicit in the traditional contract of marriage (unless otherwise agreed to by contract) that they will share the costs of raising any children resulting from their union.
My wife knew of several girls back in high school who purposefully tricked guys into getting them pregnant in order to get child support and welfare. That wouldn't happen if women owned up to what it means to be the gender that has the ultimate choice in reproduction. Given the biological realities I don't deny them that right, but they must accept the responsibility as well.
BTW, not being pro-life or pro-choice, but pro-mind, I do not accept politically convenient thresholds like "life begins at conception" or "as long as it's in the women's body." The issue of at what point sentience forbid's abortion is a much longer, and more complicated discussion.
The only instance where "opting out" could ever legally apply would be casual consensual sex.
Not married partners.
Not rape victims.
Not incest victims.
This whole "opting-out" thing is just one big swipe at women's right to choose. Men have no business telling women they can or cannot give birth to a fetus. Yet, implicit in the "opting-out" argument is that men should punish women for their choice. The idea goes: if women have that child or those children, then a man should have the right not to recognize any legal responsibility. The right to choose then will be less of a choice and more the result of the impossible economic reality of raising a child on one's own. Both more children will be aborted and more children will be povertized by a man's selfish act.
"Opting-out" threatens the right to choose, plain and simple.
EDIT:
To clarify:
From a man's perspective, I see "opting-out" as an attack on women's right to choose.
EDIT 2:
This view is apparently paranoid, chauvinistic, and advances dangerous notions about the (made up) verb form of the noun "poverty." Regardless, the power of the paycheck of either a two-parent or child-support paying parent family is crucial for the support and success of children. Such families significantly raise the the income and the economic condition of the family. A father figure is not necessary, but a portion of his income is necessary to ensure the well-being of his child or children. Perhaps this is the reason that Groverat considers men who "opt-out" to be "worthless sacks of amoral garbage." A man who financially "opts-out" of his child's life virtually condemns his child or his children to more poverty-like situations. The statistics on children living in single-parent homes already compare them to children living in poverty. A right to "opt-out" would only magnify the problem.
Questions regarding a family's ability to support a child will always figure into a woman's reproductive decision. Gradations within a two-parent or child support paying parent family will occur (a janitor will make less than a lawyer), and the job status of both biological parents would ordinarily figure into a woman's choice.
However, the existence of a man's right to abdicate personal responsibility upon his child's or children's birth would severely jeopardize the sovereignty of a woman's right to choose (in addition to the child or the children who are most directly affected). If enacted, her decision would now depend on whether the biological father will accept legal responsibility for his child. This isn't like other factors a woman must consider. This is specifically in spite of a woman's own right to choose. In the name of "equal rights" and "fairness," advocates would agree to this further limiting of a woman's right to choose.
I don't.
And it's Argumentum ad Verecundiam, stupid-head. The translation is "Argument from respect (modesty)" (Latin). It's otherwise known as an appeal to authority, where Idea I is correct because authority A believes it is. And yes, a woman's right to choose is a woman's right; therefore, it is not a logical fallacy.
The guilt by association fallacy is concerned with discrediting ideas. George F. Will is a women's rights activist; therefore, women's rights is wrong.
If a woman has the choice to end her pregnacy then she can't obligate a man to pay for her choice to keep it.
Except...
a woman doesn't 'choose' to keep it. She only chooses to get rid of it. Like a kidney. You don't really choose to keep both of your kidneys, but eventually you might choose to get rid of one of them.
a woman doesn't 'choose' to keep it. She only chooses to get rid of it. Like a kidney. You don't really choose to keep both of your kidneys, but eventually you might choose to get rid of one of them.
a woman doesn't 'choose' to keep it. She only chooses to get rid of it. Like a kidney. You don't really choose to keep both of your kidneys, but eventually you might choose to get rid of one of them.
Wrong because she is born with two kidneys, but she isn't born pregnant. There is no "choice" regarding her kidneys because she didn't need a partner to create them.
The only instance where "opting out" could ever legally apply would be casual consensual sex.
Not married partners.
Not rape victims.
Not incest victims.
I think if you check I specifically mentioned that this related to casual consensual sex. No one here has suggested that husbands, rapists, or incest should be grounds for opting out.
As for the rest...
Quote:
This whole "opting-out" thing is just one big swipe at women's right to choose.
You are paranoid. Men's choice determines nothing about what a woman can and cannot do with her body.
Quote:
Men have no business telling women they can or cannot give birth to a fetus.
Strawman, a man opting out does nothing to a woman's body or it's ability to give birth.
Quote:
Yet, implicit in the "opting-out" argument is that men should punish women for their choice.
It is only implicit if you are chauvinistic. Why would you assume that a single mother is going to be "punished" by not having a man around. Why would you assume she needs his income and is not capable of providing for a child on your own. I say assumed because you say all this is implicit. A woman can earn enough to have and raise a child on her own. As planned parenthood mentioned, parenting does have the possibility of impacting her livelyhood, schooling, etc. but that is why it is her choice to have the child instead of the abortion. This would be true regardless of whether a man has the right to opt out or not.
You are using a fallacy called the association fallacy. That means the choices a woman has to make regarding parenting are true regardless of whether the father has the right to opt out or not. It could just as likely affect her schooling and livelyhood if she were married with no children, or if she were single. Thus saying she has to consider these attributes is grounds for abortion, but not grounds for denying men the right to opt out.
Quote:
The idea goes: if women have that child or those children, then a man should have the right not to recognize any legal responsibility. The right to choose then will be less of a choice and more the result of the impossible economic reality of raising a child on one's own. Both more children will be aborted and more children will be povertized by a man's selfish act.
Is povertized a word? Have you been listening to too much Snoop Dog again?
Your argument that more children will be aborted is inconsequential. A woman's right is her right, regardless of how many or how few exercise it. You should know better. Perhaps we shouldn't allow women to work full time, advance at jobs, or maybe even own property because those all lead to more abortions. (birth rate has declined as all those rights and roles were gained)
The right to parenting can be affected by the partner a woman chooses. However this is an association fallacy because again this is true regardless of whether men have the right to opt out or not. Her choice is less of a choice if she is dating a janitor instead of a lawyer. (props to Shawn, boy-ee...) Thus should women only be allowed to have sex with well employed men?
As for the economic reality of raising a child on ones own. Do you support no fault divorce (which women initiate at a rate of more than two to one compared to men) If a woman is going to make a decision that can destroy the family unit and their finances, shouldn't there at least be a reason? Should we take all impoverished single mothers and take away their children? (Rhetorical I know the answers are no)
A woman has her rights and her choices regardless of her economic level. They exist regardless of the parenting or earning ability of the man. Thus men should still have the right to opt out.
It's funny how the typical "woman's rights" arguments are suddenly a problem when the logical conclusion of said rights and the arguments that support them are applied to men's rights.
It's funny how the typical "woman's rights" arguments are suddenly a problem when the logical conclusion of said rights and the arguments that support them are applied to men's rights.
Likewise women's rights DO NOT EQUAL subjugation of men's rights.
There can be equivalents. Obviously men can't have an abortion. Thus they can only have the ability to opt out.
Men can't benefit directly from breast cancer awareness. However when equal numbers or more die from prostate cancer, it can be equal to demand that prostate cancer receive public awareness funds, research funding, etc. that is equivalent to breast cancer.
Stop avoiding the point and just admit that your brand of male chauvinism views women as weak and needy. You say they MUST have a man and his money to survive. That is not equality to me. It isn't feminism. It is male protection/chauvinism masking itself as compassion.
Comments
Originally posted by Randycat99
Better to just employ a system where the man can call "opt-out", suggest that the woman do the same, and if not, she bears the burden entirely upon herself.
Again, you want more rights for a man than a woman. That's silly.
Opt-out /= abortion.
Originally posted by bunge
Again, you want more rights for a man than a woman. That's silly.
It's only silly because you are waiting for some ideal solution to arise that never will. For the rest of us, it is a step forward that brings things closer to equal than it was before.
Quote:
Opt-out /= abortion.
This is entirely beside the point. There is no cosmic rule stating that it need be. You're repeating it only shows your intent to prevent the progression of this topic. "Opt-out" is a solution that brings the playing field closer to level. Some would say it would be functionally level, but I'll give you "closer" just to placate the sensitive types. At the very least, it blocks a major exploit in the system that women are fond to utilize at their whim.
Originally posted by Randycat99
It's only silly because you are waiting for some ideal solution to arise that never will. For the rest of us, it is a step forward that brings things closer to equal than it was before.
I'm not waiting for anything, you guys are. Opt-out wouldn't be a step forward in the least. You guys just want no responsibility. Sorry.
If there are flaws in the system, opt-out doesn't fix them. Go fix them instead.
Originally posted by bunge
We can't protect men from women lying. It's just not possible. She has to be given the benefit of the doubt until proven guilty.
Of course it is possible. There are plenty of attempts to legally force women to name the father. They are fought tooth and nail by women's groups. Why? Because of course they make it harder for a woman to opt out of parenting via adoption. The real crux of this is women opting out of parenting. Letting her not name a father has absolutely nothing to do with innocent or guilty. Unless we believe in immaculate conception, there was a father and she should be compelled to name it.
See, you want to push all the blame on to the mother. You want extra rights for men, not equality. Certainly the system can be exploited, but it can only be done by a women willing to lie, cheat and steal. Any system can be exploited by people willing to do that. You want to codify that right for men and that's wrong.
How it unequal or pushing the blame on the mother? I said the mother could still choose abortion if she didn't want to raise the child alone. If she chooses to abort before he makes any sort of decision, then it really doesn't matter what he chooses. I had to name a scenario where he chose first because the other is of no relevence. Men and women being allowed to opt out of parenting is equal, regardless of what you want to believe.
No. It's her choice because it's her body. Like getting a tattoo or a piercing.
Don't side step. It is about reproductive rights. Any website you look into that is pro-choice calls abortion a reproductive rights issue. It isn't about privacy or just her body. It is about whether or not she chooses to parent.
I'll link to someone I think you would agree has a little experience with this. Planned Parenthood.
9 reasons for abortion
The clearly relevent ones..
4. Being a mother is just one option for women.
Many hard battles have been fought to win political and economic equality for women. These gains will not be worth much if reproductive choice is denied. To be able to choose a safe, legal abortion makes many other options possible. Otherwise an accident or a rape can end a woman's economic and personal freedom.
6. Compulsory pregnancy laws are incompatible with a free society.
If there is any matter which is personal and private, then pregnancy is it. There can be no more extreme invasion of privacy than requiring a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. If government is permitted to compel a woman to bear a child, where will government stop? The concept is morally repugnant. It violates traditional American ideas of individual rights and freedoms.
Just a little more..
At the most basic level, the abortion issue is not really about abortion. It is about the value of women in society. Should women make their own decisions about family, career, and how to live their lives? Or should government do that for them? Do women have the option of deciding when or whether to have children? Or is that a government decision?
It is as clear as day. Change compulsory pregancy to compulsary parenting, and you have my argument through this entire thread.
The arguments are clear. Parenting is a choice. Compulsary pregnancy/parenting is incompatible with a free society. Lastly abortion isn't about abortion. It is about making your own decisions regarding family, career, and how you want to live your life. Take the last sentence, "Do women have the option of when or whether to have child?" and you will see that men should have the same right.
50-50 isn't 100% correct. I believe the decision has to go up in front of a judge and that's where the situation is decided. Going to a 50-50 system would create problems just as it fixes some. As I told you, I know of a case where the father was given custody. If it had gone 50-50 likely one of his children would be dead right now. The judge made the right choice.
Judges aren't always correct, but I trust them more than I do a blanket 50-50 situation.
Default means it would be the starting point. Believe it or not right now most custody does not start out equal. Obviously the judge still has discretion or even the ability to deny custody, especially with compelling reasons like one parent might kill the child. What I am speaking about is many women request sole custody, many men request joint and the court often awards men something like 3 out of 4 weekends per month with absolutely no compelling reason for the inequality. Those scenarios, where both parents are competent, caring and safe should default joint.
Nick
Originally posted by bunge
I'm not waiting for anything, you guys are. Opt-out wouldn't be a step forward in the least. You guys just want no responsibility. Sorry.
No, that would be "default release of liability"- an unconditional release of responsibility. What has been suggested here is simply "opt-out". Each partner is given the choice to parent or not to parent, with the associated responsibility. If the would-be father wants to have the baby, then there would be responsibility. Right there, your description is not consistent with what is possible with an "opt-out" system in effect. Maybe you are expecting every would-be father to bolt, given this "equality". Maybe they would. However, that would also strongly indicate a whole lot of cases of births that should not be allowed to proceed (should the mother be capable to acknowledge the reality of the situation), instead of railroading their way to motherhood, everyone else be damned. The better father would be one that is so willingly, not one that is compelled to do so, and certainly not one that is forced to do so simply as a means of monetary child support. The babies that are born will then be the ones who benefit from 2 willing partners or 1 willing partner with focused determination, not 1 willing partner plus one legally-sanctioned labor slave to provide the actual child support.
Quote:
If there are flaws in the system, opt-out doesn't fix them.
Only from your narrow, inflexible viewpoint. Repeating over and over that nothing is fixed won't make it so. You just refuse to accept it (in exchange for no better solution, I might add). Functionally, it accomplishes quite a bit for real people involved in real situations.
Originally posted by Randycat99
What has been suggested here is simply "opt-out". Each partner is given the choice to parent or not to parent, with the associated responsibility.
That is not what's been suggested. What's been suggested is to give that right to the man and not the woman.
Originally posted by Randycat99
The woman already has her rights wrt opt-out (though not precisely analogous, functionally it accomplishes the same). I thought this would be obvious, but maybe not for some people. It's either that or you are intent on grabbing at any remaining inconsistency you can think of and proclaiming, "ha-HA! I told you it won't fix anything!"
That's precisely my point: abortion /= opt-out.
A woman can abort because it's biologically connected with her body. Shawn posted a good few paragraphs a little while ago. Give it a read.
Choice means responsibility. If a woman has the choice to end her pregnacy then she can't obligate a man to pay for her choice to keep it.
HOWEVER, if a man and women are married then it is implicit in the traditional contract of marriage (unless otherwise agreed to by contract) that they will share the costs of raising any children resulting from their union.
My wife knew of several girls back in high school who purposefully tricked guys into getting them pregnant in order to get child support and welfare. That wouldn't happen if women owned up to what it means to be the gender that has the ultimate choice in reproduction. Given the biological realities I don't deny them that right, but they must accept the responsibility as well.
BTW, not being pro-life or pro-choice, but pro-mind, I do not accept politically convenient thresholds like "life begins at conception" or "as long as it's in the women's body." The issue of at what point sentience forbid's abortion is a much longer, and more complicated discussion.
The only instance where "opting out" could ever legally apply would be casual consensual sex.
Not married partners.
Not rape victims.
Not incest victims.
This whole "opting-out" thing is just one big swipe at women's right to choose. Men have no business telling women they can or cannot give birth to a fetus. Yet, implicit in the "opting-out" argument is that men should punish women for their choice. The idea goes: if women have that child or those children, then a man should have the right not to recognize any legal responsibility. The right to choose then will be less of a choice and more the result of the impossible economic reality of raising a child on one's own. Both more children will be aborted and more children will be povertized by a man's selfish act.
"Opting-out" threatens the right to choose, plain and simple.
EDIT:
To clarify:
From a man's perspective, I see "opting-out" as an attack on women's right to choose.
EDIT 2:
This view is apparently paranoid, chauvinistic, and advances dangerous notions about the (made up) verb form of the noun "poverty." Regardless, the power of the paycheck of either a two-parent or child-support paying parent family is crucial for the support and success of children. Such families significantly raise the the income and the economic condition of the family. A father figure is not necessary, but a portion of his income is necessary to ensure the well-being of his child or children. Perhaps this is the reason that Groverat considers men who "opt-out" to be "worthless sacks of amoral garbage." A man who financially "opts-out" of his child's life virtually condemns his child or his children to more poverty-like situations. The statistics on children living in single-parent homes already compare them to children living in poverty. A right to "opt-out" would only magnify the problem.
Questions regarding a family's ability to support a child will always figure into a woman's reproductive decision. Gradations within a two-parent or child support paying parent family will occur (a janitor will make less than a lawyer), and the job status of both biological parents would ordinarily figure into a woman's choice.
However, the existence of a man's right to abdicate personal responsibility upon his child's or children's birth would severely jeopardize the sovereignty of a woman's right to choose (in addition to the child or the children who are most directly affected). If enacted, her decision would now depend on whether the biological father will accept legal responsibility for his child. This isn't like other factors a woman must consider. This is specifically in spite of a woman's own right to choose. In the name of "equal rights" and "fairness," advocates would agree to this further limiting of a woman's right to choose.
I don't.
And it's Argumentum ad Verecundiam, stupid-head.
The guilt by association fallacy is concerned with discrediting ideas. George F. Will is a women's rights activist; therefore, women's rights is wrong.
"Opting-out" threatens the right to choose, plain and simple.
As long as you're only willing to see that from a woman's perspective, that is correct.
You think the reverse isn't true for men who get stuck with child support for 18 years and have no chance to turn down that life altering "choice"?
Oh, wait, that's right, they don't have a choice once a child is conceived.
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
If a woman has the choice to end her pregnacy then she can't obligate a man to pay for her choice to keep it.
Except...
a woman doesn't 'choose' to keep it. She only chooses to get rid of it. Like a kidney. You don't really choose to keep both of your kidneys, but eventually you might choose to get rid of one of them.
a woman doesn't 'choose' to keep it. She only chooses to get rid of it. Like a kidney. You don't really choose to keep both of your kidneys, but eventually you might choose to get rid of one of them.
QUOTE]
Originally posted by bunge
Except...
a woman doesn't 'choose' to keep it. She only chooses to get rid of it. Like a kidney. You don't really choose to keep both of your kidneys, but eventually you might choose to get rid of one of them.
Wrong because she is born with two kidneys, but she isn't born pregnant. There is no "choice" regarding her kidneys because she didn't need a partner to create them.
Nick
Originally posted by Shawn
A few more points...
The only instance where "opting out" could ever legally apply would be casual consensual sex.
Not married partners.
Not rape victims.
Not incest victims.
I think if you check I specifically mentioned that this related to casual consensual sex. No one here has suggested that husbands, rapists, or incest should be grounds for opting out.
As for the rest...
This whole "opting-out" thing is just one big swipe at women's right to choose.
You are paranoid. Men's choice determines nothing about what a woman can and cannot do with her body.
Men have no business telling women they can or cannot give birth to a fetus.
Strawman, a man opting out does nothing to a woman's body or it's ability to give birth.
Yet, implicit in the "opting-out" argument is that men should punish women for their choice.
It is only implicit if you are chauvinistic. Why would you assume that a single mother is going to be "punished" by not having a man around. Why would you assume she needs his income and is not capable of providing for a child on your own. I say assumed because you say all this is implicit. A woman can earn enough to have and raise a child on her own. As planned parenthood mentioned, parenting does have the possibility of impacting her livelyhood, schooling, etc. but that is why it is her choice to have the child instead of the abortion. This would be true regardless of whether a man has the right to opt out or not.
You are using a fallacy called the association fallacy. That means the choices a woman has to make regarding parenting are true regardless of whether the father has the right to opt out or not. It could just as likely affect her schooling and livelyhood if she were married with no children, or if she were single. Thus saying she has to consider these attributes is grounds for abortion, but not grounds for denying men the right to opt out.
The idea goes: if women have that child or those children, then a man should have the right not to recognize any legal responsibility. The right to choose then will be less of a choice and more the result of the impossible economic reality of raising a child on one's own. Both more children will be aborted and more children will be povertized by a man's selfish act.
Is povertized a word? Have you been listening to too much Snoop Dog again?
Your argument that more children will be aborted is inconsequential. A woman's right is her right, regardless of how many or how few exercise it. You should know better. Perhaps we shouldn't allow women to work full time, advance at jobs, or maybe even own property because those all lead to more abortions. (birth rate has declined as all those rights and roles were gained)
The right to parenting can be affected by the partner a woman chooses. However this is an association fallacy because again this is true regardless of whether men have the right to opt out or not. Her choice is less of a choice if she is dating a janitor instead of a lawyer. (props to Shawn, boy-ee...) Thus should women only be allowed to have sex with well employed men?
As for the economic reality of raising a child on ones own. Do you support no fault divorce (which women initiate at a rate of more than two to one compared to men) If a woman is going to make a decision that can destroy the family unit and their finances, shouldn't there at least be a reason? Should we take all impoverished single mothers and take away their children? (Rhetorical I know the answers are no)
A woman has her rights and her choices regardless of her economic level. They exist regardless of the parenting or earning ability of the man. Thus men should still have the right to opt out.
Nick
Originally posted by Longhorn
It's funny how the typical "woman's rights" arguments are suddenly a problem when the logical conclusion of said rights and the arguments that support them are applied to men's rights.
women's rights DO NOT EQUAL men's rights
Originally posted by Shawn
women's rights DO NOT EQUAL men's rights
Likewise women's rights DO NOT EQUAL subjugation of men's rights.
There can be equivalents. Obviously men can't have an abortion. Thus they can only have the ability to opt out.
Men can't benefit directly from breast cancer awareness. However when equal numbers or more die from prostate cancer, it can be equal to demand that prostate cancer receive public awareness funds, research funding, etc. that is equivalent to breast cancer.
Stop avoiding the point and just admit that your brand of male chauvinism views women as weak and needy. You say they MUST have a man and his money to survive. That is not equality to me. It isn't feminism. It is male protection/chauvinism masking itself as compassion.
Nick
Edit:Feel better?
Originally posted by Longhorn
...the logical conclusion of said rights....
Unfortunately for your argument opt-out is not the logical conclusion of said rights.