NationStates Jolt Archive

And a whole new profession opens up.

Given the high cost of pregnancy, I would assume that the payout from the man would be rather significant. A woman could conceivably (sorry, it’s a bad pun I know) get a few abortions a year to greatly supplement her income.


There's been a discussion over the feasibility of that going on for the last few pages.

"Its" insurance? Are you going to tell me now that you have a child out there and you don't even know if it is a boy or a girl?


Sorry. The state says all I am good for is $704 a month. You cannot take my mind. At least my thoughts are free. And in my mind, I do not have a child, I just have a $704 a month Stupid Tax, a fee reminding me to never trust a woman who says she is on birth control.

But if it makes you happy, I know he is a boy. But I have never seen him, and have no desire to do so. I know it isn't his fault that the system is flawed, or that we live in a woman=victim, man=breadwinner culture. But I stand by what I believe in. I do not want to be a parent, and never have.

Adoption is one of the most responsible decisions a person can make. If you are to young and/or unable to take care of child for whatever reasons. Giving your child to people who want it and have the means to take care of child and give it a good life is one of the best decisions you can make.

And having a child that you can't take care of yourself is irresponsible. Thus, putting a child up for adoption is an irresponsible choice. It may be more responsible than the incredibly irresponsible option of keeping a child you cannot take care of, but it is not actually responsible.

It's kind of like the last two presidential elections. I couldn't choose which person I wanted to vote for, because they were all crappy candidates. So I had to choose the least crappy out of all of them. I wasn't choosing a good one - just the least crappy.


Sorry. The state says all I am good for is $704 a month. You cannot take my mind. At least my thoughts are free. And in my mind, I do not have a child, I just have a $704 a month Stupid Tax, a fee reminding me to never trust a woman who says she is on birth control.

But if it makes you happy, I know he is a boy. But I have never seen him, and have no desire to do so. I know it isn't his fault that the system is flawed, or that we live in a woman=victim, man=breadwinner culture. But I stand by what I believe in. I do not want to be a parent, and never have.

And you get upset when people call you a deadbeat?

Hell, you are the poster child deadbeat - the person I would put up as an example of the type of person who shouldn't be allowed in a room with children, much less as a parent.

Of course it is *possible*. It is simply highly unlikely.
Horseshit.
We rarely went out to eat anywhere, and like I said, we didn't get even cable television for 10 years.

There are also usually methods by which a person who is that "strapped for cash" can legally get out of making payments.
"Of course it is *possible*. It is simply high unlikely."
Women are the victims of culture and the evil man creature who got her pregnant, thus they are entitled.


I "villanize" these men because they don't give a shit about their own children. Period. I would do the same for any woman who felt the same way.
Again, horseshit. You are villainizing them for the same reason they are forced to make outrageous payments for sometimes children they don't even know. You have no reason to assault people who arn't able to pay for a child they didn' want. Knowing your reaction so far, you will say they shouldn't have had sex. I take it, then, that you support abstinence only education to teach young person's that they shouldn't have sex and ignore education about condoms and such since if children know about them, they will have sex, which leads to all of this evil, greedy men.

Meanwhile, I have never argued in favor of any woman shirking any responsibility - and I'd be interested to see you point out anywhere that you think I have.
Women have sole judgment not to have the child or to give the child up for adoption, the man has practically no say. If they keep the child, they can charge the evil, greedy men for exhorbent amounts of money.

How would that work? The government comes to your house and says, "We're taking $200 now." "Why?" you say. "That's classified," says government man.
Horseshit.
They would tell him it is for his child. Regardless or not he knows about it, he would have to support it if the mother decided so.

You cannot be charged child support without knowing what you are paying. The state doesn't go to garnishing wages unless you have already forfeited on payments.
That is not what I am saying, as much as you would lvoe to misconstrue it for your made up defense. The law is overwhelmingly with the parent of the child which is overwhelmingly decided to be the mother.

I "villanize" these men because they don't give a shit about their own children. Period. I would do the same for any woman who felt the same way.

Would you vilanize a woman who gave her child up for adoption? Because that is EXACTLY that same thing.

She becomes pregnant, realizes she cannot support the child- and gives the child away to hopefully a better home.

I offered to pay for an abortion. I suggested adoption. But she wanted the child, and there was nothing I could do about it.

So unless you're going to condemn every woman who has ever had an abortion or has given a child up for adoption- you can't condemn me. Without being a hypocrite that is.

And you get upset when people call you a deadbeat?

Hell, you are the poster child deadbeat - the person I would put up as an example of the type of person who shouldn't be allowed in a room with children, much less as a parent.

No a deadbeat is someone who doesn't pay. Don't think I haven't thought about fleeing to another state and trying to hide from the tax collector. But I do pay, as much as I hate it. So you can call me what you want. And I would prefer if people kept kids away from me actually. If I could get a tattoo that says "child hater- keep all children at least 50 feet away" on my forehead and it actually would work, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

And you get upset when people call you a deadbeat?

Hell, you are the poster child deadbeat - the person I would put up as an example of the type of person who shouldn't be allowed in a room with children, much less as a parent.
And you should stay the hell out of this debate because you refuse to consider any condition rationally and subscribe to the asinine idea that all women are victims and all men are big, strong, breadwinners who should live up to "their" "responsibility" to support "their" children.

He pays his money, even your delusional self can't classify him as a deadbeat dad.
You, on the other hand, could be the poster child for what is wrong with the system.

I have no intention on having children either because a) I don't want children and b) the system is designed to penalize the father and victimize the mother.

Of course not. He can't get pregnant. Plus, one cannot abort a child - only a pregnancy.

alright agreeance

He has the same rights to do this that the mother does - at least legally.

A father cannot rip the child from the mother's arms and put it up for adoption. I don't know what you mean by that. I guess the father could take the child if the mother wanted to put it up for adoption but the issue of unwanted pregnancy on the father's part is what we are talking about and this doesn't apply to that argument.

The issue is a fair one to raise - although I don't agree with your reasoning. However, many people in this thread are trying to use the equal protection clause as their reasoning - and that simply doesn't work.
I'm not sure what reasoning you are objecting to exactly but I guess that is basic agreeance.


Of course it is unfair. It is also unfair that, should a couple decide together to have children, the mother must bear the entire physical brunt of that decision. It is unfair that I have to go for a yearly pap smear to stay on birth control, but my fiance never has to have a pap smear. It is unfair that I, as a woman, have to work harder than most men to keep my body fat down. It is unfair that, after sex, I have to deal with some pretty gross after-products, while he can just roll over and go to sleep.

And it sucks that guys have to get a thumb shoved up their ass to check their prostate. What is the point here. Birth is undertaken by the mother this is true but she also gets almost exclusive legal control. This is already taken into account. Would you rather have fathers go through birth and then be able to walk away with the children and deny visitation to the mother? I doubt it. Body fat? Women live longer than men so this body fat obviously doesn't outweigh a woman's natural longevity in comparison to a man. If you are referring to looks women are at least as responsible for weight stereotypes as men if not more so. As for the sex side effects women also have more nerve endings in their genitalia than men and thus have the possibility of better and multiple orgasms. Should I complain about that?

When a difference is based on biology, we can whine that it isn't fair, but we can't really change it. A man loses control after a pregnancy begins because the pregnancy only directly involves the woman.

This is exactly what I said. So we agree.

But I don't see this type of bill - albeit most likely in a different form, as being protection for the man - or the woman. I want to make sure that any children born are in good hands. And if a person doesn't take on parenthood - even only financially - willingly, then the child isn't in good hands - there is no reason to rely upon that person for the child's welfare.

I'm confused by this part. You seem to be implying that if a man doesn't want to pay child support there is no reason to rely upon them for it? (correct me if I am wrong) This seems to go against the whole point and what I perceived as your stance as you seem to clearly support forced child support. I support it as well so I'm guessing I just misunderstand you.


As for the general comments you made in response to other people I think you are a bit harsh. Consider a child that you do not want in any way and that a woman chooses herself to keep without considering your life and as a result your entire life is spent struggling to make ends meat. I can sympathise with this a great deal although I also see no other way around it and so cannot support changing it. You basically provide a child to someone else and have to foot the bill at the expense of any hopes or dreams you ever had. Rather selfish on the part of the mother if you ask me. Of course I am talking about only certain cases where the partners were not ready at all and the child was unexpected and unwanted.

You actually are wrong here. If one parent has custody of the child, the other is required to pay child support, regardless of sex. The mother is simply usually the one with custody, and thus the father is usually the one paying child support.


I know many people in this situation (due to drugs in almost all cases as it is almost impossible to take a child from a mother otherwise) and not one women is required to pay child support. I grant you that it is probably on the books as you say but in practice it is rare.

And having a child that you can't take care of yourself is irresponsible. Thus, putting a child up for adoption is an irresponsible choice. It may be more responsible than the incredibly irresponsible option of keeping a child you cannot take care of, but it is not actually responsible.

It's kind of like the last two presidential elections. I couldn't choose which person I wanted to vote for, because they were all crappy candidates. So I had to choose the least crappy out of all of them. I wasn't choosing a good one - just the least crappy.

Are you against abortion and adoption? Are you some one who believes life is only about breeding and raising children? I am trying to understand your position.

Sorry. The state says all I am good for is $704 a month. You cannot take my mind. At least my thoughts are free. And in my mind, I do not have a child, I just have a $704 a month Stupid Tax, a fee reminding me to never trust a woman who says she is on birth control.

But if it makes you happy, I know he is a boy. But I have never seen him, and have no desire to do so. I know it isn't his fault that the system is flawed, or that we live in a woman=victim, man=breadwinner culture. But I stand by what I believe in. I do not want to be a parent, and never have.

Wow. There is pretty much nothing in this post that doesn't disgust me and I rarely think that. I'm usually happy to change people, but this is amazing.

Prior to sex, were you aware that birth control sometimes fails?

This woman who you have nothing to do with, did she agree to abort the baby prior to you having sex with her? I doubt it.

Now you punish the child by not parenting him. I take that back. Given that you refer to him as it and his mother in the way that you do, the fact that you choose not to expose him to such hatred is probably to his benefit.

I usually argue for the inclusion of both parents in a child's life, but I can't make that argument here with getting a sick feeling in my stomach.

To the people who argue about the danger of child support bringing undesirables into a child's life, I have been enlightened and I give your argument much more weight.

And you should stay the hell out of this debate because you refuse to consider any condition rationally and subscribe to the asinine idea that all women are victims and all men are big, strong, breadwinners who should live up to "their" "responsibility" to support "their" children.

He pays his money, even your delusional self can't classify him as a deadbeat dad.
You, on the other hand, could be the poster child for what is wrong with the system.

I have no intention on having children either because a) I don't want children and b) the system is designed to penalize the father and victimize the mother.

Um, no. As much as it pains me to defend Dem in this particular debate, the only hate-filled rhetoric is coming from your side of the table. Women are and should equally financially-liable for the child. The father can and does get custody if he seeks and in that event the woman pays child support. Both parents have and should have equal financial, emotional and physical responsibility for the child. However, the state can only work to financial equal and to give parents access if they wish to supply the other two.

I haven't seen anything painting women as victims. I have seen you guys try get me to cry in my pepsi over the plight of the poor, abused american male who is forced to live up to his responsibilities, at least financially, just like a woman is.

Um, no. As much as it pains me to defend Dem in this particular debate, the only hate-filled rhetoric is coming from your side of the table. Women are and should equally financially-liable for the child. The father can and does get custody if he seeks and in that event the woman pays child support. Both parents have and should have equal financial, emotional and physical responsibility for the child. However, the state can only work to financial equal and to give parents access if they wish to supply the other two.

I haven't seen anything painting women as victims. I have seen you guys try get me to cry in my pepsi over the plight of the poor, abused american male who is forced to live up to his responsibilities, at least financially, just like a woman is.

Actually a man can be denied visitation fairly easily. The point I have at least been awknowledging that is unfair is that a women can keep a child that was accidental and the man has no say and must pay for it. This is unfair but unavoidable. You can read my other posts for my full take on it if you want.

Um, no.
Um, yes.
Child support rules are made to penalize the person without custody, which is 40-80% of time the father.

Women are and should equally financially-liable for the child.
The point is they arn't. In non-joint situations, the man is expected to support the lion's share of expenses. Even if the mother has more income.

The father can and does get custody if he seeks
To quote Dem again, "Of course it is *possible*. It is simply high unlikely."
In more liberal states, awards of sole custody to women is ~40%, where favor is pointed towards joint ownership. Sole custody by the father is still in the 12-20% range. In less liberalized state, ie the bible belt, awards of sole custody to the mother is near 80%.


Both parents have and should have equal financial, emotional and physical responsibility for the child.
Again, the point is that they arn't. Men are expected to have more financial responsibility and the mother seeks and, most often, wins custody of the child.

However, the state can only work to financial equal and to give parents access if they wish to supply the other two.
Bullshit. The legal system is barely fair, and what fairness was written into it is taken out by lawyers and judges who are human and believe women have the better ability to raise the child and see the father as some sort of demon for not marrying and staying with her, especially in less liberalized states, and thus issue rulings that penalize the father.

I haven't seen anything painting women as victims.
Then you have failed to observe the system or anything at all in fact.

I have seen you guys try get me to cry in my pepsi over the plight of the poor, abused american male who is forced to live up to his responsibilities, at least financially, just like a woman is.
And you prove the point, good job. Both you and Dempublicents can be posterchildren for the gender-bias problem with the system.

Horseshit.
We rarely went out to eat anywhere, and like I said, we didn't get even cable television for 10 years.

Aw. You didn't have CABLE? Dear God!!! Here I was as a kid, hungry and was happy to get a potato, and complaining about being poor when there were people out there with no CABLE and unable to eat in restaurants. When will the madness end? Next you're going to be telling me that someone wanted you to pay for a child you fathered. How ghastly.

Dear God,

Please think of the people out their with no cable television and unable to go to Bennigan's. Please try to help them whenever you get a moment. I know there are ACTUAL poor people out there, but this guy doesn't have cable.

Amen

"Of course it is *possible*. It is simply high unlikely."
Women are the victims of culture and the evil man creature who got her pregnant, thus they are entitled.

Uh-huh. According to many in this thread it's the unfortunate and endangered American male who is accosted on every street corner by women stealing his hard-earned dough and a bunch of evil women out there trying to find the next man to trap. You know, because the whole giving birth and raising a child alone thing is just so desirable.

Again, horseshit. You are villainizing them for the same reason they are forced to make outrageous payments for sometimes children they don't even know.

Whose fault is it they don't know the child? Not the child's. The payments are made to the child and have NOTHING to do with the woman.

You have no reason to assault people who arn't able to pay for a child they didn' want.

If they aren't able to pay they have options. My brother is an absentee father and quite poor and was able to go to court to get a payment schedule he could actually meet.

Knowing your reaction so far, you will say they shouldn't have had sex. I take it, then, that you support abstinence only education to teach young person's that they shouldn't have sex and ignore education about condoms and such since if children know about them, they will have sex, which leads to all of this evil, greedy men.

Uh-huh. Nice strawman. I love how you can in the same breath use this level of hyperbole and then accuse another poster not using it of hyperbole. I don't know how you jump from men have to be responsible for the consequences of their actions to birth control education causes births, but you're way out there, bud.

Women have sole judgment not to have the child or to give the child up for adoption, the man has practically no say. If they keep the child, they can charge the evil, greedy men for exhorbent amounts of money.

Really? Post the laws in all of these states that allow women to make sole judgement as to adoption. As far as having his child, the man gets the absolute latest say that nature allows. If you don't like it, take it up with God.

Horseshit.
They would tell him it is for his child. Regardless or not he knows about it, he would have to support it if the mother decided so.

I'm pretty sure once they tell him about it he'd know about it. Seriously, you should take a breath. This rant borders on lunacy. And the mother doesn't decide anything. The mother applies and the state evaluates the situation and makes a decision. The amount of child support is not decided by the mother and it is not awarded TO the mother. Child support is paid to the child.

That is not what I am saying, as much as you would lvoe to misconstrue it for your made up defense. The law is overwhelmingly with the parent of the child which is overwhelmingly decided to be the mother.
Wow. Just wow. The law actually sides with involving both parents in the life of the child as MUCH as possible unless one or both parents refuse or are dangerous.

Actually a man can be denied visitation fairly easily. The point I have at least been awknowledging that is unfair is that a women can keep a child that was accidental and the man has no say and must pay for it. This is unfair but unavoidable. You can read my other posts for my full take on it if you want.

I'm sorry. But they cannot be denied visitation fairly easily. It has to be shown that visitation puts the child in danger or he has to give up the right. The court is not willy-nilly denying children their fathers.

I know many people in this situation (due to drugs in almost all cases as it is almost impossible to take a child from a mother otherwise) and not one women is required to pay child support. I grant you that it is probably on the books as you say but in practice it is rare.

I accept none of your assertions without evidence. This is the same old wive's tale BS that people sling, but I actually know two women who pay child support because, like me, they travel for a living and cannot have primary custody. My sister's husband has a child from a previous marriage and his ex pays support Every couple I know that are seperated and have children have shared custody with the exception of my brother who signed away his rights.

(I travel for a living like them. I don't have children.)

Wow. There is pretty much nothing in this post that doesn't disgust me and I rarely think that. I'm usually happy to change people, but this is amazing.

I'm not going to apologise for being angry at an unjust system, or at a woman who's going on spending sprees and sitting on the couch without a job, all funded by me. If I am less eloquent and more angry and opinionated than normal on this issue, it is because it is so close to me and I am still so furious because of it. There's a reason they say the best place to hurt a man isn't the groin, it's the wallet.
Prior to sex, were you aware that birth control sometimes fails?
Yes. Although when something is 99.2% effective, you generally take your chances. Condoms are less effective. Unless you are going to campaign for "no sex unless married and intending to conceive a child", you will never convince me. And if that IS your argument, I ask you to take a gander at reality. It is actually a nice place to live. AND, the birth control didn't fail in my case, she just lied about being on it.

This woman who you have nothing to do with, did she agree to abort the baby prior to you having sex with her? I doubt it.
Then you haven't read my posts. I know this thread is long, but I related my story first on page 10. I told her I didn't want children, ever. She knew I had Crohn's Disease, and didn't want to possibly pass it on. She initially agreed to have an abortion, but her mother convinced her it was "unholy" or some such shit, so she changed her mind.

Now you punish the child by not parenting him. I take that back. Given that you refer to him as it and his mother in the way that you do, the fact that you choose not to expose him to such hatred is probably to his benefit.

I actually agree with you. I repeat, I have NO interest in ever being a parent. I can't stand children. Having a die hard cynical atheist who doesn't like children probably isn't a good parent for a child.

I usually argue for the inclusion of both parents in a child's life, but I can't make that argument here with getting a sick feeling in my stomach.
It's the smell. And the noise. All that shitting and punking and screaming makes me sick to my stomach too. Oh, you meant me? Meh.
To the people who argue about the danger of child support bringing undesirables into a child's life, I have been enlightened and I give your argument much more weight.

I am glad your hatred of me has at least nudged you closer to a reasonable position.

Horseshit.
We rarely went out to eat anywhere, and like I said, we didn't get even cable television for 10 years.

And your life is that of "most people"?

"Of course it is *possible*. It is simply high unlikely."

Have you tried it?

Women are the victims of culture and the evil man creature who got her pregnant, thus they are entitled.

Hardly. Children are the victims of irresponsible parents who had sex without being able to properly care for a child. But all children are entitled to support. I don't personally think it should come from deadbeats who are uninterested in the welfare of the child, but they are entitled to it.

Again, horseshit. You are villainizing them for the same reason they are forced to make outrageous payments for sometimes children they don't even know. You have no reason to assault people who arn't able to pay for a child they didn't want. Knowing your reaction so far, you will say they shouldn't have had sex. I take it, then, that you support abstinence only education to teach young person's that they shouldn't have sex and ignore education about condoms and such since if children know about them, they will have sex, which leads to all of this evil, greedy men.

Wow, what an illogical jump you made there. I fully believe that no person who is unwilling or unable to take care of a child that might result shouldn't be having sex unless they are confirmably sterilized. However, I am not naive enough to believe that others will follow my moral views. I have never, and would never support abstinence-only education, as it simply leads to higher rates of STDs and unwanted pregnancies, especially among teens. I am arguing in favor of responsibility here, not a lack of education.

Women have sole judgment not to have the child or to give the child up for adoption, the man has practically no say.

This is incorrect. Women have sole judgement to have an abortion - to end a pregnancy. The result of this is that there might not be a child. A woman does not have any more of a legal right to give a child up for adoption than a man has. In both cases, legally, the other parent must consent and also do so (or have a partner willing to take over).

The man has no say in what will be done with the woman's body. I'm sorry if you think that is unfair, but take comfort in the fact that she has no say in what you do with your body either.

Horseshit.
They would tell him it is for his child. Regardless or not he knows about it, he would have to support it if the mother decided so.

If they have to tell him, then he knows, and your comment that he can be charged without knowing is a blatant lie.

That is not what I am saying, as much as you would lvoe to misconstrue it for your made up defense. The law is overwhelmingly with the parent of the child which is overwhelmingly decided to be the mother.

Which is not the same as your statement that someone could be charged for child support without even know there was a child.


Would you vilanize a woman who gave her child up for adoption? Because that is EXACTLY that same thing.

It isn't *exactly* the same thing. A person who gives their child up for adoption can be fairly certain that the child is being taken care of, while a deadbeat who just abandons him cannot. But no, I do not have much respect for a woman who gives her child up for adoption. It might be the least irresponsible out of a bunch of irresponsible choices, but it is never responsible.

So unless you're going to condemn every woman who has ever had an abortion or has given a child up for adoption- you can't condemn me. Without being a hypocrite that is.

I don't think abortion is generally a moral choice either, but at least in that instance, there isn't a child to take care of and thus there isn't a child to abandon.


No a deadbeat is someone who doesn't pay.

That may be your definition, and you can use it if it helps you sleep at night. As far as I am concerned, any person who does not care for the welfare of their child is a deadbeat.


And you should stay the hell out of this debate because you refuse to consider any condition rationally and subscribe to the asinine idea that all women are victims and all men are big, strong, breadwinners who should live up to "their" "responsibility" to support "their" children.

I think *all* people should live up to their responsibility to their children. It isn't just men. I challenge you to show me anywhere that I have suggested that all women are victims, that all men are big, strong breadwinners, or that only men have responsibility here.

He pays his money, even your delusional self can't classify him as a deadbeat dad.

Just paying money doesn't make you less of a deadbeat - it just means you are more afraid of the government than you are of paying the money.

You, on the other hand, could be the poster child for what is wrong with the system.

How so?

I have no intention on having children either because a) I don't want children and b) the system is designed to penalize the father and victimize the mother.

If a is true, then you should get permanently sterilized. If you haven't done this yet, then having sex is an incredibly irresponsible choice.

As for b, you're going to have to support that - something you have yet to do.

I find it interesting that neither Jocabia, nor Dempublicents1 has responded at all to my posts. And that the biggest issue that has been brought up with it is that people can try to take advantage of the system; an issue that I think was worked out in posts after the first.

Aw. You didn't have CABLE? Dear God!!! Here I was as a kid, hungry and was happy to get a potato, and complaining about being poor when there were people out there with no CABLE and unable to eat in restaurants. When will the madness end? Next you're going to be telling me that someone wanted you to pay for a child you fathered. How ghastly.

Dear God,

Please think of the people out their with no cable television and unable to go to Bennigan's. Please try to help them whenever you get a moment. I know there are ACTUAL poor people out there, but this guy doesn't have cable.

Amen



Uh-huh. According to many in this thread it's the unfortunate and endangered American male who is accosted on every street corner by women stealing his hard-earned dough and a bunch of evil women out there trying to find the next man to trap. You know, because the whole giving birth and raising a child alone thing is just so desirable.

Hey don't blame all men who want equal reproductive rights because you were poor. Blame your mother who wanted to have a kid with no job skills and no supportive male figure. Your mother made a choice to have you and be poor instead of abort you or give you up for adoption to people who could have provided more for you. If someone cant provide food for thier kid they have no right having one.

The whole giving birth and raising a child alone must be fun because woman do it even with the choices of adoption and abortion. I guess you see women as people totally incapable of making any rational decision.

A father cannot rip the child from the mother's arms and put it up for adoption. I don't know what you mean by that. I guess the father could take the child if the mother wanted to put it up for adoption but the issue of unwanted pregnancy on the father's part is what we are talking about and this doesn't apply to that argument.

No, a father cannot do that. And a mother cannot do that to the father. Neither can give the child up for adoption without the other either doing the same, or having an alternate (a stepparent, if you will) parent to take on the duties. Some jurisdictions may allow one parent to give full responsibility to the other, but I have yet to see one that does.

And it sucks that guys have to get a thumb shoved up their ass to check their prostate. What is the point here.

(Women get fingers stuck up their asses to, but we'll just skip that point) The point is that there are basic biological differences between men and women. Many of them cause things that we might consider "unfair," but there isn't much we can do about them.

Birth is undertaken by the mother this is true but she also gets almost exclusive legal control. This is already taken into account. Would you rather have fathers go through birth and then be able to walk away with the children and deny visitation to the mother? I doubt it.

She gets legal control of the pregnancy, because the pregnancy is a condition of and within her body. That is the point.

Body fat? Women live longer than men so this body fat obviously doesn't outweigh a woman's natural longevity in comparison to a man. If you are referring to looks women are at least as responsible for weight stereotypes as men if not more so. As for the sex side effects women also have more nerve endings in their genitalia than men and thus have the possibility of better and multiple orgasms. Should I complain about that?

No, you shouldn't. There are benefits to being either sex - and things that suck about it. That is life. The fact that a man cannot get pregnant and then choose between abortion or continuing the pregnancy is a biological difference. One can complain that it is unfair, but one cannot logically suggest that the law itself is somehow causing this difference.

This is exactly what I said. So we agree.

I'm confused by this part. You seem to be implying that if a man doesn't want to pay child support there is no reason to rely upon them for it? (correct me if I am wrong) This seems to go against the whole point and what I perceived as your stance as you seem to clearly support forced child support. I support it as well so I'm guessing I just misunderstand you.

I don't support forced child support. I don't think that any person should be "forced" into parenthood, because that doesn't create a good atmosphere for the child. It isn't really a matter of the rights of the parents - it is more an issue of what is best for the child. A child is probably better off in a poor home, even a welfare home, than with a parent like AllCoolNamesAreTaken in the picture at all. A child is probably better off in the custody of the state, awaiting possible adoption, than in the custody of parents who are unwilling or unable to take care of her.

I *do* believe that any responsible person will willingly take on the care of their children.

As for the general comments you made in response to other people I think you are a bit harsh. Consider a child that you do not want in any way and that a woman chooses herself to keep without considering your life and as a result your entire life is spent struggling to make ends meat. I can sympathise with this a great deal although I also see no other way around it and so cannot support changing it. You basically provide a child to someone else and have to foot the bill at the expense of any hopes or dreams you ever had. Rather selfish on the part of the mother if you ask me. Of course I am talking about only certain cases where the partners were not ready at all and the child was unexpected and unwanted.

In this case, I think the best choice for the parent who wants the child to give the other parent a big "Fuck you," and cut them out of the child's life completely. That doesn't mean that I will have respect for the parent who has chosen to leave.

I know many people in this situation (due to drugs in almost all cases as it is almost impossible to take a child from a mother otherwise) and not one women is required to pay child support. I grant you that it is probably on the books as you say but in practice it is rare.

Then the practice should be fixed. The law is already there.


Are you against abortion and adoption?

To a point, yes. They are both crappy options that are only in the picture if someone has an unwanted pregnancy or a child they cannot or will not care for. These are bad situations no matter how you look at it - and there are no truly responsible choices available.

Are you some one who believes life is only about breeding and raising children?

Hardly. Life wouldn't really be all that great if that was all it was about.


Child support rules are made to penalize the person without custody, which is 40-80% of time the father.

Child support laws have nothing to do with penalizing anyone. Their intent is to make sure that children are adequately provided for. Does this have to be through the finances of the biological parents? No, not necessarily. But do claim that the intent is to penalize someone is rather silly.

The point is they arn't. In non-joint situations, the man is expected to support the lion's share of expenses. Even if the mother has more income.

You're going to have to provide some evidence of this one.

Again, the point is that they arn't. Men are expected to have more financial responsibility and the mother seeks and, most often, wins custody of the child.

Are you suggesting that the $200 a month you were talking about earlier is the majority of the money needed to raise a child?

I'm not going to apologise for being angry at an unjust system, or at a woman who's going on spending sprees and sitting on the couch without a job, all funded by me.

If this is actually the case, it isn't the product of an unjust system - but of an irresponsible woman.

Yes. Although when something is 99.2% effective, you generally take your chances. Condoms are less effective. Unless you are going to campaign for "no sex unless married and intending to conceive a child", you will never convince me. And if that IS your argument, I ask you to take a gander at reality. It is actually a nice place to live. AND, the birth control didn't fail in my case, she just lied about being on it.

Then you haven't read my posts. I know this thread is long, but I related my story first on page 10. I told her I didn't want children, ever. She knew I had Crohn's Disease, and didn't want to possibly pass it on. She initially agreed to have an abortion, but her mother convinced her it was "unholy" or some such shit, so she changed her mind.

So, is there a logical reason that you haven't had a vasectomy by now? Meanwhile, the pill is 99.2% effective, condoms are less so, but if you put them together you actually get *above* 99.2%. For someone who absolutely will not take care of a child, even that 0.8% is a pretty big risk.

I actually agree with you. I repeat, I have NO interest in ever being a parent. I can't stand children. Having a die hard cynical atheist who doesn't like children probably isn't a good parent for a child.

Once again, is there a particular reason you haven't had a vasectomy yet? I'd be happy to donate to the cause if money is the issue.

I find it interesting that neither Jocabia, nor Dempublicents1 has responded at all to my posts. And that the biggest issue that has been brought up with it is that people can try to take advantage of the system; an issue that I think was worked out in posts after the first.

IIRC, your posts didn't invoke the idiotic, "It's about the equal protection clause," argument and were actually fairly reasonable, although I could still see problems with your system. Thus, I really felt no need to respond.


Hey don't blame all men who want equal reproductive rights because you were poor.

It isn't logically possible for men to have "equal reproductive rights," because men cannot get pregnant. Sorry, but that's the way the cards fall.

Blame your mother who wanted to have a kid with no job skills and no supportive male figure. Your mother made a choice to have you and be poor instead of abort you or give you up for adoption to people who could have provided more for you. If someone cant provide food for thier kid they have no right having one.

Oh dear, you have no idea what went on in Jocabia's life, but you are going to assume that his parents were (a) poor when he was born (b) unskilled and (c) not together. Try again.

The whole giving birth and raising a child alone must be fun because woman do it even with the choices of adoption and abortion. I guess you see women as people totally incapable of making any rational decision.

I doubt any woman would tell you that giving birth was fun. I personally think that having and raising a child will be one of the most important and enjoyable things I will do in my life. Doing so alone would be less rewarding than having the father there, but I luckily have a fiance who I believe will stand by me for the rest of my life.

I'm not going to apologise for being angry at an unjust system, or at a woman who's going on spending sprees and sitting on the couch without a job, all funded by me. If I am less eloquent and more angry and opinionated than normal on this issue, it is because it is so close to me and I am still so furious because of it. There's a reason they say the best place to hurt a man isn't the groin, it's the wallet.

she isnt working, she is raising a child, she is going on shopping sprees

all on your $8448/year?

And in my mind, I do not have a child, I just have a $704 a month Stupid Tax, a fee reminding me to never trust a woman who says she is on birth control.
And what if she had been on birth control? It's not perfect. Would you feel the same way if you had made a bet (on the success rate of birth control) and lost?

Hey don't blame all men who want equal reproductive rights because you were poor. Blame your mother who wanted to have a kid with no job skills and no supportive male figure. Your mother made a choice to have you and be poor instead of abort you or give you up for adoption to people who could have provided more for you. If someone cant provide food for thier kid they have no right having one.

The whole giving birth and raising a child alone must be fun because woman do it even with the choices of adoption and abortion. I guess you see women as people totally incapable of making any rational decision.

You really should try thinking before you post. My mother and father were married. There are thousands of unadopted children. People who make the adoption argument are clueless.

I love that you assume the only way one can be poor is if you have a single mother. I guess we know where your head's at.

I was pointing out that women weigh a lot more into the decision than men consider and I don't imagine any of the things she considers is "how can I trap this man into paying me not enough money to support my child on for 18 years?"

Although when something is 99.2% effective, you generally take your chances.
Right. "Take your chances." But when you are having sex with a woman who would not (or even might not) want an abortion, that .8% chance is that you will father a child for her... one for whom you should take responsibility. You made the bet. You need to pay up.

Unless you are going to campaign for "no sex unless married and intending to conceive a child", you will never convince me.

Certainly I wouldn't! I'm not married. Nor do I intend to get married. But, my girlfriend and I have sex... Of course, we have also agreed in advance that any accidental pregancy will be aborted.

So, the answer is "no sex unless a) intending to conceive a child; b) mutually agreed to abort a pregnancy; or c) prepared to live with the consequences of parenting a child."

AND, the birth control didn't fail in my case, she just lied about being on it.
In that case, I'm (mostly) on your side. You were still entering into a situation that you should have known might lead to a child (because birth control is not perfect), but you were misled about the real probability of that happening. As I said earlier in this thread, when the man is deceived he should not have to pay child support--but that is literally the only circumstance in which his "opting out" makes sense.

Women are sometimes required to pay child support, although this is rare since most often women want (and successfully manage to get) access to the children. And you could keep an online database of this sort of thing so that you wouldn't need to have a significant amount of government effort in tracking down repeat offenders (since if this database exists and is reasonably well known than either partner can check the other partner's listings when doing the paperwork).

Of course, then you run into the privacy issue with having such a database.

Maybe you can only check the database when filing this sort of paperwork, and even then only for your partner.


Also, if the government does catch repeat offenders, after fining them they will know who to give the money back to, since they will have a record of all people involved.

You asked for a response. You dropped my jaw. That you would think that is enough of an issue to require a national database that violates the privacy of women is flabberghasting. Despite the claims of some mysoginists, the number of women willing to risk their lives in order to trap a man is very, very small. This is not a great problem.

You asked for a response. You dropped my jaw. That you would think that is enough of an issue to require a national database that violates the privacy of women is flabberghasting. Despite the claims of some mysoginists, the number of women willing to risk their lives in order to trap a man is very, very small. This is not a great problem.

Hmmm, apparently I didn't recall correctly.

Darn.

Everyone listen to Jocabia and Dempublicents.


There is no gender bias in the system, anyone who says otherwise is a woman hating male who doesn't want to take responsibility paying for his child. It is a woman's right to have children, regardless of what the father says about it, and the father should have to support his child. That isn't biased or unfair in anyway.

If you don't get the sarcasm, get in your car and ride on down to your weekly Militant Feminists 'R' Us meeting and leave this thread to people who will debate the issue rationally.

Let me see if I can get this straight. Essentially what this argument boils down to is this:

The advocates for this law say that since the woman made the decision not to have an abortion, they should have to live with the results.

People opposing this law are essentially saying that since the woman decided to have the child, the child now needs to have the support of a second parent--via funding if nothing else.

Not needs, has a right to. Our objection is that the law signs away the rights of the child with no representation on behalf of the child.

If we simply edit the law slightly to state that the opting out father must pay all costs normally associated with pregnancy, along with the maximum reasonable cost for an abortion, it seems that we solve the issue. The advocates of the law get their slightly modified law (which should still be fair from their perspective, since if the woman wanted an abortion unilaterally they would have to pay a similar cost). Meanwhile the opponents to this law should note that this gives the mother the following choices:

--get an abortion, and pocket the leftover cash that the father paid as part of the costs of pregnancy, since the pregnancy won't be brought to term (this cash being the recompense for the physical and psychological pains associated with an aborted pregnancy)
--bring the child to term and then put the child up for adoption (the father having already waived his parental rights, the mother can do this on their own) (the cash from the cost of an abortion can be considered a recompense for the pains of childbirth)
--bring the child to term and try to raise it herself (the cash from the cost of an abortion being the only child support the mother will ever get, the mother can make this decision if she is sufficiently wealthy to support the child on her own (at which point why would she have deserved child support from the father anyway))

Clearly, in all three circumstances, the needs of the child have been looked out for; in the first the child never exists as its own being, in the second the child has been placed in the care of the state (both parents having opted out of raising the child), in the third either the mother is sufficiently financially stable to not need any involvement from the father aside from covering costs during pregnancy, or neither parent was properly looking out for the interests of the child and care for it properly belonged to the state to begin with.

Nothing about this post warrented reply. Mother's don't receive child supprt, children do. The first two are already possible and this law does not change that. A man is already generally responsible for paying half the pregnancy costs. This is perfectly fair. in the last situation, you make an assertion that is unfounded. What the hell does your silly law have to do with the financial stability of the child?

No part of your changes address the problem with the original suggested law, that there is no representative for the child in the signing of this contract that signs away the child's rights.

Nobody responded to you, because you said nothing knew, and said them worse than they had already been argued. There is no need to address every post in the thread when we have already addressed the points. There. Happy, now?

Jocabia is arguing more for on a basis of a child's right to support.

Dempublicents has been very reasonable so far.

Right. "Take your chances." But when you are having sex with a woman who would not (or even might not) want an abortion, that .8% chance is that you will father a child for her... one for whom you should take responsibility. You made the bet. You need to pay up.



Certainly I wouldn't! I'm not married. Nor do I intend to get married. But, my girlfriend and I have sex... Of course, we have also agreed in advance that any accidental pregancy will be aborted.

So, the answer is "no sex unless a) intending to conceive a child; b) mutually agreed to abort a pregnancy; or c) prepared to live with the consequences of parenting a child."


In that case, I'm (mostly) on your side. You were still entering into a situation that you should have known might lead to a child (because birth control is not perfect), but you were misled about the real probability of that happening. As I said earlier in this thread, when the man is deceived he should not have to pay child support--but that is literally the only circumstance in which his "opting out" makes sense.

The woman should be punished, but how does taking child support away from the child represent a solution to the issue. I don't care if she lied and said she used to be a man and thus had no equipment, the child has rights and there is no reason to punish the child. Now, what you could say is that the woman loses custody of the child because of defrauding the father and the father makes the sole decision to put the child up for adoption.

Everyone listen to Jocabia and Dempublicents.

There is no gender bias in the system, anyone who says otherwise is a woman hating male who doesn't want to take responsibility paying for his child. It is a woman's right to have children, regardless of what the father says about it, and the father should have to support his child. That isn't biased or unfair in anyway.

I have never said that there is no gender bias in the system - only that there is no gender bias in the law - and there isn't. Is it applied unequally? Sometimes. Is that a problem? Certainly. And I would fight for any parent - man or woman - who had the law applied to them unequally. But, "the law is sometimes misapplied" does not equate to, "The law is unequal and needs to be changed on the basis of the equal protection clause."

Meanwhile, it is a woman's right to decide what to do in the event of a pregnancy. Obviously, the man can have no say about it, because HE ISN'T PREGNANT. Is that unfair? Yeah, probably. Of course, it is unfair that women are always the ones who get pregnant in reproduction anyways. It is unfair that men tend to die sooner. It is unfair that women have to get yearly pap smears to be on birth control, while men never have to have a pap. It is unfair that men are more likely to go bald. But we deal with biological differences.

Meanwhile, I have never said that *any* parent should have to support or raise their child involuntarily. Doing so puts the child in a bad situation. AllCoolNamesAreTaken is exactly the kind of person I would want to keep away from any children I might have (or be involved in the lives of at all) at all costs.

However, that doesn't change the fact that the responsible thing for *any* parent to do is to take care of their offspring. Are some people irresponsible? Yes, but I'm not going to cry for them when someone asks them to be responsible.

I have never said that there is no gender bias in the system - only that there is no gender bias in the law - and there isn't. Only relevant if there is no bias in the system.

And I would fight for any parent - man or woman - who had the law applied to them unequally.
Which is what you are arguing against, go figure.


Obviously, the man can have no say about it, because HE ISN'T PREGNANT.
Any unilateral decision made by the female should absolve the father of any culpability for shirking responsibility.

Of course, it is unfair that women are always the ones who get pregnant in reproduction anyways. It is unfair that men tend to die sooner. It is unfair that women have to get yearly pap smears to be on birth control, while men never have to have a pap. It is unfair that men are more likely to go bald. But we deal with biological differences.
Red Herring.


Meanwhile, I have never said that *any* parent should have to support or raise their child involuntarily.
Yet that is what you and Joacabia are arguing your asses off for, go figure again.

AllCoolNamesAreTaken is exactly the kind of person I would want to keep away from any children I might have (or be involved in the lives of at all) at all costs.
Ad Hominem and contradictory to the part I split off.

However, that doesn't change the fact that the responsible thing for *any* parent to do is to take care of their offspring.
Oh, I get it now. You have never said a parent should be forced to support or raise their child, you just imply for plausible deniability.

You asked for a response. You dropped my jaw. That you would think that is enough of an issue to require a national database that violates the privacy of women is flabberghasting. Despite the claims of some mysoginists, the number of women willing to risk their lives in order to trap a man is very, very small. This is not a great problem.

The problem is, if one woman can do this ("trap" a man, get pregnant, get him to pay not to be involved, then get a cheap abortion) six, maybe ten times a year, then even if only 0.1% of women would actually want to do something like that, such women would still represent a significant portion of the cases where this would be used at all. (If the pill is, indeed, 99.2% effective, only 0.8% of women who were honestly on it could even possibly get into a situation where this would be necessary. Of them, most can probably come to an agreement with their mates (since we've assumed that we've already weeded out the women who would take repeated advantage of this law), and so the number of cases where such a contract would be needed is clearly on the same order of magnitude as the 0.1% I originally mentioned I thought might try to take advantage of the system. Of course, that choice was arbitrary, but it's pretty hard to say that significantly less than 1 in 1000 women would try to take advantage of the system.)

On the other hand, the more I think about it, the less need I see for the database itself to be public knowledge. Since this is a legal document that will be notarized and everything, a copy can simply be passed along to the FBI, whose job it is to keep this sort of domestic file anyway.

As a side note, this isn't just to protect against women from trying to take advantage of the money paid out from this, but also to prevent rich men from repeatedly abusing this system.


Nothing about this post warrented reply. Mother's don't receive child supprt, children do. The first two are already possible and this law does not change that. A man is already generally responsible for paying half the pregnancy costs. This is perfectly fair. in the last situation, you make an assertion that is unfounded. What the hell does your silly law have to do with the financial stability of the child?

No part of your changes address the problem with the original suggested law, that there is no representative for the child in the signing of this contract that signs away the child's rights.

Nobody responded to you, because you said nothing knew, and said them worse than they had already been argued. There is no need to address every post in the thread when we have already addressed the points. There. Happy, now?


No, mothers do recieve child support. The money is supposed to be put towards helping the child, but the money doesn't go directly (that's the entire point of having a legal guardian; because the child wouldn't make the best decisions for themselves).

There is a representative for the child at the signing--the state. Because if something goes wrong, the state is who winds up raising the child. The father is essentially signing an agreement with the state that says:
"I fathered this pregnancy. It was an accident. I don't want it to come to term. I care enough to pay as needed for the pregnancy not to come to term myself. If it does come to term, it is because the remaining parent (who would be the one making decisions as the child's legal guardian under the current system anyway, and therefore is assumed under the current system to know what is best for the child) has decided that they can handle it on their own without my involvement. I waive any parental rights regarding the child."

Nobody responded to you, because you said nothing knew, and said them worse than they had already been argued. There is no need to address every post in the thread when we have already addressed the points. There. Happy, now?


As a side note, plenty of people did respond to me, but they all seemed to be people who were initially in favor of this law, so it seemed like a good idea to attempt to elicit a response from the other side of the argument, as it had chosen to ignore me for several pages.

The problem is, if one woman can do this ("trap" a man, get pregnant, get him to pay not to be involved, then get a cheap abortion) six, maybe ten times a year, then even if only 0.1% of women would actually want to do something like that, such women would still represent a significant portion of the cases where this would be used at all. (If the pill is, indeed, 99.2% effective, only 0.8% of women who were honestly on it could even possibly get into a situation where this would be necessary. Of them, most can probably come to an agreement with their mates (since we've assumed that we've already weeded out the women who would take repeated advantage of this law), and so the number of cases where such a contract would be needed is clearly on the same order of magnitude as the 0.1% I originally mentioned I thought might try to take advantage of the system. Of course, that choice was arbitrary, but it's pretty hard to say that significantly less than 1 in 1000 women would try to take advantage of the system.)

On the other hand, the more I think about it, the less need I see for the database itself to be public knowledge. Since this is a legal document that will be notarized and everything, a copy can simply be passed along to the FBI, whose job it is to keep this sort of domestic file anyway.

As a side note, this isn't just to protect against women from trying to take advantage of the money paid out from this, but also to prevent rich men from repeatedly abusing this system.



No, mothers do recieve child support. The money is supposed to be put towards helping the child, but the money doesn't go directly (that's the entire point of having a legal guardian; because the child wouldn't make the best decisions for themselves).

There is a representative for the child at the signing--the state. Because if something goes wrong, the state is who winds up raising the child. The father is essentially signing an agreement with the state that says:
"I fathered this pregnancy. It was an accident. I don't want it to come to term. I care enough to pay as needed for the pregnancy not to come to term myself. If it does come to term, it is because the remaining parent (who would be the one making decisions as the child's legal guardian under the current system anyway, and therefore is assumed under the current system to know what is best for the child) has decided that they can handle it on their own without my involvement. I waive any parental rights regarding the child."

I started a reply but your posts are so clueless that I don't really see the point. I'll give you this part. The state is no an agent for the child. The mere fact that you would suggest that this has ANYTHING to do with abortion shows how clueless you are. The document has no effect on a child until one exists. At that point the child has rights and the state is not acting in the interest of the child in denying that child support. There is no child's advocate in that situation despite your spurious claims. There is no precendent for denying a child support of a parent without a willing surrogate. Are you suggesting the state is becoming the surrogate? Nope. Thus no one is protecting the child in the situation and I think you know it. And the mother is the child's agent unless she is deemed unsafe to the child when the father chooses not to be involved. So there is your problem. That's also why child support is not paid to the mother but to the child. Now, if you are suggesting the mother is not an agent of the child, then you have bigger problem.

As far as the rest of that ridiculous post, your lack of understanding of the process of abortion, conception and all related issues is astounding.

As a side note, plenty of people did respond to me, but they all seemed to be people who were initially in favor of this law, so it seemed like a good idea to attempt to elicit a response from the other side of the argument, as it had chosen to ignore me for several pages.

Well, I have a lot of posters to respond to who have put more thought into the issue and more to say. Seriously, your posts make want to poke my eyes out.

That's also why child support is not paid to the mother but to the child. Now, if you are suggesting the mother is not an agent of the child, then you have bigger problem.
The mother decides how child support is used.

You really should try thinking before you post. My mother and father were married. There are thousands of unadopted children. People who make the adoption argument are clueless.

I love that you assume the only way one can be poor is if you have a single mother. I guess we know where your head's at.

I was pointing out that women weigh a lot more into the decision than men consider and I don't imagine any of the things she considers is "how can I trap this man into paying me not enough money to support my child on for 18 years?"

I thought your “I was so poor as a child I was happy to see a potato” rant was an example of having a deadbeat dad. I had no idea you were trying to win a who is the biggest victim contest.

Only relevant if there is no bias in the system.

No, it's not. Fix the system, don't break the balance in the law.

Which is what you are arguing against, go figure.

No, she's not. The law is not what treats people unequally. It is biology.

Any unilateral decision made by the female should absolve the father of any culpability for shirking responsibility.

I love how many men are making this argument that just happens to make so a man need NEVER take responsibility for a child he fathered. Until men start dying in childbirth, you really have no room to complain that women are unfairly representing biologically. Women can get pregnant and it has good and bad side-effects. Quit crying about it.


Red Herring.

What you mean you're not expecting the law to make all of the differences in biology equal? Only the ones that let you shirk responsibility, huh?

The problem with your entire argument is that no matter how much hate women, child support has NOTHING to do with them. Child support is a consideration of the rights of the child and you wish to take out your hatred of women on the child. Personally, I would do anything to keep you away from my children, but the fact is that the state is not in a position to subjugate the rights of a child because of your mysogyny. Anytime you like feel free to shake your fist at God, because He is the only one that can make the system fair.

I thought your “I was so poor as a child I was happy to see a potato” rant was an example of having a deadbeat dad. I had no idea you were trying to win a who is the biggest victim contest.

No. My point is that unless you were starving, I could care less that the state made you support your children. At all. You're were the one who began the appeal to emotion. I know some Americans think cable, a new car and a big TV are rights, but they are priveleges and the law has no need to ensure you get them or keep them.

I wasn't a victim. I'm very happy with my childhood. It taught me to never do something as silly as cry that the world is unfair because I don't have cable.

The mother decides how child support is used.

Acting as an agent of the child. It has nothing to do with the child. Also, she only decides if she is the acting custodian. Who should do it? The two-year-old?

I started a reply but your posts are so clueless that I don't really see the point. I'll give you this part. The state is no an agent for the child. The mere fact that you would suggest that this has ANYTHING to do with abortion shows how clueless you are. The document has no effect on a child until one exists. At that point the child has rights and the state is not acting in the interest of the child in denying that child support. There is no child's advocate in that situation despite your spurious claims. There is no precendent for denying a child support of a parent without a willing surrogate. Are you suggesting the state is becoming the surrogate? Nope. Thus no one is protecting the child in the situation and I think you know it. And the mother is the child's agent unless she is deemed unsafe to the child when the father chooses not to be involved. So there is your problem. That's also why child support is not paid to the mother but to the child. Now, if you are suggesting the mother is not an agent of the child, then you have bigger problem.

As far as the rest of that ridiculous post, your lack of understanding of the process of abortion, conception and all related issues is astounding.


I am suggesting that the mother is an agent for the child, and that if they decide to take the child to term and keep the child knowing that the father has chosen not to be involved that they should have to pay for it. The father has fronted the cost for an alternative--abortion. The state has fronted the cost for an alternative--adoption. If the mother still wishes to keep the child, it must be safe to assume that she won't need child support, since the father already made it clear he won't be paying anything beyond the amount already set aside. But if there is no further financial necessity from the second parent to raise the child, then there was no reason to award child support to begin with.

As a side note, I didn't suggest that this option had anything to do with abortion. But it should be noted that an agreement such as this should only be made and paid out when abortion is still an option for the woman.

Finally, I'm instensely curious what specific points about my post show a "lack of understanding about the process of abortion, conception and all related issues". Because I assure you, the statistics (aside from the one I made up, which I noted was arbitrary; the claim that about 0.1% of women might try to take advantage of my system by repeatedly getting pregnant, getting the guy to pay her off, and getting an abortion less expensive than the amount she was paid by the man under my system) are quite sound.

Acting as an agent of the child. It has nothing to do with the child. Also, she only decides if she is the acting custodian. Who should do it? The two-year-old?
Pomp and ceremony.

Pomp and ceremony.

Ah, yes, no answer. I'm shocked.

I am suggesting that the mother is an agent for the child, and that if they decide to take the child to term and keep the child knowing that the father has chosen not to be involved that they should have to pay for it. The father has fronted the cost for an alternative--abortion. The state has fronted the cost for an alternative--adoption. If the mother still wishes to keep the child, it must be safe to assume that she won't need child support, since the father already made it clear he won't be paying anything beyond the amount already set aside. But if there is no further financial necessity from the second parent to raise the child, then there was no reason to award child support to begin with.

As a side note, I didn't suggest that this option had anything to do with abortion. But it should be noted that an agreement such as this should only be made and paid out when abortion is still an option for the woman.

Finally, I'm instensely curious what specific points about my post show a "lack of understanding about the process of abortion, conception and all related issues". Because I assure you, the statistics (aside from the one I made up, which I noted was arbitrary; the claim that about 0.1% of women might try to take advantage of my system by repeatedly getting pregnant, getting the guy to pay her off, and getting an abortion less expensive than the amount she was paid by the man under my system) are quite sound.

You think women could get abortions 10 times a year.

Let me guess you're not very educated are you?

she isnt working, she is raising a child, she is going on shopping sprees

all on your $8448/year?

She gets child support from ANOTHER unlucky guy as well. And she happens to live with her parents, so they can take care of her two kids. While she goes out, spends money or smokes out and then sits on her ass.

And what if she had been on birth control? It's not perfect. Would you feel the same way if you had made a bet (on the success rate of birth control) and lost?

Yes. If I told the woman I never wanted a child, ever. And she understood that before we entered into a sexual relationship. And I offered to pay for the abortion. So yes, I would feel EXACTLY the same way.

I love how many men are making this argument that just happens to make so a man need NEVER take responsibility for a child he fathered. Until men start dying in childbirth, you really have no room to complain that women are unfairly representing biologically. Women can get pregnant and it has good and bad side-effects. Quit crying about it.

No, at least, not under my version of the law. Firstly, my version is only for pre-natal use while abortion is still an option--an option the man must entirely pay for, plus the costs of carrying the child to term instead, so that regardless of the woman's choice she is covered at least until the birth. Second, repeat offenders can be properly punished--both male and female repeat offenders. A fitting punishment (in addition to fines) might be, say, compulsory community service, freeing up more government personnel for running orphanages and public daycare centers. Or something equally useful toward alleviating the problem (as many people have mentioned, I doubt it would be a good idea to actually get such people near kids, so I wouldn't want them running orphanages/daycares themselves). This isn't a blanket escape--it's a plan D for when plans A through C fail (A and B being two forms of contraceptives, and C being working it out with your significant other directly), for use before there is a child.


The problem with your entire argument is that no matter how much hate women, child support has NOTHING to do with them. Child support is a consideration of the rights of the child and you wish to take out your hatred of women on the child. Personally, I would do anything to keep you away from my children, but the fact is that the state is not in a position to subjugate the rights of a child because of your mysogyny. Anytime you like feel free to shake your fist at God, be

This is like saying, no matter how much you hate dark storm clouds (sorry for the unflattering metaphor, ladies), rain has nothing to do with them. Just because you want to drive your car around, emitting various gasses which can act as a precipitant for water vapor in the air, doesn't mean that you shouldn't be allowed to have an umbrella or poncho like everyone else when the rain comes around. To be fair, you should try to drive a fuel efficient car to reduce emissions--decreasing the chance of rain by providing less precipitant, and you shouldn't strand yourself in the middle of nowhere without rain gear once you've already seen the dark clouds rolling in when you can bring an umbrella with you, but you should still be allowed to use an umbrella you brought with you to avoid the rain.


You think women could get abortions 10 times a year.

I'm not intimately familiar with biology, no. Forgive me, I'm a math major. In any case, I would certainly draw the line between use and abuse far lower than that.

I just asked my roommate, who's a bio major, and he suggested that 5 times per year would be a biological maximum--but even then a woman would probably bleed out.

In any case, if the pill is 99.2% effective, then if we made the line between use of this system and abuse at, say 4 times in a two year period, statistically you basically wouldn't expect false positives, even without the psychological effect that would inherently tend to curb false positives to begin with.

No, at least, not under my version of the law. Firstly, my version is only for pre-natal use while abortion is still an option--an option the man must entirely pay for, plus the costs of carrying the child to term instead, so that regardless of the woman's choice she is covered at least until the birth. Second, repeat offenders can be properly punished--both male and female repeat offenders. A fitting punishment (in addition to fines) might be, say, compulsory community service, freeing up more government personnel for running orphanages and public daycare centers. Or something equally useful toward alleviating the problem (as many people have mentioned, I doubt it would be a good idea to actually get such people near kids, so I wouldn't want them running orphanages/daycares themselves). This isn't a blanket escape--it's a plan D for when plans A through C fail (A and B being two forms of contraceptives, and C being working it out with your significant other directly), for use before there is a child.



This is like saying, no matter how much you hate dark storm clouds (sorry for the unflattering metaphor, ladies), rain has nothing to do with them. Just because you want to drive your car around, emitting various gasses which can act as a precipitant for water vapor in the air, doesn't mean that you shouldn't be allowed to have an umbrella or poncho like everyone else when the rain comes around. To be fair, you should try to drive a fuel efficient car to reduce emissions--decreasing the chance of rain by providing less precipitant, and you shouldn't strand yourself in the middle of nowhere without rain gear once you've already seen the dark clouds rolling in when you can bring an umbrella with you, but you should still be allowed to use an umbrella you brought with you to avoid the rain.


I'm not intimately familiar with biology, no. Forgive me, I'm a math major. In any case, I would certainly draw the line between use and abuse far lower than that.

I just asked my roommate, who's a bio major, and he suggested that 5 times per year would be a biological maximum--but even then a woman would probably bleed out.

In any case, if the pill is 99.2% effective, then if we made the line between use of this system and abuse at, say 4 times in a two year period, statistically you basically wouldn't expect false positives, even without the psychological effect that would inherently tend to curb false positives to begin with.

Ding, ding, ding. Someone figured out that abortion is traumatic on the body. Everything about your posts evidences a complete lack of information about EVERYTHING surrounding this issue. That's why I skipped them.

Ding, ding, ding. Someone figured out that abortion is traumatic on the body. Everything about your posts evidences a complete lack of information about EVERYTHING surrounding this issue. That's why I skipped them.

Yes and poverty is also traumatic on the body.I just don’t understand how you can hate your own sex so much you are unable to see the unfairness of child support. Child support in many cases destroys a man if he is poor. Go down to your local court house and look on the wall. At the deadbeat dads most wanted look at the pictures on the wall. I guarantee you will not be looking at a doctor, lawyer or wealthy businessman. Most of them are unemployed or working poor they are barely surviving and people like you expect them to pay child support for a kid they never wanted. Society tells non custodial fathers they cant get sick, get laid off or get mentally ill There are no excuses to not paying support you pay it or you are a deadbeat.

A woman has a choice if she is poor she can have an abortion or give the child up for adoption. A woman that has a kid and is poor has made a conscious decision she has had over nine months to make a choice if she wants to live in poverty or give the kid up for adoption or have an abortion. No person should be able to make someone parent a child against their will.

Ah, yes, no answer. I'm shocked.
That was the answer.

Jocabia: "The woman doesn't control the money, but it is the woman's to spend "for the child"."

Jocabia: "The woman doesn't control the money, but it is the woman's to spend "for the child"."

Funny, I seem to think that a person who has authority on how something is spent has "control" over it. Maybe I don't understand the meaning of the word control.

And I always laugh when I hear this argument. Either the woman who gets my money isn't using the money for the child and is instead spending it on herself (while the kid is watched by grandma), or she seems to think the best interests of the child are that she buys clothes and CD's for herself, and stays stoned all the time.

That was the answer.

Jocabia: "The woman doesn't control the money, but it is the woman's to spend "for the child"."

I asked you a question. That cannot be the answer. THe question was, who is better suited? The two-year-old?

Yes and poverty is also traumatic on the body.I just don’t understand how you can hate your own sex so much you are unable to see the unfairness of child support. Child support in many cases destroys a man if he is poor. Go down to your local court house and look on the wall. At the deadbeat dads most wanted look at the pictures on the wall. I guarantee you will not be looking at a doctor, lawyer or wealthy businessman. Most of them are unemployed or working poor they are barely surviving and people like you expect them to pay child support for a kid they never wanted. Society tells non custodial fathers they cant get sick, get laid off or get mentally ill There are no excuses to not paying support you pay it or you are a deadbeat.

A woman has a choice if she is poor she can have an abortion or give the child up for adoption. A woman that has a kid and is poor has made a conscious decision she has had over nine months to make a choice if she wants to live in poverty or give the kid up for adoption or have an abortion. No person should be able to make someone parent a child against their will.

Hate my own sex, huh? Mysogyny has blinded you. This is not an us versus them thing. That's number one.

You don't know what poverty is, number two. 'I don't even have cable. I'm so poor.' I don't measure poverty by how often you eat at Appleby's.

Third, mysogyny aside, child support is a consideration of the child. If have to choose between an innocent child and my sex, and I don't, I'm going to choose the child. You're an adult. Quit crying that the law worries about them more than you.

Funny, I seem to think that a person who has authority on how something is spent has "control" over it. Maybe I don't understand the meaning of the word control.

And I always laugh when I hear this argument. Either the woman who gets my money isn't using the money for the child and is instead spending it on herself (while the kid is watched by grandma), or she seems to think the best interests of the child are that she buys clothes and CD's for herself, and stays stoned all the time.

If the woman cannot be trusted to spend the money on the child, you have an option. Stop being an absentee father and spend it yourself. Otherwise, you have nothing to say to the parent who steps up and actually cares for the child.

I'd like to throw this question out there please...

Under which circumstances do you feel paying child support should be mandatory?

I asked you a question. That cannot be the answer. THe question was, who is better suited? The two-year-old?
Strawmen do not make real arguments and I will not humour you by pretending they do.

If the woman cannot be trusted to spend the money on the child, you have an option. Stop being an absentee father and spend it yourself. Otherwise, you have nothing to say to the parent who steps up and actually cares for the child.
Oh, look another surprise. Jocabia now insulting him on ignorant premises.

I just found a little interesting tidbit on the "we shouldn't have to pay for their kids" argument. Actually, I have found many on lots of arguments, but we've covered a lot more of less. Others will simply be wasted on the victim-culture indoctrinated here.

However, in Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 265-6, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 1019, 25 L.Ed.2d 287, 1970, the Supreme Court ruled that procreational autonomy may not be infringed by the state to save money. What that means is, that right to have or NOT have children CANNOT be infringed upon by the state based on any monetary burden on society. That is why there can be no limit on the number of children you can have in the US like there has been in China. There can be no minimum, and a child, even of your own DNA, cannot be forcably given to you to take care of. Therefore, the state cannot force you to have a child you do not want to have, even if it costs them money. That is why people who have abandoned their children cannot be hunted down and forced to care for them. Or why women who abandon children CANNOT be forced to pay for the child's care in an orphanage or whatever. However, this is exactly what child support is.

I'd like to throw this question out there please...

Under which circumstances do you feel paying child support should be mandatory?
Apparently to two people that will remain nameless *cough Jocabia and Dempublicents cough* it is all the time in intention but supposedly not in speech.

If the woman makes unilateral decisions without regards to the father, up to birth and including keeping the child, the father should not be forced to support the child unless he obliges to do so.

If the father ensures the woman he will support a child and reneges in anyway, he should be strung up and forced to pay.

Assholes, egotists, and liars lose and good people win in my set of rules. There is no arbitrary set of "fair" rules to interpret with historical precedence of overwhelming support for the mother.

Strawmen do not make real arguments and I will not humour you by pretending they do.


Oh, look another surprise. Jocabia now insulting him on ignorant premises.

Dude, look up the word straw man. You said a woman controls the money for the child as if it is unfair. My question is what would be more fair? Who is better to represent the interests of the child?

Insulting him. He's an absentee father. He admits it. He in fact said he should never be around children. Seriously, I seriously have to question what you're ingesting that you don't understand the word ignorant, strawman and insult.

I just found a little interesting tidbit on the "we shouldn't have to pay for their kids" argument. Actually, I have found many on lots of arguments, but we've covered a lot more of less. Others will simply be wasted on the victim-culture indoctrinated here.

However, in Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 265-6, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 1019, 25 L.Ed.2d 287, 1970, the Supreme Court ruled that procreational autonomy may not be infringed by the state to save money. What that means is, that right to have or NOT have children CANNOT be infringed upon by the state based on any monetary burden on society. That is why there can be no limit on the number of children you can have in the US like there has been in China. There can be no minimum, and a child, even of your own DNA, cannot be forcably given to you to take care of. Therefore, the state cannot force you to have a child you do not want to have, even if it costs them money. That is why people who have abandoned their children cannot be hunted down and forced to care for them. Or why women who abandon children CANNOT be forced to pay for the child's care in an orphanage or whatever. However, this is exactly what child support is.

People who abandon their child can be hunted down. They arent forced to take care of them, they go to jail for Child Abandonment.

Dude, look up the word straw man. You said a woman controls the money for the child as if it is unfair. My question is what would be more fair? Who is better to represent the interests of the child?
She controls the money, the end.
Who would represent the interests of the child best, and fairly? A third-party arbitrator.

Apparently to two people that will remain nameless *cough Jocabia and Dempublicents cough* it is all the time in intention but supposedly not in speech.

If the woman makes unilateral decisions without regards to the father, up to birth and including keeping the child, the father should not be forced to support the child unless he obliges to do so.

If the father ensures the woman he will support a child and reneges in anyway, he should be strung up and forced to pay.

Assholes, egotists, and liars lose and good people win in my set of rules. There is no arbitrary set of "fair" rules to interpret with historical precedence of overwhelming support for the mother.

Ha. No, actually, I only encourage child support in cases where A) no agent of the child chooses to be a surrogate or B) both parents do not have equal custody or C) a voluntary agreement has not been reached. Mandatory agreements are arbitrations to ensure the needs of the child are met. Most men take no issue with meeting their responsibilities so mandatory child support is often not necessary.

You wish to give men special rights that the woman does not have. The woman does not have have the ability to single-handedly dissolve their responsibility to the child if a child exists. The man should not have that ability either.

She controls the money, the end.
Who would represent the interests of the child best, and fairly? A third-party arbitrator.

You want the state to control the money. You want the state to make each monetary decision on behalf of the child? Are you shitting me? Are you willing to pay for this? I'd imagine that would be expensive. Plus, seeing as the state is not involved in the child's life, they may have trouble make appropriate decisions. Well, expect the child to be likely to get less support and expect your payments to double. Of course, you won't mind that, will you?

You wish to give men special rights that the woman does not have. The woman does not have have the ability to single-handedly dissolve their responsibility to the child if a child exists. The man should not have that ability either.

This is a straw man. We are not arguing that a man should have rights women do not. If a person consents to having a child, they should be responsible for it. We are arguing that women have a right men do not- they have a right to end a pregnancy or give a child up for adoption IF THEY DO NOT WANT IT, regardless of what the man thinks. We just say that men should have this right too. Since we do not want to force a woman who doesn't want an abortion to have one, we are merely saying that a man who doesn't want a child should have the same right as a woman- they should be able to "opt out" of being a parent.

You want the state to control the money. You want the state to make each monetary decision on behalf of the child? Are you shitting me? Are you willing to pay for this? I'd imagine that would be expensive. Plus, seeing as the state is not involved in the child's life, they may have trouble make appropriate decisions. Well, expect the child to be likely to get less support and expect your payments to double. Of course, you won't mind that, will you?

It would be easy...and fair.

yeah it sucks to be a man today

how DARE society demand that a man support his children? what about FREEDOM??

he should be able to date a woman until he knocks her up then toss her a bit of cash to cover his part of a cheap abortion then move on to the next woman.

its unfair to expect him to reduce his lifestyle to pay for what he has created. his wallet is SO much more important than any dependant child.

You wish to give men special rights that the woman does not have.
What bullshit. Women have the right to unilaterally make all decisions involving the child: abortion, adoption, and birthing to raise.

The woman does not have have the ability to single-handedly dissolve their responsibility to the child if a child exists.
Then who does? The state? The state is an arbitrary, corrupt entity who is full of shit. Oh, and it knows nothing about individual cases accept what is told them by biased sources, and they are inclined to listen to the woman because she is the mother and made all the decisions about birthing and raising.

The man should not have that ability either.
Who suggested the man should have that ability? If the woman can make unilateral decisions about the fate of the future child, without consulting the father, he is absolved of responsibility except upon his own good graces. If you say men have no problem supporting their child, why force them in a corrupt legal system?


You want the state to control the money. You want the state to make each monetary decision on behalf of the child? Are you shitting me? Are you willing to pay for this? I'd imagine that would be expensive. Plus, seeing as the state is not involved in the child's life, they may have trouble make appropriate decisions. Well, expect the child to be likely to get less support and expect your payments to double. Of course, you won't mind that, will you?
Who said the state? I said a third-party arbitrator.
You want the woman to control the money, despite saying you don't.

Hate my own sex, huh? Mysogyny has blinded you. This is not an us versus them thing. That's number one.
So mysogyny is pointing out statitics like
. Average wage of a so called dead beat father is 6.70hr
. 60% of (so called dead beat) fathers dont have a high school diploma or GED
http://www.calib.com/peerta/pdf/broken.pdf look on page 8 to confirm


You don't know what poverty is, number two. 'I don't even have cable. I'm so poor.' I don't measure poverty by how often you eat at Appleby's.

Why don't you go back and look at who said that it was not me. I just pointed out your child victim rant. Mr. (I was happy to see a potato when I was a child.)

Third, mysogyny aside, child support is a consideration of the child. If have to choose between an innocent child and my sex, and I don't, I'm going to choose the child. You're an adult. Quit crying that the law worries about them more than you.

Is that all you can do is spew your political correct BS. I am not worried about the law for myself. I am mad about the blatant unfairness of it for men.
Especially the effects of child support on poor men. You think poor men are going to get a fair shake of the judicial system when they go to court. No they will get steamrolled by the system and ordered to pay an unfair amount of child support. If they can not pay it they get there cars taken away or there drivers license suspended or they can go to jail. Give me examples of how I am wrong. Instead of throwing empty labels like mysogynist why don't you try and make a valid point.

I just found a little interesting tidbit on the "we shouldn't have to pay for their kids" argument. Actually, I have found many on lots of arguments, but we've covered a lot more of less. Others will simply be wasted on the victim-culture indoctrinated here.

However, in Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 265-6, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 1019, 25 L.Ed.2d 287, 1970, the Supreme Court ruled that procreational autonomy may not be infringed by the state to save money. What that means is, that right to have or NOT have children CANNOT be infringed upon by the state based on any monetary burden on society. That is why there can be no limit on the number of children you can have in the US like there has been in China. There can be no minimum, and a child, even of your own DNA, cannot be forcably given to you to take care of. Therefore, the state cannot force you to have a child you do not want to have, even if it costs them money. That is why people who have abandoned their children cannot be hunted down and forced to care for them. Or why women who abandon children CANNOT be forced to pay for the child's care in an orphanage or whatever. However, this is exactly what child support is.

Seems like you have a bit of trouble interpreting decisions. Here I'll help you -

The constitutional issue to be decided, therefore, is the narrow one whether the Due Process Clause requires that the recipient be afforded an evidentiary hearing before the termination of benefits.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=397&invol=254

This was a case about whether state benefits can be terminated without due process. Your summary has NOTHING to do with the actual case.

yeah it sucks to be a man today
how DARE society demand that a man support his children? what about FREEDOM??
he should be able to date a woman until he knocks her up then toss her a bit of cash to cover his part of a cheap abortion then move on to the next woman.
its unfair to expect him to reduce his lifestyle to pay for what he has created. his wallet is SO much more important than any dependant child.

So, say a woman gets pregannt. Can the state tell her she can't have an abortion? That she HAS to? That they are taking her child after she carries it? That she cannot give it up for adoption? That even if she doesn't want to be a parent, she HAS to give birth, and then she will have to pay for it, for 21 years, even if she chooses to not be a part of the child's life? A woman is raped, can the state tell her she has to keep and care for the child, or tell her she has to abort it? These things cannot happen because of rights women have that men do not. Hell, even a raped boy barely old enough to get an erection HAS to pay child support.

STATE of Kansas, ex rel., Colleen HERMESMANN, Appellee, v. Shane SEYER, a minor, and Dan and Mary Seyer, his parents, Appellants. No. 67,978. Supreme Court of Kansas. March 5, 1993.

<nsipped for bad quote code>
whereas the children of poor men can live on nothing??

So mysogyny is pointing out statitics like
. Average wage of a so called dead beat father is 6.70hr
. 60% of (so called dead beat) fathers dont have a high school diploma or GED
http://www.calib.com/peerta/pdf/broken.pdf look on page 8 to confirm

How is that a point? Does that change the needs of the child? Not that I know of.

Why don't you go back and look at who said that it was not me. I just pointed out your child victim rant. Mr. (I was happy to see a potato when I was a child.)

It wasn't a rant. It was an explanation of why we shouldn't care when people complain their television isn't big enough, they don't have cable or they couldn't afford dessert when they went out to eat.

Is that all you can do is spew your political correct BS. I am not worried about the law for myself. I am mad about the blatant unfairness of it for men.
Especially the effects of child support on poor men. You think poor men are going to get a fair shake of the judicial system when they go to court. No they will get steamrolled by the system and ordered to pay an unfair amount of child support. If they can not pay it they get there cars taken away or there drivers license suspended or they can go to jail. Give me examples of how I am wrong. Instead of throwing empty labels like mysogynist why don't you try and make a valid point.

Shake your fist at God. He made it unfair. It's funny how so many of you claimed that we treat women as victims, but none of us are defending the women by saying it's unfair to them. We are defending the children. You guys however just can't stop crying about how unfait things are. It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fair. Once a child exists the responsibilities and rights of both parents are equal. During pregnancy they are not. If you want to have the same rights during pregnancy, you have to create the same responsibiliiteis. And you CANNOT.

Seems like you have a bit of trouble interpreting decisions. Here I'll help you -
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=397&invol=254

This was a case about whether state benefits can be terminated without due process. Your summary has NOTHING to do with the actual case.

And yet, the ruling states that fundamental rights, such as procreational autonomy, may not be infringed by the state to merely save money.

I never said that was what the case was about, only that the ruling included the above statement.

http://www.nas.com/c4m/public_policy_arg.html

whereas the children of poor men can live on nothing??
Men are still forced to pay exhorbent amounts of child support even if the mother has a larger income.

It wasn't a rant. It was an explanation of why we shouldn't care when people complain their television isn't big enough, they don't have cable or they couldn't afford dessert when they went out to eat.
Dempublicents brought up giving up luxuries like cable or eating out so you can afford to pay child support, which is bullshit on its face. You are taking the gist of everyones replies to that out of context and abusing them to insult people. Leave this thread if you can be neither rational nor mature.

It's funny how so many of you claimed that we treat women as victims, but none of us are defending the women by saying it's unfair to them.
It is so unfair for women to be able to make all the decisions about the fate of a future child without consent of the father and then charge the father for inavoidable support for the child + expenses (extra expenses are added to already calculated child support) until it is 18.

So, say a woman gets pregannt. Can the state tell her she can't have an abortion? That she HAS to? That they are taking her child after she carries it? That she cannot give it up for adoption? That even if she doesn't want to be a parent, she HAS to give birth, and then she will have to pay for it, for 21 years, even if she chooses to not be a part of the child's life? A woman is raped, can the state tell her she has to keep and care for the child, or tell her she has to abort it? These things cannot happen because of rights women have that men do not. Hell, even a raped boy barely old enough to get an erection HAS to pay child support.

STATE of Kansas, ex rel., Colleen HERMESMANN, Appellee, v. Shane SEYER, a minor, and Dan and Mary Seyer, his parents, Appellants. No. 67,978. Supreme Court of Kansas. March 5, 1993.
if a woman gets pregnant, she has the option to have an abortion. if she wants to put it up for adoption, she has to get the agreement of the childs father in order to do so.

if he doesnt agree, she cant do it. she can agree to give the child over to the father but she will have to pay child support for it.

if she keeps the baby she pays to support her child. money, time, effort, worry, food from her own body. she is not on a free ride with the bit of money the average man is required to give her to support their child.

the ONLY right a woman has that a man doesnt have is to have an abortion. if a prenancy results in a live child, they have equal rights and responsibilities to it. the father can make the mothers life just as miserable as she can make his.

Men are still forced to pay exhorbent amounts of child support even if the mother has a larger income.




Actually its based on many factors. Where the paying parent lives, their income and the income of the custodial parent. It's about 17% of the paying parents income.

If you want to have the same rights during pregnancy, you have to create the same responsibiliiteis. And you CANNOT.


Sorry, I disagree. I still go to jail if I shoot an illegal immigrant. (S)he has the right to not get shot wether or not they have the responsibilities of citizenship.

Your argument, right there, is what is fundamentally wrong with this issue, this culture, and "women's rights" if you ask me. You say you don't want a double standard- then INSIST on one. Want the same pay? Fine with me. Want any job you want? Fine with me. Want to do it and have to do less work JUST because you're a woman? Now we have a problem.

Actually its based on many factors. Where the paying parent lives, their income and the income of the custodial parent. It's about 17% of the paying parents income.
Like I said, the laws are fair, court rulings arn't always.

And yet, the ruling states that fundamental rights, such as procreational autonomy, may not be infringed by the state to merely save money.

I never said that was what the case was about, only that the ruling included the above statement.

http://www.nas.com/c4m/public_policy_arg.html

They aren't infringing on your reproductive rights. You don't have the right to abandon your children. They are also not saving money. They are spending money to make sure that children are cared for by their natural parents.

Meanwhile, can you quote the portion of the decision that makes that claim because I scoured the case and didn't see it? You should have no trouble quoting it. I gave you the link.

Like I said, the laws are fair, court rulings arn't.

So address the courts' bias, not the already fair laws.

Sorry, I disagree. I still go to jail if I shoot an illegal immigrant. (S)he has the right to not get shot wether or not they have the responsibilities of citizenship.

Your argument, right there, is what is fundamentally wrong with this issue, this culture, and "women's rights" if you ask me. You say you don't want a double standard- then INSIST on one. Want the same pay? Fine with me. Want any job you want? Fine with me. Want to do it and have to do less work JUST because you're a woman? Now we have a problem.
and what does THAT have to do with the need of men to pay child support?

Only relevant if there is no bias in the system.

The bias in the system is a product of the people in it - and has to be changed there.

Which is what you are arguing against, go figure.

No, I'm not. The law itself is equal. You are asking for a change in the law. That change might be a good thing, so long as it, in turn, is applied equally. But you aren't arguing for equal treatment under the law - but a different kind of treatment.

Any unilateral decision made by the female should absolve the father of any culpability for shirking responsibility.

So a man will never ever have any responsibility to a child? And you don't call that shirking responsibility?

Red Herring.

Not at all. The "unfairness" here is a product of a basic biological difference - same as all the unfairnesses I brought up.

Yet that is what you and Joacabia are arguing your asses off for, go figure again.

I challenge you to show me a single place that I have stated that any person should be *legally forced* into parenthood. I'd be happy to show you the numerous times I have said the exact opposite.

Ad Hominem and contradictory to the part I split off.

Not really an ad hominem. The fact that he wants no part in his child's life - and indeed even refers to his own son as "it" - demonstrates that his very presence is detrimental to the child. That is the very basis of my argument for allowing this type of thing.

Oh, I get it now. You have never said a parent should be forced to support or raise their child, you just imply for plausible deniability.

I have never even implied that anyone should be *forced* to do so. I simply have stated, time and time again, that they *should* do so. There is a rather large difference there. I'm not going to force someone to do it, but I'm not going to respect them for not doing it.

whereas the children of poor men can live on nothing??

That was the mothers decision to bring the child into the world with out the ability to support the child. She knew Joe Broke did not have a dime when she had sex with him. She has 9 months or even longer to get an abortion or put the child up for adoption. If a woman can not afford to care for the child she has no business having the child.

Sorry, I disagree. I still go to jail if I shoot an illegal immigrant. (S)he has the right to not get shot wether or not they have the responsibilities of citizenship.

That's an excellent example because those rights are not granted by citizenship. However, the 'rights' you are disputing are granted by pregnancy. Thank you for supporting my point.

Your argument, right there, is what is fundamentally wrong with this issue, this culture, and "women's rights" if you ask me. You say you don't want a double standard- then INSIST on one. Want the same pay? Fine with me. Want any job you want? Fine with me. Want to do it and have to do less work JUST because you're a woman? Now we have a problem.
I don't want a double-standard. It's not a double-standard. It's a natural inequality. Ha, now it's not about reproductive rights, I see. It's just mysogyny. Hate women, elsewhere. Your irrational fear of women stealing your rights bores me.

They aren't infringing on your reproductive rights. You don't have the right to abandon your children.
Letters and numbers. Sentence B does not go with sentence A.
The state does not have the right to force some one to take care of their children.

They are spending money to make sure that children are cared for by their natural parents.
If neither parent can support it, the best thing for the child is for it to be taken as a ward of the state and put up for adoption. Being the natural parent does not mean they are a capable parent for their child, nor should there be any pretense that they are.

Like I said, the laws are fair, court rulings arn't.

Although I disagree on the laws being fair, you are right on the courts.

Even though the mother is unemployed, she still gets "credit", for working a full time minimum wage job. Meaning that her "portion" of the child's cost, is credited to her without her actually contributing it. I also have to pay for health insurance, she does not. 17% is a moderate figure. Florida is higher. And that is 17% gross- BEFORE federal, state, medicare, insurance, etc is taken out. She also gets to claim a dependant on her taxes. I do not.

I don't want a double-standard. It's not a double-standard. It's a natural inequality. Ha, now it's not about reproductive rights, I see. It's just mysogyny. Hate women, elsewhere. Your irrational fear of women stealing your rights bores me.
Then please leave, your irrational and abrasive approach to this debate pisses me off.

As a side note, plenty of people did respond to me, but they all seemed to be people who were initially in favor of this law, so it seemed like a good idea to attempt to elicit a response from the other side of the argument, as it had chosen to ignore me for several pages.

You assume that I am opposed to the law - something I have never said. I just pointed out that the arguments that it could fall under the equal protection clause were idiotic - and a bunch of people who apparently can't read took that to mean that I was absolutely opposed.

I am in favor of such a law - for both men and women - as a way of getting irresponsible deadbeats the hell out of a child's life early on.

and what does THAT have to do with the need of men to pay child support?

Nothing. It was just an opportunity to complain about the evil women. We know what this is really about, don't we? There is no secret where this is coming from. it's not a rational argument searching for equality. It's the same argument we see all the time. Affirmative action is oppressing white people. Feminism is a bunch of man-haters who oppress men. Seperatation of Church and State oppresses the religious freedom of the Christians. The poor, poor people who are in a traditional position of power in this country who are being oppressed by all those laws that are making the minorities and the ACTUALLY oppressed be treated equally.

That was the mothers decision to bring the child into the world with out the ability to support the child. She knew Joe Broke did not have a dime when she had sex with him. She has 9 months or even longer to get an abortion or put the child up for adoption. If a woman can not afford to care for the child she has no business having the child.
hmmm and yet its not a womans job to be the sole support of her child unless the father has died.

luckily we dont live in a country that forces a woman to have an abortion for any reason. that would be as bad as living in a country that didnt allow a woman to get an abortion, maybe worse.

if a man doesnt want to end up supporting a child, he needs to exercise better judgement in what women he chooses to have sex with. i have no tears for a man who messes up his own life with his own bad taste in women.

Letters and numbers. Sentence B does not go with sentence A.
The state does not have the right to force some one to take care of their children.

Based on what? I'm still waiting for you to cite the part of that case that says such a thing.

If neither parent can support it, the best thing for the child is for it to be taken as a ward of the state and put up for adoption. Being the natural parent does not mean they are a capable parent for their child, nor should there be any pretense that they are.

Who claimed it did embue such a quality? Not I.

Although I disagree on the laws being fair, you are right on the courts.

Even though the mother is unemployed, she still gets "credit", for working a full time minimum wage job. Meaning that her "portion" of the child's cost, is credited to her without her actually contributing it. I also have to pay for health insurance, she does not. 17% is a moderate figure. Florida is higher. And that is 17% gross- BEFORE federal, state, medicare, insurance, etc is taken out. She also gets to claim a dependant on her taxes. I do not.

I still want to meet the woman that is running around shopping like a mad woman with no job and $8700/year while raising a child. That woman should be put in charge of the national budget.

Although I disagree on the laws being fair, you are right on the courts.

Even though the mother is unemployed, she still gets "credit", for working a full time minimum wage job. Meaning that her "portion" of the child's cost, is credited to her without her actually contributing it. I also have to pay for health insurance, she does not. 17% is a moderate figure. Florida is higher. And that is 17% gross- BEFORE federal, state, medicare, insurance, etc is taken out. She also gets to claim a dependant on her taxes. I do not.
if you suported your son with more than just the money the state forces out of you, by taking actual care of him in your own home for 51% of the year, you could claim him as a dependant.

I'd like to throw this question out there please...

Under which circumstances do you feel paying child support should be mandatory?

Under the circumstances that the parent in question has voluntarily taken on care of the child, but is no longer (or never was) the custodial parent. This includes asking for visitation rights or any other such things. If a parent voluntarily takes on either the rights or responsibilities to a child, I do not think they have any right to change their mind and back out.


Apparently to two people that will remain nameless *cough Jocabia and Dempublicents cough* it is all the time in intention but supposedly not in speech.

Once again, you put words into my mouth that I have never spoken. It is amazing to me that you have such poor reading comprehension that you cannot understand the numerous times within this thread that I have said the opposite.

I'm just not going to cry for the deadbeats who would use such an option - male or female. And I'm not going to take people arguing the equal protection clause when it has nothing to do with it. Be honest. People want to shirk responsibility and they want the legal option to do so. I'm willing to give it, because such irresponsible people have no business having any rights or responsibilities to a child anyways. But, once again, I'm not going to cry for your "plight".

Letters and numbers. Sentence B does not go with sentence A.
The state does not have the right to force some one to take care of their children.

the state has no right telling you that you can or cannot have a child. it cant force you to get a vasectomy, it cant force you to breed. it cant stop you from having sex with a psychobitch who would make a terrible mother.

it can (rather obviously) force you to pay for any children you do decide to create.

if you suported your son with more than just the money the state forces out of you, by taking actual care of him in your own home for 51% of the year, you could claim him as a dependant.
Ridiculous.

it can (rather obviously) force you to pay for any children you do decide to create.
Eeven if you are unable.
Why should it be able to?

Meanwhile, can you quote the portion of the decision that makes that claim because I scoured the case and didn't see it? You should have no trouble quoting it. I gave you the link.

I gave you the link where I got that tidbit of info. Try following it. If you doubt it's applicability, ask them.

and what does THAT have to do with the need of men to pay child support?

As shown by my quote, I was refering to Jocabia's claim that men cannot have the same rights as women, because we do not have the same physical responsibilities.

That's an excellent example because those rights are not granted by citizenship. However, the 'rights' you are disputing are granted by pregnancy. Thank you for supporting my point.

Again, PART OF THE PROBLEM. All men are created equal does not really mean just men. If that were the case, you couldn't vote. You say being a woman gives you the right to not be a parent if you want, while I, as a man do not get that right.

I don't want a double-standard. It's not a double-standard. It's a natural inequality. Ha, now it's not about reproductive rights, I see. It's just mysogyny. Hate women, elsewhere. Your irrational fear of women stealing your rights bores me.
You DO want a double standard. I was using an example of how the victim culture is present in our society, by illustrating other double standards. You seem to think that I have no right to comment on that, and my opinion that everyone has the same rights makes me a "woman-hater."

My point is, a victim society is wrong- "Women and children first." is a clear example of something people do not question, but they should....women insist on the same pay and opportunities, which they deserve. But they do not deserve special treatment. Fewer push-ups or whatever to qualify for the military. That does not make me a mysogyny- if this were the 70's, I would be the posterchild for women's libbers perfect man.

You seem to think I hate all women, when in reality I only hate one.

if you suported your son with more than just the money the state forces out of you, by taking actual care of him in your own home for 51% of the year, you could claim him as a dependant.
What if the mother doesn't ever let the father even see the child?

This is a straw man. We are not arguing that a man should have rights women do not.

Unless you are arguing that a woman should have the same access to the "paper abortion", even if she carries to term, then yes, you are.

If a person consents to having a child, they should be responsible for it.

I agree.

We are arguing that women have a right men do not- they have a right to end a pregnancy or give a child up for adoption IF THEY DO NOT WANT IT, regardless of what the man thinks.

Women have the right to control their own bodies - a right that a man also absolutely has. The difference here is that a woman can get pregnant and have to deal with that, while a man cannot. Of course, a man can have problems that he has to deal with that a woman does not. Why are you so bent on pregnancy?

And no matter how many times you say it, a woman cannot give a child up for adoption regardless of what the man thinks - not legally anyways. In order to put a child into the adoption system (unless you are truly abandoning it and walking away without doing any paperwork - dumpster babies and such), *both* parents must legally consent to doing so.

We just say that men should have this right too. Since we do not want to force a woman who doesn't want an abortion to have one, we are merely saying that a man who doesn't want a child should have the same right as a woman- they should be able to "opt out" of being a parent.

There is no such "right", for either parent. There is the right to control one's own medical decisions -the result of which could be ending a pregnancy.


What bullshit. Women have the right to unilaterally make all decisions involving the child: abortion, adoption, and birthing to raise.

You people keep saying this, and ignoring several facts. (1) Abortion doesn't involve a child, so it isn't a "decision involving the child." (2) A woman cannot legally give a child up for adoption without the father's consent. Thus, she cannot unilaterally make the decision - not legally anyways - and there have been quite a few cases in which a woman was prosecuted for doing so. (3) Obviously only the woman can make the choice to birth a child - a man cannot birth a child.

This is a straw man. We are not arguing that a man should have rights women do not. If a person consents to having a child, they should be responsible for it. We are arguing that women have a right men do not- they have a right to end a pregnancy or give a child up for adoption IF THEY DO NOT WANT IT, regardless of what the man thinks. We just say that men should have this right too. Since we do not want to force a woman who doesn't want an abortion to have one, we are merely saying that a man who doesn't want a child should have the same right as a woman- they should be able to "opt out" of being a parent.

You miss it. Women have rights regarding pregnancy because nature gave them the only ability to get pregnant.

Your part about regardless of what a man thinks is utterly false as I told you before. You chose not to pay attention.

Here are the FL laws -
http://laws.adoption.com/statutes/florida-laws,5.html

Know what a putative father is? Florida is one of the craziest states about protecting paternal rights in adoptions. They passed a law (that was later found to be a violation of privacy) that women must publish a list of their sex partners in the town where the child was conceived prior to giving a child up for adoption without consent of the father.

I still want to meet the woman that is running around shopping like a mad woman with no job and $8700/year while raising a child. That woman should be put in charge of the national budget.

As I said before, which you obviously ignored, she also gets child support for a second child from a different guy. And she lives with her parents. THEY actually take care of the kids.

Ridiculous.

Eeven if you are unable.
Why should it be able to?
thats not ridiculous, thats tax law.

if you are truly unable, if you are on social security disability, i dont think the state can require child support payments from you. i may be wrong. or it may vary from state to state

if you just dont make alot of money, the state will take whatever percentage it can take by law. it sucks to be poor if you have kids or not. being poor doesnt mean you get to abandon your children.

Then please leave, your irrational and abrasive approach to this debate pisses me off.

Amusing you guys have been ranting the entire time about how men are vitimized and women are evil and I'm the irrational one. In fact when I entered into the recent debate was when I saw you both abusing Dem because that uppity woman had the gall to challenge your owe-so-reasoned arguments.

"Pot, let me introduce you the kettle."
"Hey, Kettle. You're black!"

As I said before, which you obviously ignored, she also gets child support for a second child from a different guy. And she lives with her parents. THEY actually take care of the kids.

Uh-huh. Given your calm and rational manner, I'd say this must be exactly the case. I'd say there is no way it could be anything else actually. There is not the slightest evidence of hyperbole.

hmmm and yet its not a womans job to be the sole support of her child unless the father has died.

luckily we dont live in a country that forces a woman to have an abortion for any reason. that would be as bad as living in a country that didnt allow a woman to get an abortion, maybe worse.

if a man doesnt want to end up supporting a child, he needs to exercise better judgement in what women he chooses to have sex with. i have no tears for a man who messes up his own life with his own bad taste in women.

If a woman does not want to have a child she should excercise better judgement in whom she chooses to have sex with. That is a great anti abortion argument.

What if the mother doesn't ever let the father even see the child?
its not up to her

the courts will enforce the noncustodial parents visitation rights even if he doesnt pay the required child support.

What if the mother doesn't ever let the father even see the child?

She doesn't have that right and the father can pursue his rights in court.

Nothing. It was just an opportunity to complain about the evil women. We know what this is really about, don't we? There is no secret where this is coming from. it's not a rational argument searching for equality. It's the same argument we see all the time. Affirmative action is oppressing white people. Feminism is a bunch of man-haters who oppress men. Seperatation of Church and State oppresses the religious freedom of the Christians. The poor, poor people who are in a traditional position of power in this country who are being oppressed by all those laws that are making the minorities and the ACTUALLY oppressed be treated equally.

Nail yourself to a cross much?

I am not white. I support women's rights, MORE truthfully than you do. I am an atheist. So none of your "comparisons" is applicable. YOU are the one in power. YOU have the authority of the state. YOU have the media and the twisted culture to support you. I am the one fighting for equality. But that threatens your preferred existance, and that scares you.

Boy, am I glad this has zero chance of ever happening to me.

I suppose the lawsuit does raise a valid point: men have no control whatsoever over what happens with an unwanted pregnancy. It does strike me as unfair that a man who is unwilling to have a child should be forced to pay for 18 years in support of the child simply because the mother chose to raise it despite the father's wishes.

On the other hand, it would be quite foolish to let men just walk away leaving women with the problem of unwanted pregnancies, like it was in the last centuries.

I guess there's no easy answer to this question.

Amusing you guys have been ranting the entire time about how men are vitimized and women are evil and I'm the irrational one.
Another no surprise, putting words in our mouths and ideas into our arguments.

Nail yourself to a cross much?

I am not white. I support women's rights, MORE truthfully than you do. I am an atheist. So none of your "comparisons" is applicable. YOU are the one in power. YOU have the authority of the state. YOU have the media and the twisted culture to support you. I am the one fighting for equality. But that threatens your preferred existance, and that scares you.

Yes, I could tell by your claims that women want to do less work for equal pay. Clear evidence that you are supportive of women.

You are fighting for equality? For whom? Can you tell me what groups you are a part of? What rallies you've attended? What rights are you fighting for?

Another no surprise, putting words in our mouths and ideas into our arguments.

Ok. Are you actually suggesting that neither of you have suggested that men are victimized by women who are simply taking advantage of the system?

Secondly, that statement was a paraphrase. I'm surprised you didn't recognize it, hypocrit.

Women are the victims of culture and the evil man creature who got her pregnant, thus they are entitled.

Amusing you guys have been ranting the entire time about how men are vitimized and women are evil and I'm the irrational one.

I was poking fun at you. I didn't realize only you were permitted to be hyperbolous.

Uh-huh. Given your calm and rational manner, I'd say this must be exactly the case. I'd say there is no way it could be anything else actually. There is not the slightest evidence of hyperbole.

Poisoning the Well Fallacy.

Doubt it all you want. It's not as if this is new, I've said it before.

If a woman does not want to have a child she should excercise better judgement in whom she chooses to have sex with. That is a great anti abortion argument.
no freaky

a woman can get pregnant by ANY fertile man. good or bad, all he has to have is active sperm

if she doesnt want to get left in the lurch with a deadbeat father or a loser who will never make enough money to provide reasonable support for his child, she should either always be willing to get an abortion or she should exercise better judgement in whom she has sex with .

Ok. Are you actually suggesting that neither of you have suggested that men are victimized by women who are simply taking advantage of the system?
I have suggested the system penalizes the man for having a child and victimizes the woman.

Secondly, that statement was a paraphrase. I'm surprised you didn't recognize it, hypocrite.
I fixed your excellent spelling for you.
But to the point, paraphrases what? Do you know what a paraphrase is? If you call that bullshit up there a "paraphrase," you obviously don't. That was more like satire, very bad satire.


I was poking fun at you.
You fail.

And I wasn't be hyperbolous, I was being sarcastic. I am often both and thus know the difference.

Poisoning the Well Fallacy.

Doubt it all you want. It's not as if this is new, I've said it before.

I give anecdotes little value but given the fact that you cannot appear to look at this issue rationally, I'm not going to put much stock in what you 'say' she is doing when you still call your son, 'it'. I'm curious how you are managing to keep such close tabs on the actions of the mother of your son?

Boy, am I glad this has zero chance of ever happening to me.

I suppose the lawsuit does raise a valid point: men have no control whatsoever over what happens with an unwanted pregnancy. It does strike me as unfair that a man who is unwilling to have a child should be forced to pay for 18 years in support of the child simply because the mother chose to raise it despite the father's wishes.

On the other hand, it would be quite foolish to let men just walk away leaving women with the problem of unwanted pregnancies, like it was in the last centuries.

I guess there's no easy answer to this question.
i suppose i must have watched too much jerry springer in my day but there seem to be quite a few men of bad character who are more than willing to spend their lives in moving from woman to woman knocking each one up along the way.

it think it would be a mistake to have no consequences for that kind of behavior.

I give anecdotes little value but given the fact that you cannot appear to look at this issue rationally,
This is for you
"HI, my name is Pot"
"Hi, Pot"
"I am a habitual hypocrite - I often call my friend Kettle black"

I have suggested the system penalizes the man for having a child and victimizes the woman.

How is the woman victimized?

I fixed your excellent spelling for you.
But to the point, paraphrases what? Do you know what a paraphrase is? If you call that bullshit up there a "paraphrase," you obviously don't. That was more like satire, very bad satire.


You fail.

Ha. You're killing me. I was bored, but this is great stuff. I thought I was being insulting and should leave. Now, you've resorted to jumping on typos.

Sorry, I disagree. I still go to jail if I shoot an illegal immigrant. (S)he has the right to not get shot wether or not they have the responsibilities of citizenship.

Your argument, right there, is what is fundamentally wrong with this issue, this culture, and "women's rights" if you ask me. You say you don't want a double standard- then INSIST on one. Want the same pay? Fine with me. Want any job you want? Fine with me. Want to do it and have to do less work JUST because you're a woman? Now we have a problem.

Explain to me how men can possibly have equal rights regarding pregnancy if they can't get pregnant.

Go....



I'm waiting......

It isn't a "double standard", as it has nothing to do with treating people differently on some arbitrary basis. It is a biological difference. I'm very sorry that you weren't born with a womb instead of a penis so that you could have an abortion - really I am.

Of course, I'm still wondering why someone who absolutely positively does not want children hasn't gotten a vasectomy in the first place....

As shown by my quote, I was refering to Jocabia's claim that men cannot have the same rights as women, because we do not have the same physical responsibilities.

....which is true. With responsibilities come rights, and vice versa. A man cannot get pregnant, so a man cannot decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy. There is no way to "fix" that without somehow figuring out a way to get men pregnant.

Again, PART OF THE PROBLEM. All men are created equal does not really mean just men. If that were the case, you couldn't vote. You say being a woman gives you the right to not be a parent if you want, while I, as a man do not get that right.

No one has said that "being a woman gives you the right to not be a parent if you want." A woman has the right to decide what her body will be used for. The result of that may be that she isn't a parent in the end.

Meanwhile, "all men created equal" does not and has never been interpreted by the courts as meaning that all people are truly and completely equal. That would be ludicrous. The blind cannot see, thus we do not let them drive cars. Is that "unfair"? A man is biologically different from a woman - and thus there will be certain things that woman can do that a man cannot and vice versa - based on nothing more than biology.

My point is, a victim society is wrong- "Women and children first." is a clear example of something people do not question, but they should....women insist on the same pay and opportunities, which they deserve. But they do not deserve special treatment. Fewer push-ups or whatever to qualify for the military. That does not make me a mysogyny- if this were the 70's, I would be the posterchild for women's libbers perfect man.

(a) "Children first" should absolutely be a mantra - as children cannot provide for themselves.

(b) Wow, you don't understand biology at all, do you? Having a woman do less push-ups or whatever for the military isn't a double-standard - it is biologcally applying the *same* standard. Most of the tests for the military are related to a level of fitness. A woman at the same level of fitness as a man will not be doing the same number of push-ups. However, she will be more flexible and probably have better balance than him. A woman at the same level of fitness as a man will have a greater level of body fat (one of the tests for the military). Since fitness is what they are testing, the actual numbers *have* to be different, or they would be holding women to a much, much higher standard than the man on certain points. Now, if the tests were more like, "Must be able to carry all your equipment through this terrain for this amount of time," then they could be exactly the same - as that would be a functional test rather than a fitness one.

You seem to think I hate all women, when in reality I only hate one.

And because she wronged you, you seem to think your situation is the norm.


What if the mother doesn't ever let the father even see the child?

Unless she has shown him to be a danger to the child (in which case he still might be entitled to supervised visits), she cannot legally do so. If she attempts to do so, he can bring her to court for it.


if you just dont make alot of money, the state will take whatever percentage it can take by law. it sucks to be poor if you have kids or not. being poor doesnt mean you get to abandon your children.

To be fair, many of the child support laws in some states have been troublesome in the past. Most are not now, however. Georgia law used to be based on a percentage (with an absolute minimum if the custodial parent didn't actually want child support) - but it was a percentage of gross with no safeguard to keep it from pushing the non-custodial parent into poverty. Of course, upon realizing this, the law was changed.


Amusing you guys have been ranting the entire time about how men are vitimized and women are evil and I'm the irrational one. In fact when I entered into the recent debate was when I saw you both abusing Dem because that uppity woman had the gall to challenge your owe-so-reasoned arguments.

"Pot, let me introduce you the kettle."
"Hey, Kettle. You're black!"

The funniest part is that I wasn't arguing against the law itself - just the idiotic rationale that was being put forth for it. Apparently, these guys are pissed off that I'm not crying for their "plight" when they want to give up responsibilities to a child. I'll grant that they should probably be out of the child's life, for the child's sake, but forgive me if I'm not going to respect them for it.

i suppose i must have watched too much jerry springer in my day but there seem to be quite a few men of bad character who are more than willing to spend their lives in moving from woman to woman knocking each one up along the way.

it think it would be a mistake to have no consequences for that kind of behavior.I don't know if you noticed, but the person you quoted talked about dead beat fathers. I see no point in your commentary, other than that it completely ignores his first point and tries to fix everything to a blanket idea, like the rest of the knee-jerk reactionaries are doing.

How is the woman victimized?
The woman is treated like some sort of victim, victimized.

This is for you
"HI, my name is Pot"
"Hi, Pot"
"I am a habitual hypocrite - I often call my friend Kettle black"

Hahaha. Keep going. The evidence that you approaching this subject rationally is mounting.

i suppose i must have watched too much jerry springer in my day but there seem to be quite a few men of bad character who are more than willing to spend their lives in moving from woman to woman knocking each one up along the way.

it think it would be a mistake to have no consequences for that kind of behavior.
I know, which is why I can't really get myself to agree with the idea of giving men an option to opt out. It just seems like it leaves too much room for abuse... Let's not forget when no condom is used during intercourse it is often because the man whines about it "not feeling the same thing", and thus, in those circumstances he bears a lot of the blame for an eventual pregnancy.

But then again, imagine a situation like this: the woman takes the contraceptive pill. Her and her boyfriend have sex without condoms for that reason. One day, she misses a pill, and gets pregnant: decides to keep it. Now the guy, in whose mind it was clear they were not trying to have children, and had taken all necessary precaustions to ensure an unwanted pregnancy wouldn't happen, is left with no say in the matter. It is unfair.

And let's not forget the classic "woman gets pregnant on purpose in order to prevent her boyfriend from leaving" scenario. I know it doesn't happen often, but it DOES happen. I know, I've seen it first hand: one of my close friends is a father because his at-the-time girlfriend stopped taking her pills on purpose when she felt he might be tempted to leave her. He now has to pay for a child conceived against his will.

I'm really divided on this issue, I guess.

I don't know if you noticed, but the person you quoted talked about dead beat fathers. I see no point in your commentary, other than that it completely ignores his first point and tries to fix everything to a blanket idea, like the rest of the knee-jerk reactionaries are doing.


The woman is treated like some sort of victim, victimized.
im so sorry to have disappointed you

She doesn't have that right and the father can pursue his rights in court.
The mother nearly always wins those. Her word has more weight in our legal system than a father's.

Is it me or are we just arguing the same thing over and over again.
Jocabia this is you http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/ferouscranus.htm
This argument is just going in circles.

The mother nearly always wins those. Her word has more weight in our legal system than a father's.

A mother is rarely, if ever, going to win the court's approval to deny all visitation without providing some pretty compelling evidence that the man is a danger to the child. It doesn't matter how biased the court is, a blanket ban on visitation pretty much doesn't happen.

It is true that, in an actual custody battle, a mother most often gets custody. Some of this may be due to bias in the system. Of course, to a point, it could be that the mother is generally closer to the children and more involved in their upbringing even when both parents are actually in the picture.

I don't know if you noticed, but the person you quoted talked about dead beat fathers. I see no point in your commentary, other than that it completely ignores his first point and tries to fix everything to a blanket idea, like the rest of the knee-jerk reactionaries are doing.

Hey, easy there big fella. I'm quite capable of defending myself and my arguments, and your reply just strikes me as overreacting on what the other poster said.

Besides, you guys seem to be all caught up in the action and worked up over the issue. I'm not. And I don't feel his comment was ignoring mine: he was just putting emphasis on my comments about deadbeat fathers.

The following comment isn't aimed just at you, but at everyone in general: Guys, Gals, chill out a little. We're here to have a conversation, not call in names. I know this is controversial and all, but let's not get too emotionnal on this now, shall we?

I know, which is why I can't really get myself to agree with the idea of giving men an option to opt out. It just seems like it leaves too much room for abuse... Let's not forget when no condom is used during intercourse it is often because the man whines about it "not feeling the same thing", and thus, in those circumstances he bears a lot of the blame for an eventual pregnancy.

But then again, imagine a situation like this: the woman takes the contraceptive pill. Her and her boyfriend have sex without condoms for that reason. One day, she misses a pill, and gets pregnant: decides to keep it. Now the guy, in whose mind it was clear they were not trying to have children, and had taken all necessary precaustions to ensure an unwanted pregnancy wouldn't happen, is left with no say in the matter. It is unfair.

And let's not forget the classic "woman gets pregnant on purpose in order to prevent her boyfriend from leaving" scenario. I know it doesn't happen often, but it DOES happen. I know, I've seen it first hand: one of my close friends is a father because his at-the-time girlfriend stopped taking her pills on purpose when she felt he might be tempted to leave her. He now has to pay for a child conceived against his will.

I'm really divided on this issue, I guess.
yeah there are women who absolutely will trick a man into believing she is using birth control that she isnt using.

its more of a problem with well to do men than with poor men eh? women like bonnie blake who dated many famous men in hopes of getting pregnant by one of them. robert blake was the lucky fool who ened up with her.

penalizing the child isnt the solution though. the child deserves the support of his/her father no matter how s/he came intothe world. there probably should be some kind of legal penalty for this kind of scheming woman though. one that doesnt involve shooting her in the head.

Explain to me how men can possibly have equal rights regarding pregnancy if they can't get pregnant.
So then, men have no right to have a say in the pregnancy but should be expected to take responsibility for it?
I take it I read your point correctly.


Of course, I'm still wondering why someone who absolutely positively does not want children hasn't gotten a vasectomy in the first place....
Logical equivalent of the pro-life argument that "if you didn't want a child, you shouldn't have sex" but worse because you are trying to insist a man have to have a surgical procedure.



....which is true. With responsibilities come rights, and vice versa. A man cannot get pregnant, so a man cannot decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy. There is no way to "fix" that without somehow figuring out a way to get men pregnant.
Again, back to "Men should have no say in any stage of the pregnancy but should be forced to have to support any decision made unilaterally by the woman financially."



No one has said that "being a woman gives you the right to not be a parent if you want."
A woman has the right to decide what her body will be used for. The result of that may be that she isn't a parent in the end.
You just did I believe.

Meanwhile, "all men created equal" does not and has never been interpreted by the courts as meaning that all people are truly and completely equal.
Irrelevant.

That would be ludicrous.
Because why? It defeats your argument?

The blind cannot see, thus we do not let them drive cars.
Red Herring.

Is that "unfair"? A man is biologically different from a woman - and thus there will be certain things that woman can do that a man cannot and vice versa - based on nothing more than biology.
Irrelevant to discussion at hand, but again combined with what I chopped up it culminates in, again, "Men should have no say in any stage of the pregnancy but should be forced to have to support any decision made unilaterally by the woman financially."



(a) "Children first" should absolutely be a mantra - as children cannot provide for themselves.
The laws aggressively defend the child; however, the courts more often than not give the children to the woman, giving the women more power.

(b) Wow, you don't understand biology at all, do you? Having a woman do less push-ups or whatever for the military isn't a double-standard - it is biologcally applying the *same* standard. <snip>
Questionable.


And because she wronged you, you seem to think your situation is the norm.
It is closer to the norm than not.


Unless she has shown him to be a danger to the child (in which case he still might be entitled to supervised visits), she cannot legally do so. If she attempts to do so, he can bring her to court for it.
And, depending where it is, probably lose.


To be fair, many of the child support laws in some states have been troublesome in the past. Most are not now, however. Georgia law used to be based on a percentage (with an absolute minimum if the custodial parent didn't actually want child support) - but it was a percentage of gross with no safeguard to keep it from pushing the non-custodial parent into poverty. Of course, upon realizing this, the law was changed.
Questionable. And the courts decide how to apply the law, again, gender bias disenfranchises and penalizes the father.


The funniest part is that I wasn't arguing against the law itself - just the idiotic rationale that was being put forth for it. Apparently, these guys are pissed off that I'm not crying for their "plight" when they want to give up responsibilities to a child. I'll grant that they should probably be out of the child's life, for the child's sake, but forgive me if I'm not going to respect them for it.
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
You refuse to rationally consider any argument put forth or objectively look at any examples or statistics. You prove the problem in the system with the bias. Where would you stand if the system favored giving fathers sole custody 40-80% of the time and the court system was biased towards the male, unfairly applying Child Support laws to penalize the mother? You claim objectiveness and stand against dead beat dad and moms (who the fuck has heard of a dead beat mom? No one because fathers almost never win sole custody except in extreme circumstances), yet you inherently apply bias for the mother against the father.

The mother nearly always wins those. Her word has more weight in our legal system than a father's.

False. That's a wive's tale. The legal system looks at dozens of factors. Shared custody is the result of the majority of court custody cases by a long shot.

It is true that, in an actual custody battle, a mother most often gets custody. Some of this may be due to bias in the system. Of course, to a point, it could be that the mother is generally closer to the children and more involved in their upbringing even when both parents are actually in the picture.
I do believe this is a bias of the system, although here in Quebec it's slowly starting to change. More and more, fathers who are financially and emotionnally stable gain either full or part custody of the children.

Which is a good thing, IMHO:fathers need to be involved in their children's upbringing. Too often, education and care of the little ones is a task left only for the mother.

yeah there are women who absolutely will trick a man into believing she is using birth control that she isnt using.

its more of a problem with well to do men than with poor men eh? women like bonnie blake who dated many famous men in hopes of getting pregnant by one of them. robert blake was the lucky fool who ened up with her.

penalizing the child isnt the solution though. the child deserves the support of his/her father no matter how s/he came intothe world. there probably should be some kind of legal penalty for this kind of scheming woman though. one that doesnt involve shooting her in the head.

Yes, I totally agree. Perhaps a legal disposition allowing a man to sue the mother, and, if he can prove that she maliciously got impregnated in order to coerce him, then he could opt out of financial support.

But the burden of proof would have to be born by the man, because if it's a normal, accidental pregnancy, he shouldn't be able to use that disposition to avoid his responsibilities.

its more of a problem with well to do men than with poor men eh? women like bonnie blake who dated many famous men in hopes of getting pregnant by one of them. robert blake was the lucky fool who ened up with her.
Bullshit. You are trying to ignore the issue by using the all to often used "It only happens to other people" or at least "It only happens to famous people." It happens to average at a greater percentage by far.

penalizing the child isnt the solution though. .
If the child can't be supported by the mother alone, if she unilaterally makes decisions without the father's consent or tricks the father, the child should be removed from her custody and put up for adoption.

the child deserves the support of his/her father no matter how s/he came intothe world. there probably should be some kind of legal penalty for this kind of scheming woman though. one that doesnt involve shooting her in the head
Whether you realize it or not, you are agreeing with the bias in the system. The woman is not penalized for doing any wrong but the man is penalized solely for being the father. That is also written into the law. If the mother decides to keep the child, the father has to support it (or is supposed to), unless severe mitigating circumstances.

False. That's a wive's tale. The legal system looks at dozens of factors. Shared custody is the result of the majority of court custody cases by a long shot.
Grade A bullshit.
I already looked this shit up. Only in the most liberalized states (California, Michigan, etc) does award of joint custody just equal awards of sole maternal custody. In less liberalized states, read bible belt, awards of sole maternal custody is in the 80% range where joint is around 12%. Awards of sole paternal custody in every state is an average of 15%.

Statistics used and found.
http://www.gocrc.com/research/spcrc97.html
http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/stats.php

I do believe this is a bias of the system, although here in Quebec it's slowly starting to change. More and more, fathers who are financially and emotionnally stable gain either full or part custody of the children.

Part of the "bias in the system" has traditionally been that women are expected to be the nurturers while men are not. Luckily, this "tradition" has been fading with time as well - leaving more men well-equipped for single parenthood.

Which is a good thing, IMHO:fathers need to be involved in their children's upbringing. Too often, education and care of the little ones is a task left only for the mother.

I agree here. The overall best situation in any case is that both parents are responsible and involved in the upbringing of the child. Unfortunately, this often doesn't happen.

Grade A bullshit.
I already looked this shit up. Only in the most liberalized states (California, Michigan, etc) does award of joint custody just equal awards of sole maternal custody. In less liberalized states, read bible belt, awards of sole maternal custody is in the 80% range where joint is around 12%. Awards of sole paternal custody in every state is an average of 15%.

Now, if you can also provide statistics to demonstrate how many of the cases, in each of those states, had a father who actually fought for custody, we'd have something to discuss.

Just saying, "mothers most often get custody," without looking at those statistics is useless, as we don't know how many of those were uncontested.

The woman is treated like some sort of victim, victimized.

That's not what victimized means. It means to make a victim, not to treat as one.

That's not what victimized means. It means to make a victim, not to treat as one.
Yeah, they are retroactively made the victim of the man.

Now, if you can also provide statistics to demonstrate how many of the cases, in each of those states, had a father who actually fought for custody, we'd have something to discuss.
Irrelevant.

Just saying, "mothers most often get custody," without looking at those statistics is useless, as we don't know how many of those were uncontested.
I don't see your point. Custody is getting awarded solely to the mother as a first choice of the judge, there is no other way the rate is that high.

Irrelevant.

Of course it is relevant. If the man had no intention of getting custody, then the woman getting custody cannot possibly be a product of bias - it is simply a product of the man not wanting it.

Are you even making an attempt at being logical here?

I don't see your point. Custody is getting awarded solely to the mother as a first choice of the judge, there is no other way the rate is that high.

Actually, the rate can be inflated by men not *asking* for custody. I've seen many divorce cases go that way. The woman is the only parent to even ask the court for custody, and so they get it. Is it the sole cause of the difference? Probably not. There are all sorts of other factors that can be a part of it - such as the fact that women often take on the role of nurturer because it is expected of them, and are thus closer to the children at the time of divorce. But if we cannot rule out these factors in the majority of cases, we cannot state that there is an overwhelming bias.

This is like looking at the fact that there are more pine trees in GA than oak trees and stating that the ground obviously has a bias for pine trees. We cannot make a statement like that without looking at the contribution of other factors.

The woman should be punished, but how does taking child support away from the child represent a solution to the issue. I don't care if she lied and said she used to be a man and thus had no equipment, the child has rights and there is no reason to punish the child. Now, what you could say is that the woman loses custody of the child because of defrauding the father and the father makes the sole decision to put the child up for adoption.

Personally, I favor a robust public child-care and healthcare system that would make child-support payments essentially a moot issue. Your solution does not seem to do what you mean for it to do... Now, instead of having a single mother and a deadbeat dad, the child would have no natural parents at all, and would be shoved into an adoption system with serious problems of its own.

Nothing against adoption per se, of course. My partner and I have decided never to have our own children, but we often consider adopting once we are both out of graduate school and working. But a lot of kids (especially minorities) put up for adoption remain orphans through their entire childhood. Is that really what you want?

Yes. If I told the woman I never wanted a child, ever. And she understood that before we entered into a sexual relationship. And I offered to pay for the abortion. So yes, I would feel EXACTLY the same way.

That's fair, as long as she agrees to have the abortion. But unless you have a prior agreement from her as to aborting the pregnancy, I think you should still be regarded as rolling the dice. In other words, if you say, "I never want a child. If you get pregnant, I'll pay for your abortion," and she keeps her mouth shut... Well, she never said she would WANT the abortion you offered to pay for.

You need to make sex conditional on a promise of abortion. Anything less, and I say you had it coming.

Personally, I favor a robust public child-care and healthcare system that would make child-support payments essentially a moot issue. Your solution does not seem to do what you mean for it to do... Now, instead of having a single mother and a deadbeat dad, the child would have no natural parents at all, and would be shoved into an adoption system with serious problems of its own.

Nothing against adoption per se, of course. My partner and I have decided never to have our own children, but we often consider adopting once we are both out of graduate school and working. But a lot of kids (especially minorities) put up for adoption remain orphans through their entire childhood. Is that really what you want?

Fraud should be punished, and fraud that victimizes (see that's the proper use of the word for those who are struggling) both the child and the father, moreso. This is the same type of fraud that has thrust children into the adoption system in many other cases without the consent of a father that loved and wanted them (though they are cracking down on this).

I want no children to be in the adoption system. However, I do not want anyone to get away with crimes against children just because punishing them sucks. Punishing any parent sucks, particularly single parents. Are you equally unwilling to punish all parents for crimes or only the ones that commit fraud against children and fathers?

Let's inject REALITY into the situation -

http://www.divorcepeers.com/stats18.htm

51% agreed on their own

29% settled without third party involvement

11% decided during mediation

5% resolved differences after a custody evaluation

4% went to trial (of the 4% that initiated litigation, only 1.5% actually completed it)

96% of custody 'battles' are decided outside of a courtroom. And joint custody is the outcome of 40% of courtroom battles. What people decide to do on their own outside of the courtroom is frankly none of our business. Notice the incredibly high percentage settled between the two parents alone.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-225.pdf

Notice that the average annual child support is five grand. Wow, these people paying child support are being gouged. Everyone knows raising a child costs WAY less than that. :rolleyes:

Other important statistics -

Around 18% of custodial mothers are unemployed (compared to about 9 percent of custodial fathers). This hardly represents a majority or even large minority of mothers sitting at home rubbing their hands together and waiting for their five grand to make them rich.

Around 25% of custodial mothers and 15% of custodial fathers are living in poverty. Taking money away from these mothers and fathers is not the answer, clearly.

Around 45% of custodial mothers and 40% of custodial fathers actually recieve all of their $5,000 in child support.

Now, on the child abuse front -
http://nccanch.acf.hhs.gov/pubs/statsinfo/nis3.cfm#perpetrator

78% of children are maltreated (abused) by birth parents. Of those, 75% are maltreated by birth mothers and 46% are maltreated by birth fathers (some are abused by both). Not this all types of abuse (neglect, physical, sexual, emotional, educational).
That means 35% of abuse cases involve birth fathers and 58% of abuse cases involve birth fathers.

Now the important part to note -
Children of single parents had a 77-percent greater risk of being harmed by physical abuse, an 87-percent greater risk of being harmed by physical neglect, and an 80-percent greater risk of suffering serious injury or harm from abuse or neglect than children living with both parents.

In other words, the increased number of children living with their mothers explains the discrepency. Children in single father homes are more than twice as likely to be physically abused. Again, the cited statistics by our friends were more than misleading.

Children are greater danger of nearly everything in single-parent homes because the decrease in support and increased stresses on the family. This is widely accepted to be true. Earlier cited statistics by our friends were obviously not explained in order to be inflamatory.

its unfair to expect him to reduce his lifestyle to pay for what he has created. his wallet is SO much more important than any dependant child.

We have been over this before. All reproductive rights rest with the woman; they must, it is her body. Because of that, the man takes no role in creating a child, the man only takes part in creating the pregnancy.

The woman creates the child, she is responsible for its welfare.

I'd like to throw this question out there please...

Under which circumstances do you feel paying child support should be mandatory?

When there is an expectation of provision.

If the father is the husband, or if the man is notified of the pregnancy and either expresses his intentions to support the child or remains silent.

All of this is contingent on the mother's acceptance of the father.

96% of custody 'battles' are decided outside of a courtroom. And joint custody is the outcome of 40% of courtroom battles.
Do you try to take things out of context or does it come naturally?
The national average joint custody award is ~28%.


http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-225.pdf

Notice that the average annual child support is five grand. Wow, these people paying child support are being gouged. Everyone knows raising a child costs WAY less than that. :rolleyes:
The father is also expected to pay for expenses.
Oh, and thanks for quoting that. It completely destroys your prior arguments that the system isn't biased against the father.

Around 18% of custodial mothers are unemployed (compared to about 9 percent of custodial fathers).
This proves what? That custodial mothers are leaching off of non-custodial fathers?

This hardly represents a majority or even large minority of mothers sitting at home rubbing their hands together and waiting for their five grand to make them rich.
Death to the straw man!

Around 25% of custodial mothers and 15% of custodial fathers are living in poverty.
Maybe they should get a job? Or not have custody of their children?

Taking money away from these mothers and fathers is not the answer, clearly.
What did the poor straw man do to you?

Around 45% of custodial mothers and 40% of custodial fathers actually recieve all of their $5,000 in child support.
Average $5k. This proves what? Non-custodial fathers are more likely to pay child support?

Now, on the child abuse front -
http://nccanch.acf.hhs.gov/pubs/statsinfo/nis3.cfm#perpetrator

78% of children are maltreated (abused) by birth parents. Of those, 75% are maltreated by birth mothers and 46% are maltreated by birth fathers (some are abused by both). Not this all types of abuse (neglect, physical, sexual, emotional, educational).
That means 35% of abuse cases involve birth fathers and 58% of abuse cases involve birth fathers.
Whoah, what the flying fuck? What did you do to those numbers? Where are you getting your numbers. You quote the study as saying 46% of the 78% of all children mistrated by birth parents are msitreated by the father. How the fuck did you get 35% or 58%? All you prove by this is a) you have no idea how to work statistics and (b) that the system is illogically biased towards mothers. Earlier sources for your argument show that custody awards to the mother is 5 times greather than that to the fater.


In other words, the increased number of children living with their mothers explains the discrepency. Children in single father homes are more than twice as likely to be physically abused. Again, the cited statistics by our friends were more than misleading.
Are you fucking drugged?
Let me requote for you-
78% of children are maltreated (abused) by birth parents. Of those, 75% are maltreated by birth mothers and 46% are maltreated by birth fathers (some are abused by both)
Look at the numbers associated with mother (in bold) then with the father (underlined).


Children are greater danger of nearly everything in single-parent homes because the decrease in support and increased stresses on the family.
Further support of removal from homes where they can not be supported by a single parent without forcible support from the other parent.

Do you try to take things out of context or does it come naturally?
The national average joint custody award is ~28%.

Um, the 'award' in that average is generally agreed to by both parties. Like I said, 40% of court cases result in joint custody. You are only evidencing that the parents agree to joint custody less than it is ordered.

The father is also expected to pay for expenses.
Oh, and thanks for quoting that. It completely destroys your prior arguments that the system isn't biased against the father.

Based on what? It says that men and women generally pay equal amounts of child support and that child support is granted based on the same terms. I like how you just declare things to be true whether they are or not. Care to actually back up your claims.

This proves what? That custodial mothers are leaching off of non-custodial fathers?

Um, no. It shows that VAST majority of custodial parents are out there working, contrary to your claims. It's amazing how in the face of overwhelming evidenc you can just keep making it up.

Death to the straw man!

Hmmmm... I suppose I'll have to search out a quote, oh, wait, here's one from just this post -

This proves what? That custodial mothers are leaching off of non-custodial fathers?

Maybe they should get a job? Or not have custody of their children?

Um, seriously, I'm beginning to wonder about you. The vast majority of custodial mothers AND fathers are employed. Perhaps you should open a book and stop just making stuff up.

What did the poor straw man do to you?

Seriously, look up strawman. This thread is about allowing men to opt out of supporting their children. This takes money away from the child. It's not a strawman. It's the point of the thread.

Average $5k. This proves what? Non-custodial fathers are more likely to pay child support?

Actually, yes. It shows they are just slightly more likely to pay. It also shows there are a great number of parents out there responsibly meeting their children's financial needs.

Whoah, what the flying fuck? What did you do to those numbers? Where are you getting your numbers. You quote the study as saying 46% of the 78% of all children mistrated by birth parents are msitreated by the father. How the fuck did you get 35% or 58%? All you prove by this is a) you have no idea how to work statistics and (b) that the system is illogically biased towards mothers. Earlier sources for your argument show that custody awards to the mother is 5 times greather than that to the fater.

Basic math. 46% of 78% is 35%. That's how statistics work. I get $75/hr as a tutor so if you want me to teach you how to multiply percentages, I'm happy to do so, but you need to send a check.

Your earlier sources were spurious because they do not explain the statistics. The majority of custody cases are uncontested or settled out of court by a HUGE margin those cases are far more likely to award custody to mother. Your problem is with the parents, not the courts.

Are you fucking drugged?
Let me requote for you-

Look at the numbers associated with mother (in bold) then with the father (underlined).

Um, you're not paying attention. First, single-family homes are largely responsible for abuse. Many of those homes have no father in it. In other words, there is no possiblity of abuse by the father, he is absent. In terms of parents that have regular contact with their children the likelihood of abuse is the same for both parents. However, if you read the source, which you clearly didn't, in terms of ONLY physical abuse fathers are actually more than twice as likely to abuse their children. It very much depends on how you look at the statistics. Your sites didn't look at the statistics, but instead summarized them in a way that was misleading.

Further support of removal from homes where they can not be supported by a single parent without forcible support from the other parent.
Pardon? How did you leap over that chasm in logic. The single-parent homes are a necessity. It has nothing to do with whether they are receiving child support or not. How did you jump from children are abused more in single-parent homes to 'this is because the fathers are forced to pay child support'?

What it actually evidences is that children benefit from the involvement of more than one parent and these fathers or mothers that abandon their children are failing their children on more than a financial level.

We have been over this before. All reproductive rights rest with the woman; they must, it is her body. Because of that, the man takes no role in creating a child, the man only takes part in creating the pregnancy.

The woman creates the child, she is responsible for its welfare.

You keep saying that. It's simply not true. Are you actually claiming that men have no right to reproduce? They have no right to access to their offspring? The only reproductive rights a man does not have are associated with the pregnancy because of nature, not law.

We have been over this before. All reproductive rights rest with the woman; they must, it is her body. Because of that, the man takes no role in creating a child, the man only takes part in creating the pregnancy.

The woman creates the child, she is responsible for its welfare.
Do you really want to make that argument? Because if we were to enforce your view then men would have absolutely no legal right to any child unless they went through a process of legal adoption, even for their biological offspring.

You keep saying that. It's simply not true. Are you actually claiming that men have no right to reproduce? They have no right to access to their offspring? The only reproductive rights a man does not have are associated with the pregnancy because of nature, not law.

I am saying that a man's right to reproduce is contingent on the woman's decision. He has absolutely no say unless the woman consents.

What reproductive rights are you proposing that the man should have, legally or naturally?

Do you really want to make that argument? Because if we were to enforce your view then men would have absolutely no legal right to any child unless they went through a process of legal adoption, even for their biological offspring.

Does the simple act of ejaculating entitle a man to be a father?

I would not have it be as stringent as you make it out to be. If there is an expectation of parenthood (i.e. a planned pregnancy, marriage) there will not be a problem at all. Once the father is given legal title as parent, he is equal to the mother.

However, due to the nature of a pregnancy, it is on the mother to represent the interests of the child, and therefore must accept the father.

I am saying that a man's right to reproduce is contingent on the woman's decision. He has absolutely no say unless the woman consents.

What reproductive rights are you proposing that the man should have, legally or naturally?

Reread that. Seriously. Reproduction requires sex. Sex requires CONSENT. Both must get consent. Women simply get to withdraw their consent to reproducing later than men do, due to a biological difference.

Now a man and a woman both have the right to reproduce. Both have a right to their offspring. However, only one has the ability to be pregnancy, so only one has rights regarding pregnancy.

You cannot compare a paper abortion to an actual abortion, because there is no child involved in an actual abortion. And failure to prevent something is not some extra excercise of a right. What if the woman uses birth control and the man doesn't. Now does his responsibility increase. What if he does and she doesn't, does the opposite happen? Abortion is a later form of birth control. It prevents birth. You have a right to use birth control just like she does. However, she happens to have access to a form of birth control that is pretty much guaranteed by the nature of her biology. This does not change the parents' responsibility to the child no matter how much you'd like it to.

You're going down a dangerous road. Are we going to decides rights regarding offspring based on how much effort each parent put into to preventing it?

Does the simple act of ejaculating entitle a man to be a father?

I would not have it be as stringent as you make it out to be. If there is an expectation of parenthood (i.e. a planned pregnancy, marriage) there will not be a problem at all. Once the father is given legal title as parent, he is equal to the mother.

However, due to the nature of a pregnancy, it is on the mother to represent the interests of the child, and therefore must accept the father.

So you wish to limit the reproductive rights of the father. I have to say I object. The act of ejaculating DOES entitle me to be a father provided there is a biological child of mine to father. And it is in the interest of both the father and the child to not allow this to change.

Reread that. Seriously. Reproduction requires sex. Sex requires CONSENT. Both must get consent. Women simply get to withdraw their consent to reproducing later than men do, due to a biological difference.

Sex is not required, only sperm.

And let me point out that men can only consent to sex, they cannot possibly consent to reproduce.

You cannot compare a paper abortion to an actual abortion, because there is no child involved in an actual abortion. And failure to prevent something is not some extra excercise of a right. What if the woman uses birth control and the man doesn't. Now does his responsibility increase. What if he does and she doesn't, does the opposite happen? Abortion is a later form of birth control. It prevents birth. You have a right to use birth control just like she does. However, she happens to have access to a form of birth control that is pretty much guaranteed by the nature of her biology. This does not change the parents' responsibility to the child no matter how much you'd like it to.

There is a big difference between abortion and contraceptives. In fact the difference points out the difference between a man's rights and responsibilities in the situation. A man only has the ability to try and stop conception, that is the only part of the equation he is responsible for. Once it becomes a pregnancy, the woman is completely responsible.

And you keep talking about the child's right to the biological father, and it doesn't hold water. A biological father can give up his obligations (once again with the mother's consent) through adoption, and there is absolutely no legal obligation for a mother to provide a father for the child.

You're going down a dangerous road. Are we going to decides rights regarding offspring based on how much effort each parent put into to preventing it?

Prevention has nothing to do with it.

The person who is responsible for bringing the child into the world represents the interests of the child. Since we must give the woman sole responsibility for her own body, we must give her sole responsibility for the pregnancy. Therefore, she has sole protection of the child's interests.

And you keep talking about the child's right to the biological father, and it doesn't hold water. A biological father can give up his obligations (once again with the mother's consent) through adoption, and there is absolutely no legal obligation for a mother to provide a father for the child.

I don't know where you live, but this really isn't true. If a father is never listed at all, and never comes forward, then he isn't in the picture. But most state law doesn't allow for a parent to give up their legal obligations unless both biological parents are doing so, or there is a replacement parent (ie. a stepparent).

So you wish to limit the reproductive rights of the father.

What natural reproductive rights would I be limiting?

I have to say I object. The act of ejaculating DOES entitle me to be a father provided there is a biological child of mine to father.

Why does ejactulating entitle you to be a father?

Why does a biological link between you and the child entitle you to be the father? Would you not agree that fatherhood is infinitely more complex than genetics?

And it is in the interest of both the father and the child to not allow this to change.

Again, why?

I don't know where you live, but this really isn't true. If a father is never listed at all, and never comes forward, then he isn't in the picture. But most state law doesn't allow for a parent to give up their legal obligations unless both biological parents are doing so, or there is a replacement parent (ie. a stepparent).

He is saying that the child has a legal right to a father. Would that not require the woman to disclose the identity of the father? Are women required to disclose the identity of the father?

And yes, I stated that a child can be put up for adoption if both parents agree to it. (consent of the mother)

In the end there is no legal or natural right for a child to have a father.

What natural reproductive rights would I be limiting?

The right of the father to be *gasp* a father to his offspring.

Why does ejactulating entitle you to be a father?

Why does birthing a child entitle you to be a mother? Because that's how nature works.

Why does a biological link between you and the child entitle you to be the father? Would you not agree that fatherhood is infinitely more complex than genetics?

Yes, but the basis of the entitlement is genetics. It is and always has been. What's the alternative. We take children away from their genetic parents and place them in homes based on our decision about what is best for the children.

Rights aren't earned. They are endowed by nature.

Again, why?
There is much evidence that children benefit from the involvement of their father. If a genetic father wishes to father his child, GREAT. If someone else wishes to adopt the child and the father agrees, GREAT. In the absense of this, well, he's still responsible for his creation.

Why should the woman be the only one to have to make sacrifices when an unplanned pregnancy occurs?
She lied though, she told him she couldn't get pregnant.

That said, I don't think that child support ayments should be optional. I know, there are cases like this, but then for every one of these there are ten where a struggling mother is not getting these payments from her lazy ex-boyfriend because the law isn't being enforced.

Why does birthing a child entitle you to be a mother? Because that's how nature works.

Nature works by giving the mother the ability to make a child. Therefore, nature entitles the woman with the child. When men can produce children, they can bear the responsibility for them.

Yes, but the basis of the entitlement is genetics. It is and always has been. What's the alternative. We take children away from their genetic parents and place them in homes based on our decision about what is best for the children.

I have never said once that children should be relocated.

The alternative is to state that the mother, as a consequence of bringing the child into the world, maintains the best interests of the child. The father is not determined by genetics, but by the woman's determination of what is best for the child that she alone produced over the course of the pregnancy.

There is much evidence that children benefit from the involvement of their father. If a genetic father wishes to father his child, GREAT. If someone else wishes to adopt the child and the father agrees, GREAT. In the absense of this, well, he's still responsible for his creation.

Is there any evidence that the biological father is superior than any other responsible father?

Sex is not required, only sperm.

And let me point out that men can only consent to sex, they cannot possibly consent to reproduce.

They certainly can. They have the right to have sex. They have a right to any form of birth control not restricted by biology. They can consent to having a child as well. They can also have a child they

There is a big difference between abortion and contraceptives. In fact the difference points out the difference between a man's rights and responsibilities in the situation. A man only has the ability to try and stop conception, that is the only part of the equation he is responsible for. Once it becomes a pregnancy, the woman is completely responsible.

No, there is none. It is only those who wish to create an inequity that wish to create such a destinction. Many 'contraceptives' don't actually prevent conception.

You're right. You just got it. The women is responsible for the pregnancy so she gets the right to deal with the pregnancy as she sees fit. The male is responsible for the conception and the child and gets the rights to deal with that child or attempt to prevent that conception and/or child in every way afforded by biology just as much as a woman is. Thank you. I was struggling for a way to lay that out until you did it for me. Quit bitching becaus

And you keep talking about the child's right to the biological father, and it doesn't hold water. A biological father can give up his obligations (once again with the mother's consent) through adoption, and there is absolutely no legal obligation for a mother to provide a father for the child.

The mother acts as an agent of the child. As such she can choose to invoke rights on behalf of the child or not. In that case the child has an advocate. In the paper abortion there is no advocate for the child involved. In adoption, the parents do not make the decision alone, but with the consent of an advocate for the child who will represent the child's interests going forward. Every situation you mention has an agent for the child except the paper abortion.

Prevention has nothing to do with it.

You are talking about prevention. Be intellectually honest. " man only has the ability to try and stop conception". Prevention. And you are lamenting that women are not engaging a particular type of birth prevention. But if we are going to make decisions based on who made the biggest effort to prevent the birth, then let's look at all of those efforts and not just the efforts made by the female.

The person who is responsible for bringing the child into the world represents the interests of the child. Since we must give the woman sole responsibility for her own body, we must give her sole responsibility for the pregnancy. Therefore, she has sole protection of the child's interests.
She is solely responsible for the pregnancy. The father is responsible for the child he contributed to the creation of. No one is asking the father to be responsible for being pregnant. Last touch is not a legal or even logical argument.

Quick question - let's say abortion does not exist or is not available at all. Now, would you still argue that the mother is solely responsible for the child, if there is one?

Nature works by giving the mother the ability to make a child. Therefore, nature entitles the woman with the child. When men can produce children, they can bear the responsibility for them.

Not without the aid of the male it doesn't.

I have never said once that children should be relocated.

The alternative is to state that the mother, as a consequence of bringing the child into the world, maintains the best interests of the child. The father is not determined by genetics, but by the woman's determination of what is best for the child that she alone produced over the course of the pregnancy.

Thus denying ALL reproductive rights of the father. Forgive me if I don't support such a ridiculous suggestion. Someone should explain biology to you. You see first the SPERM enters the egg... The mother did NOTHING alone.

Is there any evidence that the biological father is superior than any other responsible father?

Actually, the evidence has to go the other way friend. YOu wish to abridge the rights of the biological father then you have to show why it is in the interest of anyone that this be done. You haven't.

We're going to start seeing pre-sex agreements become legal contracts, giving the undersigned freedom from responsibility, freedom to abort, etc.

He is saying that the child has a legal right to a father. Would that not require the woman to disclose the identity of the father? Are women required to disclose the identity of the father?

First of all, it wouldn't require the woman to disclose anything. It would require the father stepping up and saying, "This is my son/daughter, and I want that recognized." If the mother disputes his claim, then a paternity test can be ordered by the state.

And, while most states aren't going around prosecuting women who don't list a father on the birth certificate, she generally must show that she at least made an effort to contact the father before giving the child up for adoption.

And yes, I stated that a child can be put up for adoption if both parents agree to it. (consent of the mother)

You stated that the man could give up his obligations with the consent of the mother - this is technically untrue. A man can give up his obligations if she, too, is giving up here. It isn't a matter of simple consent to a man doing it -they both must be doing it. If the father is the only one who wants to give up legal obligations, most places require that an alternate father be waiting in the wings to take over the responsibilities.

In the end there is no legal or natural right for a child to have a father.

Legally, there pretty much is.

Naturally, I would say there absolutely is. Unfortunately, some parents decide to infringe upon it by abandoning their children.

They certainly can. They have the right to have sex. They have a right to any form of birth control not restricted by biology. They can consent to having a child as well.

No matter how hard a man works at creating a child, he needs the woman's consent. No matter how much a man wants a woman to stop a child from being born, he needs the woman's consent.

All consent lies with the woman. If a man could offer or deny his consent, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

You're right. You just got it. The women is responsible for the pregnancy so she gets the right to deal with the pregnancy as she sees fit. The male is responsible for the conception and the child and gets the rights to deal with that child or attempt to prevent that conception and/or child in every way afforded by biology just as much as a woman is. Thank you. I was struggling for a way to lay that out until you did it for me.

The male is responsible for the conception of the fetus, not a child. The pregnancy, which the woman is responsible for, creates the child.

The mother acts as an agent of the child. As such she can choose to invoke rights on behalf of the child or not. In that case the child has an advocate. In the paper abortion there is no advocate for the child involved. In adoption, the parents do not make the decision alone, but with the consent of an advocate for the child who will represent the child's interests going forward. Every situation you mention has an agent for the child except the paper abortion.

The whole of my argument is that the woman, by following through with the pregnancy, takes on full advocacy for the child. The father is not an advocate until the mother grants it to him.

You are talking about prevention. Be intellectually honest. " man only has the ability to try and stop conception". Prevention. And you are lamenting that women are not engaging a particular type of birth prevention. But if we are going to make decisions based on who made the biggest effort to prevent the birth, then let's look at all of those efforts and not just the efforts made by the female.

You brought up prevention. I only made the comment about preventing contraception to contrast the responsibilities between the man and the woman.

And show me where I have been "lamenting" a woman's use of birth prevention.

We don't make decisions on efforts made to prevent birth, we make decisions based on the responsibility required to create the child.

So:

1. The pregnancy creates the child.
2. The woman has responsibility for the pregnancy.
3. The woman has complete responsibility for the creation of the child.

No one is asking the father to be responsible for being pregnant.

I am asking the man to be partially responsible for the resolution of the pregnancy.

I am also asking the woman to be responsible for the decision that she alone makes.

Quick question - let's say abortion does not exist or is not available at all. Now, would you still argue that the mother is solely responsible for the child, if there is one?

I have already stated that my position is contingent on the woman having full control over the pregnancy.

The mother did NOTHING alone.

She doesn't get the right to make decisions regarding the pregnancy alone?

She doesn't take sperm and turn it into a baby alone?

First of all, it wouldn't require the woman to disclose anything. It would require the father stepping up and saying, "This is my son/daughter, and I want that recognized." If the mother disputes his claim, then a paternity test can be ordered by the state.

And, while most states aren't going around prosecuting women who don't list a father on the birth certificate, she generally must show that she at least made an effort to contact the father before giving the child up for adoption.

Are or are not children required to have a father before being turned over to the mother? Are all bastard children turned over to the state or aborted?

You stated that the man could give up his obligations with the consent of the mother - this is technically untrue. A man can give up his obligations if she, too, is giving up here. It isn't a matter of simple consent to a man doing it -they both must be doing it. If the father is the only one who wants to give up legal obligations, most places require that an alternate father be waiting in the wings to take over the responsibilities.

Actually a man can stop making child support payments with the consent of the mother, too, right?

Legally, there pretty much is.

Naturally, I would say there absolutely is. Unfortunately, some parents decide to infringe upon it by abandoning their children.

I don't believe that there is a legal right to a father. I know of one individual who has a child of 11 that is just now going through procedures to make him pay child support. The mother knew he was the father, but never sued for child support.

As a logical extension of a child's right to a father, we should not let single mothers adopt, right?

And I know there is no natural right to a father. It is impossible to have natural claim rights.

I have already stated that my position is contingent on the woman having full control over the pregnancy.

I'm going to simplify the point, if you don't mind.

So let me see if we're clear. In the absense of access to an abortion, the woman is not solely responsible for the child? (Let's assume it's simply impossible so we don't have to deal with the legal ramifications at this time).

I'm going to simplify the point, if you don't mind.

So let me see if we're clear. In the absense of access to an abortion, the woman is not solely responsible for the child? (Let's assume it's simply impossible so we don't have to deal with the legal ramifications at this time).

Yes, if the process of birth becomes completely natural process, with no decision making by the woman, then she cannot be considered solely responsible for the child, as the child is a obvious conclusion of conception.

Since that is not the case, there is no point in discussing it.

I don't believe that there is a legal right to a father. I know of one individual who has a child of 11 that is just now going through procedures to make him pay child support. The mother knew he was the father, but never sued for child support.

As a logical extension of a child's right to a father, we should not let single mothers adopt, right?

And I know there is no natural right to a father. It is impossible to have natural claim rights.

The law recognizes a legal right to be a father. It simply has difficulty enforcing that right, because it has to be shown that the woman denied him that right. There have been suits on the issue before but it is very difficult to prove the women knowingly denied him parental rights. It is not however a violation of the child's rights becuase the mother is an agent for the child because of her custodial position.

No, it is not a logical extension. You keep ignoring the ability of the adopting parent to act as an agent for the child. The single mother is in effect waiving the child's right to another parent. The same that happens when a father is a danger to a child or a mother is a danger to a child. An agent of the child waives the child's rights to a parent presumably in the interest of the child.

Yes, if the process of birth becomes completely natural process, with no decision making by the woman, then she cannot be considered solely responsible for the child, as the child is a obvious conclusion of conception.

Since that is not the case, there is no point in discussing it.

No, there is. So you argument is that by a medical procedure becoming available to women ALL reproductive rights of the father are abolished. Seems like men do have natural reproductive rights that you claim a medical procedure abolished. Good. It's settled. Men have natural reproductive rights. Glad to here it.

She doesn't get the right to make decisions regarding the pregnancy alone?

The pregnancy, not the child. This is a necessary byproduct of the existence of the womb.

She doesn't take sperm and turn it into a baby alone?
Nope. She can be given sperm. She has no ability nor right to take it.

The pregnancy.

Is not the child's existence contingent only upon the woman's decision regarding the pregnancy?

Are or are not children required to have a father before being turned over to the mother? Are all bastard children turned over to the state or aborted?

No, but that has nothing to do with it. All human beings have the right to free speech, does that mean they all get published?

Actually a man can stop making child support payments with the consent of the mother, too, right?

Technically, no. The mother can choose not to report him for not paying them, but a mother cannot make the decision that a man does not legally have to pay. That decision can only be made by a court.

When my parents got divorced, my mother point-blank stated in the divorce papers she had drawn up that she expected no child support. Her opinion, however, had nothing to do with the law. The court ordered child support anyways, because GA law required it.

I don't believe that there is a legal right to a father. I know of one individual who has a child of 11 that is just now going through procedures to make him pay child support. The mother knew he was the father, but never sued for child support.

The fact that he can be sued for child support at all demonstrates that, currently at least, a child has a legal right to at least financial support from both parents. Otherwise, there would be no way to sue for it.

As a logical extension of a child's right to a father, we should not let single mothers adopt, right?

That is hardly logical. A child awaiting adoption has *no* parents. The child has the right to being taken care of by his biological parents, but they have obviously skipped out on the deal. Thus, it is a better situation for the child to be in a loving home with one parent, than with none.

Is not the child's existence contingent only upon the woman's decision regarding the pregnancy?

It is also contingent on a men's only decision on ejaculation.

The law recognizes a legal right to be a father. It simply has difficulty enforcing that right, because it has to be shown that the woman denied him that right. There have been suits on the issue before but it is very difficult to prove the women knowingly denied him parental rights. It is not however a violation of the child's rights becuase the mother is an agent for the child because of her custodial position.

I am not talking about the right to be a father, I am talking about the right to have a father.

I have stated that, in situations where there is an expectation of fatherhood (all planned pregnancies carry an expectation of parenthood) that the father has rights to the child. If he can prove that his input had the intentions of creating a child, he has a right to be a parent to that child.

No, it is not a logical extension. You keep ignoring the ability of the adopting parent to act as an agent for the child. The single mother is in effect waiving the child's right to another parent. The same that happens when a father is a danger to a child or a mother is a danger to a child. An agent of the child waives the child's rights to a parent presumably in the interest of the child.

You are saying that a man must retain responsibility for his offspring because a child has a legal right to a father. This means that a single woman cannot adopt because she would be violating the child's right to a father.

Now when we are talking about agency, the woman assumes agency for the child when making the decision to have the child.

That is hardly logical. A child awaiting adoption has *no* parents. The child has the right to being taken care of by his biological parents, but they have obviously skipped out on the deal. Thus, it is a better situation for the child to be in a loving home with one parent, than with none.

Actually, that's not quite right. No one can legally "skip out of the deal". The issue is that in the case of being put up for adoption the adopting agent (parents, orphanage, foster home) acts as an agent of the child and waives the child's rights to his/her parents. You said you would be willing to do the exact same thing and that you would do it in interest of the child (as you hold it's better to have no father than one that doesn't want you). In your case you would be acting as the agent for the child's interests. The father would not be "skipping out".

It shows that VAST majority of custodial parents are out there working, contrary to your claims. It's amazing how in the face of overwhelming evidenc you can just keep making it up.

I would like evidence of these supposed claims of mine. The hyperbolous thing you are quoting doesn't count?


Um, seriously, I'm beginning to wonder about you. The vast majority of custodial mothers AND fathers are employed. Perhaps you should open a book and stop just making stuff up.
I was making the suggestion for the ones without jobs, get on the train.



Seriously, look up strawman.
I did, I saw "See posts by Jocabia" in the definition.

This thread is about allowing men to opt out of supporting their children. This takes money away from the child. It's not a strawman. It's the point of the thread.
You look up straw man and tell me how that means it isn't a straw man.



Actually, yes. It shows they are just slightly more likely to pay. It also shows there are a great number of parents out there responsibly meeting their children's financial needs.
Point being what?



Basic math. 46% of 78% is 35%. That's how statistics work. I get $75/hr as a tutor so if you want me to teach you how to multiply percentages, I'm happy to do so, but you need to send a check.
You then said 58% of fathers after saying 35% of fathers then used that to villainize fathers and explain why mothers get greater custodial awards. Which makes no fucking sense. So either you can't do math, or you can't do logical debate, since you are supposedly a tutor, I will move towards the latter.


Your earlier sources were spurious because they do not explain the statistics. The majority of custody cases are uncontested or settled out of court by a HUGE margin those cases are far more likely to award custody to mother. Your problem is with the parents, not the courts.
What do you mean "not explain the statistics"? Statistics are statistics. Those statistics were about court custody awards, you are the one removing things from context, which seems to be your calling card.



Look at the numbers associated with mother (in bold) then with the father (underlined).
Yes, they say the birth mother abuses the child far more than the birth father.

Um, you're not paying attention. First, single-family homes are largely responsible for abuse. Many of those homes have no father in it. In other words, there is no possiblity of abuse by the father, he is absent.
Irrelevant.

In terms of parents that have regular contact with their children the likelihood of abuse is the same for both parents.
Likelihood and happening arn't the same thing. You have no proof that both parents in a two parent household abuse the child equally.

However, if you read the source, which you clearly didn't, in terms of ONLY physical abuse fathers are actually more than twice as likely to abuse their children. It very much depends on how you look at the statistics. Your sites didn't look at the statistics, but instead summarized them in a way that was misleading.
You are pulling analysis of the statistics out of your ass.
Let me quote your source-
Perpetrator's Sex. Children were somewhat more likely to be maltreated by female perpetrators than by males: 65 percent of the maltreated children had been maltreated by a female, whereas 54 percent had been maltreated by a male.
And oh look, who is using statistics misleadingly?
Here is what you are using to make a defense
In contrast, children who were maltreated by other parents or parent-substitutes, or by other persons, were more likely to have been maltreated by a male than by a female
Oh look here, more contradictory proof from your own source about the birth parents.
Children who had been physically abused by their birth parents were more likely to have suffered at the hands of their mothers than their fathers


The single-parent homes are a necessity.
Speaking of chasms in logic..

How did you jump from children are abused more in single-parent homes to 'this is because the fathers are forced to pay child support'?
Go go gadget out-of-context machine!

What it actually evidences is that children benefit from the involvement of more than one parent and these fathers or mothers that abandon their children are failing their children on more than a financial level.
Then they should be removed to two parent foster families who have the ability to take care of them or the custodial parent should get some one to help look after the child, which the non-custodial parent should then pay for. There is no point of purpose in forcing the non-custodial parent to pay arbitrary amounts of money for an arbitrary reason or forcing them to be involved in the child's life. I will be my ass that if you look you will find that women and men forced into raising children are more likely to abuse their children.

No, there is. So you argument is that by a medical procedure becoming available to women ALL reproductive rights of the father are abolished. Seems like men do have natural reproductive rights that you claim a medical procedure abolished. Good. It's settled. Men have natural reproductive rights. Glad to here it.

Science is a part of nature. Natural rights are rights that preclude the existence of government, not of human knowledge.

Furthermore, the discovery of abortion only furthered rights, it did not abolish rights.

Before and after abortion, the man only had the right to have sex. Abortion, however, seperated conception from birth.

So:

Before abortion, men were responsible for birth, as birth was a consequence of conception.

After abortion, men were not responsible for birth, as birth was no longer a consequence of conception.

I am not talking about the right to be a father, I am talking about the right to have a father.

No, I'm not. The law recognizes a child's legal right to a father. It enforces this right in any way that is safe for the child.

I have stated that, in situations where there is an expectation of fatherhood (all planned pregnancies carry an expectation of parenthood) that the father has rights to the child. If he can prove that his input had the intentions of creating a child, he has a right to be a parent to that child.

Expectation has nothing to do with natural rights. That's what makes them NATURAL rights. The rights exist whether we invoke them or not. I have a right to vote whether I 'expect' to invoke that right or not.

You are saying that a man must retain responsibility for his offspring because a child has a legal right to a father. This means that a single woman cannot adopt because she would be violating the child's right to a father.

No, she wouldn't. She can't violate it because she is the child's agent and acts on the child's behalf. Presumably all parties decided that the child benefits from being adopted by her. She is acting in the interest of the child.

Now when we are talking about agency, the woman assumes agency for the child when making the decision to have the child.

Yes, and in becoming that agent she must decide whether to waive the child's rights to a father. No action of a woman can waive a child's rights except when she is acting as an agent to the child. The only way you could possibly make this argument is if you could argue she is acting counter the child's interests by not getting an abortion. The child's rights must be waived by an agent of the child. To say they are implicitly waived by the existence of the procedure is to abolish the right.

No, but that has nothing to do with it. All human beings have the right to free speech, does that mean they all get published?
No, but they all have the chance to be published.



Technically, no. The mother can choose not to report him for not paying them, but a mother cannot make the decision that a man does not legally have to pay. That decision can only be made by a court.

When my parents got divorced, my mother point-blank stated in the divorce papers she had drawn up that she expected no child support. Her opinion, however, had nothing to do with the law. The court ordered child support anyways, because GA law required it.
Proof the system is full of shit and should be reworked or removed.

The fact that he can be sued for child support at all demonstrates that, currently at least, a child has a legal right to at least financial support from both parents. Otherwise, there would be no way to sue for it.
No, all it proves is our society is overwhelmingly litigous. You can sue for pretty much any reason.


That is hardly logical. A child awaiting adoption has *no* parents.
But he does have a legal guardian: the state. And all parents are are glorified legal guardians.

The child has the right to being taken care of by his biological parents,
No, he doesn't. The child has the legal right to be taken care of.

Thus, it is a better situation for the child to be in a loving home with one parent, than with none.
Granted.

No, but that has nothing to do with it. All human beings have the right to free speech, does that mean they all get published?

All human beings have the legal right to free speech. That means upon existence the government insures that they can express whatever thoughts they want. Publishing has nothing to do with it.

If a child has a legal right to a father, therefore, upon the existence of a human being, the government insures that it has a father.

That is hardly logical. A child awaiting adoption has *no* parents. The child has the right to being taken care of by his biological parents, but they have obviously skipped out on the deal. Thus, it is a better situation for the child to be in a loving home with one parent, than with none.

If a child truely had the right to be taken care of by his biological parents, it would be against the law to skip out on the deal. Adoption would not be allowed. Even more, are biological parents who give up children required to make support payments to the adoptive parents.

Furthermore, if a child did have a right to a father, a single mother would not be allowed to adopt, as it would violate that right.

This goes to show that it is entirely possible for the mother to take on sole responsibility for the child without violating the child's rights. The mother going through with the pregnancy after the father has a paper abortion is no different, agency wise, than a single mother adopting.

Science is a part of nature. Natural rights are rights that preclude the existence of government, not of human knowledge.

Furthermore, the discovery of abortion only furthered rights, it did not abolish rights.

You said men have no reproductive rights, but said they did prior to abortion. Backpedalling?

Before and after abortion, the man only had the right to have sex. Abortion, however, seperated conception from birth.

Sex is not reproduction. Men have natural reproductive rights and they are not abolished by abortion. Moreso, children do have a right to their father and that is also not abolished by abortion.

So:

Before abortion, men were responsible for birth, as birth was a consequence of conception.

False. Your inability to understand direct and indirect responsibility does not make it cease to exist. Responsibility is not a last touch game.

fter abortion, men were not responsible for birth, as birth was no longer a consequence of conception.

So this is about prevention. Good to know. Women can prevent birth and if they don't try they are responsible for the child. What if the male didn't try?

Seriously, VO. You were doing so good before, so I know why you kept up the fight, but your position is untenable. Given your intelligence must you see that you've painted yourself into a corner and that the only way to argue your position is to keep repeating arguments that are simply untrue. A child is ALWAYS represented in issues regarding his/her care.

A child has a natural right to a father. The existence of an abortion does nothing to change that. Your claims amount to the existence of abortion making it so a woman necessarily waives the child's rights by not getting one and thus the right is abolished. A father has a natural right to reproduce and abortion does nothing to change that. A woman getting an abortion does no prevent a man from reproducing. She prevents a man from reproducing with her, at that time. He has a natural right to father his progeny and abortion does not change that either.

It is an amazing line of thought to suggest that an option given to women should amount to more options for women and a denial of rights for men and children.

Expectation has nothing to do with natural rights. That's what makes them NATURAL rights. The rights exist whether we invoke them or not. I have a right to vote whether I 'expect' to invoke that right or not.

Expectation deals with the court's determination of when rights apply. If a man helps to create a pregnancy with the expectation that he will be the father, then he has a right to be the father.

No, she wouldn't. She can't violate it because she is the child's agent and acts on the child's behalf. Presumably all parties decided that the child benefits from being adopted by her. She is acting in the interest of the child.

OK, lean back and take a couple deep breaths.

The single mother who adopts takes on the the agency for the child with the understanding that there will be no father to share the responsibility.

The woman who has a child following the father's paper abortion, takes on the agency for the child with the understanding that there will be no father to share the responsibility.

In both cases the woman makes the decision whether she wants to take on full responsibility for the child.

Sex is not reproduction.
You know what I should do? I should add that quote to my sig.


False. Your inability to understand direct and indirect responsibility does not make it cease to exist. Responsibility is not a last touch game.
Let me paraphrase: Because you disagree with my [ridiculous] take on things, you are wrong.


So this is about prevention. Good to know. Women can prevent birth and if they don't try they are responsible for the child.
If, and only if, the father is not consulted on the making of any decisions.


Seriously, VO. You were doing so good before, so I know why you kept up the fight, but your position is untenable.
I think you just like arguing ridiculous points.
Given your intelligence must you see that you've painted yourself into a corner
Appeal to intelligence.
Hasn't stopped you.

and that the only way to argue your position is to keep repeating arguments that are simply untrue.
Remember the Hypocrite Anonymous Episode with Pot? Yeah.

A child is ALWAYS represented in issues regarding his/her care.
I think that is the first true thing you have said in your uninformed ranting.

A child has a natural right to a father.
A natural right or a legal right? Make up your mind, they arn't the same.

Expectation deals with the court's determination of when rights apply. If a man helps to create a pregnancy with the expectation that he will be the father, then he has a right to be the father.

So is it the father who decides to invoke the right or the mother. You just flipped.

OK, lean back and take a couple deep breaths.

The single mother who adopts takes on the the agency for the child with the understanding that there will be no father to share the responsibility.

There's another one of those arguments that make me impressed. I had to think about this one for a moment. And I'm not being sarcastic. The single mother is acting in the interest of the child by making a decision about what is best for the child. She is choosing to waive the child's rights to a father.

However, in the paper abortion, it comes into effect at the point of birth, not at the point of signing. It is when a child exists. The paper abortion waives the child's rights not the mother. Once the child exists which is when the document is invoked, a father is not a choice. The paper abortion that waived those rights was signed with no one acting as agent for the child. That's the boggle. The paper abortion has no affect on the mother's ability to choice abortion nor does the father's position on the matter as you've repeatedly suggested. It does nothing until the child is born. Unless a child is born, the document can exist or not exist and mean nothing.

In both cases the woman makes the decision whether she wants to take on full responsibility for the child.

Again, it's an excellent argument, the problem is that you claim the woman is acting as an agent for the child but you do not allow her to be involved in the decision of whether or not the child's rights to a father are invoked.

Seriously, I underestimated what was left in your argument. Nicely played.

If a child truely had the right to be taken care of by his biological parents, it would be against the law to skip out on the deal. Adoption would not be allowed.

The default is the biological parents. But, in the even that the biological parents are unable, the child has the right to be taken care of by *someone*. Thus, the biological parents must find a way to provide that through others. They cannot legally just skip out - although some do.

Furthermore, if a child did have a right to a father, a single mother would not be allowed to adopt, as it would violate that right.

We aren't talking about *a* father, but the child's actual father. Once a biolgoical parent has skipped out, the child has the right to be taken care of by *someone*.

This goes to show that it is entirely possible for the mother to take on sole responsibility for the child without violating the child's rights. The mother going through with the pregnancy after the father has a paper abortion is no different, agency wise, than a single mother adopting.

I'm not arguing with this, in general. This is not currently the way the law looks at it, however, and it doesn't absolve the man of his natural responsibility to his offspring. He may refuse to fulfill that responsibility, but it is still there.

You said men have no reproductive rights, but said they did prior to abortion. Backpedalling?

I am saying that men only had the right of choosing to have sex before and after abortion. Abortion only gave the woman added rights, it did nothing to take away the reproductive rights of a man.

Sex is not reproduction.

Exactly, unfortunately for men, it is the only part of the process they can take part in.

Men have natural reproductive rights and they are not abolished by abortion.

Remembering that sex is not reproduction, what natural reproductive rights do men have.

Also please remember that abortion is a part of natural rights. Natural rights preclude government, not science.

False. Your inability to understand direct and indirect responsibility does not make it cease to exist. Responsibility is not a last touch game.

So this is about prevention. Good to know. Women can prevent birth and if they don't try they are responsible for the child. What if the male didn't try?

Alright, you completely ignored my points there, so I will try and move you towards them.

"Before abortion, men were responsible for birth, as birth was a consequence of conception.
After abortion, men were not responsible for birth, as birth was no longer a consequence of conception."

Responsibility is about decision making. You make a decision and you accept responsibility for decisions.

Without abortion, the only decision made is made prior to conception, as there is not decision as to whether conception should result in birth. In this situation, the man is just as responsible for the decision that led directly to the birth of a child, and therefore he has shared responsibility for the decision.

With abortion, there are two decisions made. One prior to conception: sex or no sex, and one after conception: birth or no birth. Now the male does have shared responsibility for the first decision, and is responsible for supporting the woman while she resolves the pregnancy. However, he cannot have any input concerning the second decision, therefore he has no responsibility for the second decision.

Seriously, VO. You were doing so good before, so I know why you kept up the fight, but your position is untenable. Given your intelligence must you see that you've painted yourself into a corner and that the only way to argue your position is to keep repeating arguments that are simply untrue. A child is ALWAYS represented in issues regarding his/her care.

And the child is represented by the mother who gives birth. By following through with the pregnancy after a paper abortion, she acknowledges that she has full responsibility for the child.

I am not saying that the child is unrepresented, only that the mother knows, by having the child, she accepts full representation.

A child has a natural right to a father. The existence of an abortion does nothing to change that. Your claims amount to the existence of abortion making it so a woman necessarily waives the child's rights by not getting one and thus the right is abolished. A father has a natural right to reproduce and abortion does nothing to change that. A woman getting an abortion does no prevent a man from reproducing. She prevents a man from reproducing with her, at that time. He has a natural right to father his progeny and abortion does not change that either.

Your claims of a natural right to a father, denies the right of single mothers to have children. Furthermore, it is impossible to have a natural right that one does not have control over. For one to have a natural right, one must be able to act in one's own behalf. Rights for infants and children are almost entirely positive rights.

And I am arguing that the right of a woman to determine the results of a pregnancy waive a father's responsibility for the pregnancy.

It is an amazing line of thought to suggest that an option given to women should amount to more options for women and a denial of rights for men and children.

Abortion adds more rights to women, and no rights to men. Men are still stuck with the only right they had, whether or not to have sex.

I take it you've never heard of child support, I suppose.
What does that have to do with a "child's legal right to a father"?

That's okay, if you're unable to understand my statements, no worries. They weren't directed at you. VO doesn't seem to be having any problems.
Paraphrase: "You don't understand my bullshit so you are wrong."

Really don't understand how the law works, do you? There is an agent for the child in every transaction regarding his/her care. Always.
What does that have to do with what you said earlier?

No, it wouldn't. I have a legal right to vote. I am not forced to invoke that right.
Point being what?

I have a legal right to make medical decisions on my own behalf but prior to being of age my parents are permitted to make those decisions.
You have no legal right to make medical decisions as a minor. Your parents hold all legal rights to make decisions for you until you are no longer a minor.

A child cannot invoke their own rights. Your failure to understand this has nothing to do with the law.
I'm sorry, who doesn't understand the law?

So is it the father who decides to invoke the right or the mother. You just flipped.

Rights can be afforded to the father, they are just contingent on the decision of the mother. If the mother creates an expectation that the man will be the father, then the father has rights upon the pregnancy.

If a man and woman are married and conceive, the woman is going to have a hard time proving that she hasn't already accepted the man as the father. If a man and a woman have consulted pregnancy clinics, the woman is going to have a hard time proving that she hasn't accepted the man as the father.

There's another one of those arguments that make me impressed. I had to think about this one for a moment. And I'm not being sarcastic. The single mother is acting in the interest of the child by making a decision about what is best for the child. She is choosing to waive the child's rights to a father.

Other than my continued protest to a right to a father, (the states guardianship of the child should disprove the right to a father), I have no disagreement with that.

However, in the paper abortion, it comes into effect at the point of birth, not at the point of signing. It is when a child exists.

It is known prior to birth, though. The woman still makes the decision to accept agency knowing that there will be no father.

Again, it's an excellent argument, the problem is that you claim the woman is acting as an agent for the child but you do not allow her to be involved in the decision of whether or not the child's rights to a father are invoked.

Seriously, I underestimated what was left in your argument. Nicely played.

She decides whether the child has a father or not when she decides to give birth. Just like the woman decides whether the child has a father when she adopts.

I am saying that men only had the right of choosing to have sex before and after abortion. Abortion only gave the woman added rights, it did nothing to take away the reproductive rights of a man.

Hmmm... you're aware that sex does not require that a man's ejaculate has access to a woman's egg, yes?

Exactly, unfortunately for men, it is the only part of the process they can take part in.

Um, I'm almost certain that's not true. But of course perhaps my biology teacher was lying when she told me that whole sperm thing.

Remembering that sex is not reproduction, what natural reproductive rights do men have.

Hmmmm... reproductive rights. Reproduc[tive]. Reproduc[e]. I'm almost certain men are capable of reproduction and have a right to do so. It's a biological imperative, a natural right and a legally recognized right. Provided they find a woman who consents to her part of the process and a child can and does result, a man can reproduce. This is his right. He can search as far and as wide as he likes until he finds someone to whom he consents and who consents to him. Similarly, provided a woman finds a man who consents to his part in the process and a child can and does result, a woman can reproduce. That is her right. She can search as far and as wide as she like until she finds someone to who she consents and who consents to her.

Also please remember that abortion is a part of natural rights. Natural rights preclude government, not science.

Abortion is not a natural right. It is a result of natural rights. It's wholly different. It's a medical procedure and I have as much right to it as any other medical procedure, which is none. Now, I do have natural rights that make me have access to those medical procedures.

Alright, you completely ignored my points there, so I will try and move you towards them.

"Before abortion, men were responsible for birth, as birth was a consequence of conception.
After abortion, men were not responsible for birth, as birth was no longer a consequence of conception."

Responsibility is about decision making. You make a decision and you accept responsibility for decisions.

Without abortion, the only decision made is made prior to conception, as there is not decision as to whether conception should result in birth. In this situation, the man is just as responsible for the decision that led directly to the birth of a child, and therefore he has shared responsibility for the decision.

He still makes the exact same decision and is still just as responsible. His decision has not changed and still imbues him and the child with rights.

With abortion, there are two decisions made. One prior to conception: sex or no sex, and one after conception: birth or no birth. Now the male does have shared responsibility for the first decision, and is responsible for supporting the woman while she resolves the pregnancy. However, he cannot have any input concerning the second decision, therefore he has no responsibility for the second decision.

It doesn't work that way. Because the child still has rights so even if the man is not involved in the second decision his responsibility in the first decision still exists so even if he decides not to invoke his own rights, the child's rights still exist. Either way, the woman's decision does not erase the rights of the man nor that of the child.

You want to argue the mother implicitly waived those rights when she chose not to get an abortion, but implicit waiver is not allowable, which is why women cannot be denied an abortion based on the claim by the religious right that she implicitly waived her right to not be pregnant when she had sex.

And the child is represented by the mother who gives birth. By following through with the pregnancy after a paper abortion, she acknowledges that she has full responsibility for the child.

Again, you cannot implicitly waive rights. This is the reason why abortion cannot be made illegal and why a FL law that violated the privacy of a woman seeking to give a child up for adoption was also. If implicit waiver was possible you could make the argument that Oregon can pass a law that abridges free speech because the residents implicitly choose to waive their right to free speech when they enter the state.

I am not saying that the child is unrepresented, only that the mother knows, by having the child, she accepts full representation.

Implicit representation is not enough as demonstrated above.

Your claims of a natural right to a father, denies the right of single mothers to have children. Furthermore, it is impossible to have a natural right that one does not have control over. For one to have a natural right, one must be able to act in one's own behalf. Rights for infants and children are almost entirely positive rights.

Single mothers do not have a right to have children. The father has a right to the child unless he waives that right and she waives the rights of the child. No, infants and children have natural rights but the inability to control them. It's a part of the nature of being a child. Certainly you aren't arguing that a child does not have a right to life. However, a mother can act on the behalf of the child and allow the child to undergo a life-enhancing procedure as an agent of the child even if the procedure itself might endanger the child's life. This abridges the child's right to life, right to privacy, and probably some others. Natural rights are a product of birth not a product of reaching an age of consent.

And I am arguing that the right of a woman to determine the results of a pregnancy waive a father's responsibility for the pregnancy.

Actually, you're not only arguing that it waive's the father's responsibility but that it waives his rights and the rights of the child.

Abortion adds more rights to women, and no rights to men. Men are still stuck with the only right they had, whether or not to have sex.
No, prior to abortion men had the right to be involved in 18 years of the development process of a human being. Women had a right to be involved in 18.75 years of the developmental process. Your claim is that because only women have access to that .75 years of the developmental process that men and children should be denied their natural rights of the father's involvement in the 18 years of developmental process. You fail to acknowledge rights, unless of course the man has an intent before the conception and then the rights suddenly exist or if the women acknowledges the father. It's a little bizarre.

The rights exist and you have to demonstrate how it is to the benefit of the man to take away his reproductive rights and how it is to the benefit of the child to take away his/hers.

The default is the biological parents. But, in the even that the biological parents are unable, the child has the right to be taken care of by *someone*. Thus, the biological parents must find a way to provide that through others. They cannot legally just skip out - although some do.

So they have the positive right to be taken care of by someone. That does not mean that they have a natural right to a father.

We aren't talking about *a* father, but the child's actual father. Once a biolgoical parent has skipped out, the child has the right to be taken care of by *someone*.

The biological father's responsibility to the child extends from his decision to have a child, correct? Does the father have any right to decide whether he has a child? Since he doesn't have the right to decide whether he has a child, he cannot have responsibility for the child.

The man is letting the woman know ahead of time that, were she to follow through with the pregnancy, that she would be the "someone" taking care of the child.

The father declares his intention to not have a child, the woman proceeds with the pregnancy knowing that the child is hers alone.

I'm not arguing with this, in general. This is not currently the way the law looks at it, however, and it doesn't absolve the man of his natural responsibility to his offspring. He may refuse to fulfill that responsibility, but it is still there.

I would just say that responsibility for a child should come with the decision to have a child. Since the decision to have a child rests solely on the woman, so does the responsibility.

So they have the positive right to be taken care of by someone. That does not mean that they have a natural right to a father.

No, the state of nature means that they have a natural right to *their* father's care.

The biological father's responsibility to the child extends from his decision to have a child, correct?

Incorrect. It stems from his decision to engage in activities that could result in having a child.

The man is letting the woman know ahead of time that, were she to follow through with the pregnancy, that she would be the "someone" taking care of the child.

Yes, and he can do that. It is fucking irresponsible and I'm not even going to have a sliver of respect for him for it, but at least it gets the deadbeat out of the child's life early.

No, the state of nature means that they have a natural right to *their* father's care.

There is nothing in the state of nature that implies a child has a right to their father's care.

Incorrect. It stems from his decision to engage in activities that could result in having a child.

The trouble is that sex does not directly result in children anymore. A man could have unprotected sex everyday of his life, and never have a child. Why is that? Because the woman has complete control over whether a child is born or not.

There is nothing in the state of nature that implies a child has a right to their father's care.

Then there is nothing in the state of nature that implies that a child has a right to any care at all.

The trouble is that sex does not directly result in children anymore.

It never did. Methods of abortion have been around as long as written history - and most likely longer. You seem to have this silly idea that there was no abortion before a doctor figured out how to do it safely.

Sex has never directly resulted in children. There was always an approximately 9 month incubation time in which the possibility of children could be removed.

There is nothing in the state of nature that implies a child has a right to their father's care.

Well, no more so than it does for the mother anyway and no less to be fair. Hell, the state should be allowed to do as they please with children because natural rights to our progeny do not exist.

The trouble is that sex does not directly result in children anymore. A man could have unprotected sex everyday of his life, and never have a child.
That was always true.

Here's the thing it was always possible to make a unilateral decision to prevent pregnancy and this has never had an effect on rights. A woman can get a hysterectomy without permission of her husband and without telling him or getting his permission. Clearly her ability to prevent a birth is found there.

A man can be sterilized without telling his wife or getting her permission so clearly he has the ability to absolutely prevent a birth.

They are not good ways, but they are ways. Abortion is the same. It's a birth prevention and it happens to happen later in the process than all other preventions and it happens to occur when a birth is far more likely than when the other measures are taken, but it still has the same effect. Both parties have a unilateral ability to prevent a birth from occuring ever no matter how often the couple has sex. Abortion did not change that and the existence of abortion does not change the position of the father in relation to the child.

No, the state of nature means that they have a natural right to *their* father's care.
What the fuck? No. You fail at law and natural studies. In very few animal communities does the father have anything to do with the children, and in human culture, it is the mother that traditionally cares for the children.


Yes, and he can do that. It is fucking irresponsible and I'm not even going to have a sliver of respect for him for it, but at least it gets the deadbeat out of the child's life early.
Way to argue objectively.

What the fuck? No. You fail at law and natural studies. In very few animal communities does the father have anything to do with the children, and in human culture, it is the mother that traditionally cares for the children.

So? We aren't talking about other animal communities (in some of which, the father absolutely is involved). We are talking about human communities.

Try again.

Way to argue objectively.

Any argument about the responsibilities of human beings to other human beings will be necessarily subjective - as all human beings have different beliefs on the subject.

Some people think they have no responsibilities whatsoever to any other human beings at all. I think such people are irresponsible and selfish. Is that subjective? Yes, of course, but then again so is their view.

So? We aren't talking about other animal communities (in some of which, the father absolutely is involved). We are talking about human communities.
You said state of nature. Don't use the phrase if you don't understand what it means.

The state of nature is the state of things without society, I thusly take it humans would be like other primates. Male primates exist but the women take care of the children. State of nature, there is no imaginary right to a father.

You said state of nature. Don't use the phrase if you don't understand what it means.

The state of nature does dictate human behavior, as well as other animals, but not based upon other animals, does it not?

The state of nature is the state of things without society, I thusly take it humans would be like other primates. Male primates exist but the women take care of the children. State of nature, there is no imaginary right to a father.

Other primates have a society. Wolves have a society. Fish have a society. Does that mean that they are outside the state of nature? Of course not. Societal groupings are part of nature - part of the natural order of things.

And all male primates are not uninvolved in raising their offspring anyways.

This is getting asinine. Now you and Jocabia are making up imaginary laws and rules and shit to try and prove some sort of ludicrous defense for your opinion of something you arn't even on the same topic of any more.

"Children have a legal right to a father."
Bullshit

"Children have a natural right to a father."
Children have a natural right to squat.

"In a state of nature, *insert inane bullshit*"


Need I remind you people of the topic which is fathers wanting a fairer child support system.

The state of nature does dictate human behavior, as well as other animals, but not based upon other animals, does it not?



Other primates have a society. Wolves have a society. Fish have a society. Does that mean that they are outside the state of nature? Of course not. Societal groupings are part of nature - part of the natural order of things.

And all male primates are not uninvolved in raising their offspring anyways.
I humbly refer you to moderation where I got excellent advice on the above issue.

This is getting asinine. Now you and Jocabia are making up imaginary laws and rules and shit to try and prove some sort of ludicrous defense for your opinion of something you arn't even on the same topic of any more.

"Children have a legal right to a father."
Bullshit

Not *a* father, but support from their father. The very fact that child support laws exist demonstrate this to be true, at least currently.

"Children have a natural right to a father."
Children have a natural right to squat.

If you don't believe in natural rights, that is your business.

Need I remind you people of the topic which is fathers wanting a fairer child support system.

What topic was that? Here I thought the issue was getting rid of fathers paying child support at all.

The case in question linked in the topic post is of a man who was lied to by a woman about her ability to become pregnant. The man was ordered to pay $500 a month in child support for the child. The question at hand is "Is this fair?"

The answer is no. The child support system runs on an archaic idea that women raise children, men go to work. Last I checked, we are a couple of decades past the '70s and women have been successful in the business world. Despite this the child support system is run by judges who often interpret the law in favor of the woman, regardless of how fair the law has been designed to try and be.

The debate question in the thread should be? "What can be done about it?" But it is stuck on "Is this fair?" The problem for many people is that they see things in same gender biased light as most judges - women should raise children and men should support children, despite any objections to the contrary. Since they contest they see things this way, it influences their argument to be pro-woman under the guise of being pro-child. Were the argument pro-child, there would be debates about what is best for the child without consideration of the parents. What is best for a child is being raised by a person or persons who are financially able to support the children and have enough time to dedicate to emotional and physical support.

There is no solution in being biased in favor of a woman and forcing the man to support her decision financially under some archaic idea of "it is his responsibility." This starts to intertwine with the abortion argument: does a woman have control of her body or not? That is the problem here. Does a woman have the ability to decide the outcomes of a pregnancy (abortion, adoption, or raising) without consulting the man? If so, why is the man forced to support this decision under some archaic and discriminatory belief? Women are believed to be the best childrearers, but they would be up in arms if this was made public discourse because it would effect them in other areas.

But more to the point, is the system fair for penalizing a man by forcing him to support a child that the woman tricked him into fathering? No, it isn't. But everyone argues that a man should support his child while the woman keeps it. Marry her or he is looked down on by society, support her or he is a deadbeat. Who has ever heard of a deadbeat mom? If the mother has no ability to support the child alone, why should she be allowed to keep it? People will be up in arms for this, but they want to argue what is best for the child, which is putting them in a home able to give them financial, emotional, and physical support.

Not *a* father, but support from their father. The very fact that child support laws exist demonstrate this to be true, at least currently.
Your wording reveals your belief that the system is designed to favor the mother.

If you don't believe in natural rights, that is your business.
Children are minors, as minors, their rights are squat.

What topic was that? Here I thought the issue was getting rid of fathers paying child support at all.
Then you don't know what the issue at hand is. The issue at hand is the fairness of the system. Never was the issue trying to allow all fathers to shirk child support. The quoted source was not about letting all fathers skip out of child support. Inherent bias in your (your's, Jocabia's, and other's) arguments creates a misconstruing of the topic by creating knee-jerk replies to a perceived statement and idea.

Hmmmm... reproductive rights. Reproduc[tive]. Reproduc[e]. I'm almost certain men are capable of reproduction and have a right to do so. It's a biological imperative, a natural right and a legally recognized right. Provided they find a woman who consents to her part of the process and a child can and does result, a man can reproduce. This is his right. He can search as far and as wide as he likes until he finds someone to whom he consents and who consents to him. Similarly, provided a woman finds a man who consents to his part in the process and a child can and does result, a woman can reproduce. That is her right. She can search as far and as wide as she like until she finds someone to who she consents and who consents to her.

If all pregnancies were consentual planned reproduction, there would not be a problem, especially under what I am proposing. If the woman consents to the man prior to or after conception, then he has all legal rights of a parent.

However, that is not the case. Since a great deal of pregnancies are not planned for by either or one party, your neat little diagram of how reproductive contracts take place doesn't stand very well.

You need a system of rights and responsibilities between the two individuals. The responsibilities must match the rights to be fair between the two. Since the man only has the right to have sex, he bears responsibility for that decision. Since the woman has total right towards the actual pregnancy, she bears responsibility for that decision.

Abortion is not a natural right. It is a result of natural rights. It's wholly different. It's a medical procedure and I have as much right to it as any other medical procedure, which is none. Now, I do have natural rights that make me have access to those medical procedures.

But my point still stands, abortion is accounted for when talking about natural rights. You have the natural right to an abortion granted you have the means to make it happen.

He still makes the exact same decision and is still just as responsible. His decision has not changed and still imbues him and the child with rights.

The implications of the decision have changed.

You cannot possibly say that the implications of having sex with the possibility of abortion are the same as the implications without the possibility of abortion.

A man has sex today knowing that there is no reason for his actions to cause a birth.

You want to argue the mother implicitly waived those rights when she chose not to get an abortion, but implicit waiver is not allowable, which is why women cannot be denied an abortion based on the claim by the religious right that she implicitly waived her right to not be pregnant when she had sex.

No, I have argued that there are no rights to a father, only rights to be supported by a legal guardian. I have argued that if the father is timely in letting his intentions known, that the woman is capable of making a rational decision whether she will take on responsibility for the child on her own or have an abortion.

Implicit representation is not enough as demonstrated above.

First off, giving birth is hardly implicit acceptance of responsibilities.

Secondly, are you saying that a single mother is not capable of fully representing a child. My mother would disagree.

1]Single mothers do not have a right to have children. 2]The father has a right to the child unless he waives that right and she waives the rights of the child. 3]No, infants and children have natural rights but the inability to control them. It's a part of the nature of being a child. 4]Certainly you aren't arguing that a child does not have a right to life. 5]However, a mother can act on the behalf of the child and allow the child to undergo a life-enhancing procedure as an agent of the child even if the procedure itself might endanger the child's life. This abridges the child's right to life, right to privacy, and probably some others. Natural rights are a product of birth not a product of reaching an age of consent.

1] Single mothers have the positive legal right to adopt children.

2] You have stated that a father has a right to the child, but you have not offered up substantial justification.

3] Natural rights can only be acted upon by the individual.

4] I said almost entirely positive rights. A child can live on its own, it is a functioning system. Nature does not imbue upon it, however, the necessary rights to sustain its life.

5] You have just laid it out. "This abridges the child's right to life, right to privacy, and probably some others." The child does not understand these rights, so it doesn't possess these rights. The parent must use his/her status as guardian to provide for the child.

Rights are a product of consciousness, not being. You must understand a right in order to possess them.

Actually, you're not only arguing that it waive's the father's responsibility but that it waives his rights and the rights of the child.

Neither the father or the child had a natural right to each other that should be waved. I agree that the father has positive rights provided by government, but those can be changed.

No, prior to abortion men had the right to be involved in 18 years of the development process of a human being. Women had a right to be involved in 18.75 years of the developmental process. Your claim is that because only women have access to that .75 years of the developmental process that men and children should be denied their natural rights of the father's involvement in the 18 years of developmental process. You fail to acknowledge rights, unless of course the man has an intent before the conception and then the rights suddenly exist or if the women acknowledges the father. It's a little bizarre.

What is the justification for the father's rights? Having sex, genetics? I will show holes in those justifications if you like.

The rights exist and you have to demonstrate how it is to the benefit of the man to take away his reproductive rights and how it is to the benefit of the child to take away his/hers.

I am showing you moral justification, benefit can be determined by empirical study of the results.

Then there is nothing in the state of nature that implies that a child has a right to any care at all.

Correct. A child has no natural right to care. That is why we have a positive right to care provided by the government's courts and social services.

So now that we can agree that there is no natural right to a fathers care. Only a possible state provided one that I am debating against.

It never did. Methods of abortion have been around as long as written history - and most likely longer. You seem to have this silly idea that there was no abortion before a doctor figured out how to do it safely.

Jocabia started this discussion by asking what my opinion would be were abortion not an option.

Sex has never directly resulted in children. There was always an approximately 9 month incubation time in which the possibility of children could be removed.

But there was no right to decide what the result would be, only chance.

Science has given the woman the right to decide, and with that comes the responsibility of the decision.

The case in question linked in the topic post is of a man who was lied to by a woman about her ability to become pregnant. The man was ordered to pay $500 a month in child support for the child. The question at hand is "Is this fair?"

Actually, it seemed that the discussion was about a specific proposed fix to the problem.

Of course it isn't fair. She shouldn't have lied to him. I don't think anyone will argue that the woman involved was in the right here.

The answer is no. The child support system runs on an archaic idea that women raise children, men go to work.

No, it doesn't. The child support system itself runs on the idea that a child being raised on a single income (generally) will be disadvantaged as compared to those being raised on more than one income. In most cases in which child support is used, both parents are working - just as in most two parent homes. The child support system does not, in and of itself, assume that the woman will have custody. There are certain people who assume that - and no one is arguing that such an attitude is not a problem.

The debate question in the thread should be? "What can be done about it?" But it is stuck on "Is this fair?"

*You* are stuck on whether or not it is fair. I have pointed out time and time again that it isn't fair. But biology doesn't care about fair.

The problem for many people is that they see things in same gender biased light as most judges - women should raise children and men should support children, despite any objections to the contrary.

I don't see things that way. I think both a mother and a father should raise a child. To be responsible, in case of one or the other not being available or meeting an untimely end, both should have the means to do so completely on their own, such that neither parent is ever relying on someone else to take care of their child.

Unfortunately, this is the real world, and things don't always work that way. When they don't, society as a whole has a duty to see to the child's needs.

What is best for a child is being raised by a person or persons who are financially able to support the children and have enough time to dedicate to emotional and physical support.

I absolutely agree, and have yet to see anyone argue against this.

There is no solution in being biased in favor of a woman and forcing the man to support her decision financially under some archaic idea of "it is his responsibility."

I don't think that is a viable solution either. But I don't think the idea that both parents have a responsibility to their offspring is archaic either. Unfortunately, some human beings are irresponsible. If we could force someone to be responsible, that would be one thing, but we can't.

This starts to intertwine with the abortion argument: does a woman have control of her body or not? That is the problem here. Does a woman have the ability to decide the outcomes of a pregnancy (abortion, adoption, or raising) without consulting the man?

Actually, no. You keep trying to suggest that she does, but she doesn't. Under the law, the only decision a mother can make without the father is whether or not to continue her pregnancy - to abort or not. Neither the decision to put the child up for adoption nor the decision to raise it can be made by one parent alone.

But more to the point, is the system fair for penalizing a man by forcing him to support a child that the woman tricked him into fathering? No, it isn't.

No, that isn't a fair situation. I'm fairly certain that no one has suggested that it is.

But everyone argues that a man should support his child while the woman keeps it.

Who argued that? Both parents should support and raise their children, regardless of sex. Out of necessity, one or the other may have primary custody, but whether or not that parent should be the mother or the father varies greatly from case to case. I've seen both situations.

Marry her or he is looked down on by society,

I would look down on him if he married her simply because he impregnated her - and I would look down on her for agreeing to it. A baby is never an adequate reason to get married.

support her or he is a deadbeat.

He doesn't have to support her. She is an adult. She can and should support herself. He is a deadbeat if he isn't a parent to his child, regardless of what he thinks about the mother.

Who has ever heard of a deadbeat mom?

Like I said, I have. I have met more than one. And I give them the exact same level of respect as a deadbeat dad.

If the mother has no ability to support the child alone, why should she be allowed to keep it? People will be up in arms for this, but they want to argue what is best for the child, which is putting them in a home able to give them financial, emotional, and physical support.

Of course that is what is best for the child. But we don't exactly have random relocation programs out there for this. If a child has a loving parent, even just one, then it is highly unlikely to be in the best interest of the child to tear them out of that parent's arms and put them into the adoption system, where they may or may not ever find a home. If all that is missing is the financial component - that can be fixed. Emotional support, however, cannot be forced. Thus, if it is found, then it is probably better to fix any lack of financial support rather than tear the child from a loving home.

Your wording reveals your belief that the system is designed to favor the mother.

No, it doesn't. You started the conversation specific to the father. I never stated that the same doesn't go for the mother. Want me to spell it out for you?

A child has a legal right to care by both parents. The existence of child support laws, laws against neglect, and so forth are a direct indication that, right now anyways, a child does have a legal right to support from both parents.

Then you don't know what the issue at hand is. The issue at hand is the fairness of the system. Never was the issue trying to allow all fathers to shirk child support. The quoted source was not about letting all fathers skip out of child support. Inherent bias in your (your's, Jocabia's, and other's) arguments creates a misconstruing of the topic by creating knee-jerk replies to a perceived statement and idea.

Of course it is about that. Such a law would allow any person who fathered a child to decide, before the child is even born, that he will not support it. Thus, the law would apply to all men who might father a child. It didn't restrict itself to men who had been tricked, or any such thing - it was open to all.

And the fact that people have repeatedly argued against having an equal "paper abortion" for the mother demonstrates that it isn't about equal protection under the law or any type of fairness. If a father can sign away all rights to a child before it is born, then a mother must be allowed to do the same thing, even if she is carrying to term.

Correct. A child has no natural right to care. That is why we have a positive right to care provided by the government's courts and social services.

So now that we can agree that there is no natural right to a fathers care. Only a possible state provided one that I am debating against.

I didn't say that I agreed, I was just pointing out the logical conclusion of your statement - which I disagree with.

Jocabia started this discussion by asking what my opinion would be were abortion not an option.

And you kept saying things about "before abortion" as if there was ever such a time. As if men had responsibilties before abortion, but not after - even though abortion has always been there.

But there was no right to decide what the result would be, only chance.

Science has given the woman the right to decide, and with that comes the responsibility of the decision.

Once again, there was *always* the right and ability to decide what the outcome would be. There were known abortificants and even "surgical" abortion methods, at the very least, since written history began. Science hasn't given the woman a right to decide - biology has done that. A woman has always been able to abort her pregnancy, through various means. Science has simply made that process safer for her.

This is like saying that science has given us the right to age. It hasn't. It has extended the lifespan, but it didn't create a right to get old.

1] Single mothers have the positive legal right to adopt children.

Yep, this has nothing to do with the right to a father. People are permitted to waive their rights and agents of people are permitted to do so as well. Much like you can waive your right to a jury trial.

2] You have stated that a father has a right to the child, but you have not offered up substantial justification.

You stated a mother has a right to the child. How is her right to the child more justified. In fact, you claim that the father's right to child changed with the introduction of abortion (though you try to pretend you didn't.)

3] Natural rights can only be acted upon by the individual.

Absolutely false. We use surrogates to invoke or waive natural rights all the time when the individual is not capable of acting on their own. Otherwise one would have to argue that children have no rights whatsoever.

4] I said almost entirely positive rights. A child can live on its own, it is a functioning system. Nature does not imbue upon it, however, the necessary rights to sustain its life.

You confuse rights with abilities.

5] You have just laid it out. "This abridges the child's right to life, right to privacy, and probably some others." The child does not understand these rights, so it doesn't possess these rights. The parent must use his/her status as guardian to provide for the child.

False. Rights do not require you to understand them. The parent protects the natural rights of the child when the child cannot. The state protects the natural rights of the child when the parent ceases to do so. In both cases the natural rights of the child are protected. Those rights are imbued by birth not understanding.

Rights are a product of consciousness, not being. You must understand a right in order to possess them.

False. Consciousness is a requirement for personhood, and we recognize rights of personhood, but it is not the only rights that we recognize. For example, an animal does not have the right not to be turtured whether it understands that right or not.

Neither the father or the child had a natural right to each other that should be waved. I agree that the father has positive rights provided by government, but those can be changed.

Ha. They are natural rights and you acknowledged and then backpedalled. The child and father somehow had rights to each other until abortion came about. They aren't positive rights. All people have reproductive rights. You're failure to acknowledge doesn't make them cease to exist.

What is the justification for the father's rights? Having sex, genetics? I will show holes in those justifications if you like.

There are no holes. The basis of the rights are his biological relationship to the child. It is the same basis for the rights of the mother. You aren't claiming the mother has no right to her child either, are you?

I am showing you moral justification, benefit can be determined by empirical study of the results.

It can. Quickly. How does a child benefit from be denied a father interested in raising him? How does a child benefit from having LESS financial support? How does a father benefit from being denied his right to be with his son?

If all pregnancies were consentual planned reproduction, there would not be a problem, especially under what I am proposing. If the woman consents to the man prior to or after conception, then he has all legal rights of a parent.

However, that is not the case. Since a great deal of pregnancies are not planned for by either or one party, your neat little diagram of how reproductive contracts take place doesn't stand very well.

You need a system of rights and responsibilities between the two individuals. The responsibilities must match the rights to be fair between the two. Since the man only has the right to have sex, he bears responsibility for that decision. Since the woman has total right towards the actual pregnancy, she bears responsibility for that decision.



But my point still stands, abortion is accounted for when talking about natural rights. You have the natural right to an abortion granted you have the means to make it happen.



The implications of the decision have changed.

You cannot possibly say that the implications of having sex with the possibility of abortion are the same as the implications without the possibility of abortion.

A man has sex today knowing that there is no reason for his actions to cause a birth.



No, I have argued that there are no rights to a father, only rights to be supported by a legal guardian. I have argued that if the father is timely in letting his intentions known, that the woman is capable of making a rational decision whether she will take on responsibility for the child on her own or have an abortion.



First off, giving birth is hardly implicit acceptance of responsibilities.

Secondly, are you saying that a single mother is not capable of fully representing a child. My mother would disagree.



1] Single mothers have the positive legal right to adopt children.

2] You have stated that a father has a right to the child, but you have not offered up substantial justification.

3] Natural rights can only be acted upon by the individual.

4] I said almost entirely positive rights. A child can live on its own, it is a functioning system. Nature does not imbue upon it, however, the necessary rights to sustain its life.

5] You have just laid it out. "This abridges the child's right to life, right to privacy, and probably some others." The child does not understand these rights, so it doesn't possess these rights. The parent must use his/her status as guardian to provide for the child.

Rights are a product of consciousness, not being. You must understand a right in order to possess them.



Neither the father or the child had a natural right to each other that should be waved. I agree that the father has positive rights provided by government, but those can be changed.



What is the justification for the father's rights? Having sex, genetics? I will show holes in those justifications if you like.



I am showing you moral justification, benefit can be determined by empirical study of the results.

I started to write a reply but honestly, I got bored about half-way through.

There are simple facts you deny. A choice made available to one sex cannot be construed to abolish the rights of another. You admit that there was a right to a relationship between the child and father in absense of an abortion.

You cannot make an implicit waiver of natural rights. I'm sorry but you can't and reproductive rights a recognized natural rights and there is a mountain of precedent. You can't deny one sexes reproductive rights without denying the other's. If a woman has a right to mother a child, a man has a right to father a child. It's very simple. It's not just a natural right but a fact of the fourteenth amendment. Upon birth the biological relationship of mother to child and father to child are exactly the same.

The child's rights to their parents are recognized. This is evidenced by child support payments that are paid to the child not to the mother.

About a half a dozen times you tried to claim that single-mothers couldn't exist if rights do, but you ignore the existence fo a surrogate in law.

Deny away, but the facts remain in your wake.

Seriously, you've made some excellent logical arguments, but the problem is that you've failed to incorporate any of our arguments into yours despite the mountain of evidence against you in law, the traditional role of parents in a child's life, biology, etc.

It's goldfishing and I'm tired of redefining the idea of a parent acting as an agent of the child in law because the child cannot do so on their own and having you act like it surrogates for excercising rights do not exist.

It can. Quickly. How does a child benefit from be denied a father interested in raising him? How does a child benefit from having LESS financial support? How does a father benefit from being denied his right to be with his son?
This discussion has nothing to do with having or not having a father. I ask you to stay on topic.

This discussion has nothing to do with having or not having a father. I ask you to stay on topic.

Of course it does. If a father gives up parental rights and obligations, then a child has no father in her life, at least not until such time as another is found.

Meanwhile, the discusison with VO has certainly involved denying fathers access to their children, as VO argues that a woman has full and complete rights over all decisions involving a child, and can choose to cut the father out unilaterally, regardless of the father's wishes.

This discussion has nothing to do with having or not having a father. I ask you to stay on topic.

Um, yes, it does. What makes the document illegal is that it denies a right of the child without anyone acting as an agent for the child. It's quite important that we discuss whether that right exist. The topic isn't whether child support laws are unfair but whether document is viable and whether or not it corrects an inequity or creates one. Feel free to join in.

You cannot make an implicit waiver of natural rights.
But you can explicitly waive them.

You can't deny one sexes reproductive rights without denying the other's. If a woman has a right to mother a child, a man has a right to father a child.
And you are misconstruing this to say a child must have support of both parents.

It's not just a natural right but a fact of the fourteenth amendment.
What? How?

The child's rights to their parents are recognized. This is evidenced by child support payments that are paid to the child not to the mother.
Spurious. Payments are for the children, not to the children. Child support payments are made to the legal guardian of the child.
http://courts.co.calhoun.mi.us/quest596.htm

About a half a dozen times you tried to claim that single-mothers couldn't exist if rights do, but you ignore the existence fo a surrogate in law.
Single parents could not legally exist if there was a legal right to a father/mother, which you proclaimed at one point.

Let's try a different tack since we're going in circles. I recognize that you don't advocate the taking of children from the mother. However, if I enacted a law that removed children from their homes and put them with the most stable parents we can select, am I violating anyone's rights. If I am, whose and what rights?

Um, yes, it does. What makes the document illegal is that it denies a right of the child without anyone acting as an agent for the child. It's quite important that we discuss whether that right exist. The topic isn't whether child support laws are unfair but whether document is viable and whether or not it corrects an inequity or creates one. Feel free to join in.
This topic has nothing to do with the right for a child to have a father. The idea that a child has a right to support has nothing to do with the right to a father, the imaginary right. I ask you to, you know, read the topic post and link. It is an excellent idea when entering a thread, at any point.

The news report this thread is about is specifically about the problems in the system.

However, if I enacted a law that removed children from their homes and put them with the most stable parents we can select, am I violating anyone's rights. If I am, whose and what rights?
Check the rules in the DHS system - a child can be removed from an unfit home if the state deems it unfit.

But you can explicitly waive them.

Except she is not doing so. We are talking about the mother who is acting as an agent of the child. The child's rights are not explicitly waived by an agent of the child's interests.

And you are misconstruing this to say a child must have support of both parents.

Not actually. VO is arguing that a father has no reproductive rights. Baby steps. If he does not acknowledge the rights we can't argue the responsibilites.

What? How?

You realize that the fourteenth amendment guarantees equal rights and since the mother has the right to raise her progeny so must the father.

Spurious. Payments are for the children, not to the children. Child support payments are made to the legal guardian of the child.
http://courts.co.calhoun.mi.us/quest596.htm

The guardian is an agent for the child. That is the legal equivalent of a payment to the child.

Single parents could not legally exist if there was a legal right to a father/mother, which you proclaimed at one point.
Yes, they could. An agent of the child's interests can waive the right. This is how an adoption occurs. It is not the person who is giving up the child who acts as the agent since they do not have custody of the child at the time of effect. So the person or person(s) who are the agents of the child are waiving the rights in the interests of the child.

This topic has nothing to do with the right for a child to have a father. The idea that a child has a right to support has nothing to do with the right to a father, the imaginary right. I ask you to, you know, read the topic post and link. It is an excellent idea when entering a thread, at any point.

Actually, it does because if the child has a right to a father that right is being waived by this document without anyone looking out for the interests of the child. That is germaine to the topic. If you don't wish to discuss it. Don't. We are.

The news report this thread is about is specifically about the problems in the system.

The author of the article did not start this thread. The OP brought up a paper abortion which is what we are dicussing.

Check the rules in the DHS system - a child can be removed from an unfit home if the state deems it unfit.

Yep. The state acts as an agent of the child and protects the child's interests. In that case, the child's interest require a waiver of their rights to their biological parents. In the process they are also abridging the rights of the parents but the state can do so if it has a compelling interest, which is the same reason a person can be incarcerated.

Except she is not doing so. We are talking about the mother who is acting as an agent of the child. The child's rights are not explicitly waived by an agent of the child's interests.
The mother has the right to receive support for the child. The child is not receiving support.

You realize that the fourteenth amendment guarantees equal rights and since the mother has the right to raise her progeny so must the father.
So you admit you are misconstruing things?

The guardian is an agent for the child. That is the legal equivalent of a payment to the child.
I will no longer respond to anything you say about law unless you provide linked proof that what you say is correct.


Yes, they could. An agent of the child's interests can waive the right.
So, the legal guardian of a child can legally waive its supposed legal right to a mother and father, but can't waive its supposed legal right to receive child support?


It is not the person who is giving up the child who acts as the agent since they do not have custody of the child at the time of effect. So the person or person(s) who are the agents of the child are waiving the rights in the interests of the child.
This is ludicrous.

The author of the article did not start this thread. The OP brought up a paper abortion which is what we are dicussing.
Whoah? What? Paper abortion? What the hell are you talking about now?

Interesting.

So again the question for those that think they are not responsible for the child.

Why don't you get vasectomies?

You don't need a legal document or a verbal contract to argue your case on responsibilities.

Why not do it?

Interesting.

So again the question for those that think they are not responsible for the child.

Why don't you get vasectomies?

You don't need a legal document or a verbal contract to argue your case on responsibilities.

Why not do it?
Why shouldn't a woman get her "tubes tied" then?

Why shouldn't a woman get her "tubes tied" then?

Those that really don't want children do. I know a few who did.

Never mind the fact we are talking about men bitching it's not fair and they shouldn't be held accountable.

If they don't want to be held accountable then they should get themselves cut especially if they are against having children.

It eliminates the need for any laws and it invalidates any verbal contract claims.....

Those that really don't want children do. I know a few who did.

Never mind the fact we are talking about men bitching it's not fair and they shouldn't be held accountable.

If they don't want to be held accountable then they should get themselves cut especially if they are against having children.

It eliminates the need for any laws and it invalidates any verbal contract claims.....
Then that is discrimination. If you said women should have an operation in a similar situation to this, people would be up in arms about discriminatin against women and putting pressure on them and yada yada. What if they want children later?

Then that is discrimination. If you said women should have an operation in a similar situation to this, people would be up in arms about discriminatin against women and putting pressure on them and yada yada.


For one thing; it's less evasive then then what's required to tie tubes.

Secondly; it was a question. No where did I say it was manditory.

What if they want children later?

That kind of negates the claim of not wanting to have children.

Again getting themselves cut does eliminate the need for any legal documentation and eliminates any claim of verbal contracts.

That kind of negates the claim of not wanting to have children.
You are the one who made the claim, and assumption that no man would want children. What if they want children later?

I didn't say that I agreed, I was just pointing out the logical conclusion of your statement - which I disagree with.

Then show me evidence or basis for a natural right to have a father's support.

And you kept saying things about "before abortion" as if there was ever such a time. As if men had responsibilties before abortion, but not after - even though abortion has always been there.

It is irrelevant either way.

Once again, there was *always* the right and ability to decide what the outcome would be. There were known abortificants and even "surgical" abortion methods, at the very least, since written history began. Science hasn't given the woman a right to decide - biology has done that. A woman has always been able to abort her pregnancy, through various means. Science has simply made that process safer for her.

This is like saying that science has given us the right to age. It hasn't. It has extended the lifespan, but it didn't create a right to get old.

But the decision was not always as free, and men did not always have no say in the matter.

You are the one who made the claim, and assumption that no man would want children. What if they want children later?

No I didn't. The question was for those that think they should not be held accountable.

Many arguments have been made here and even in the article that men should have a "get out of jail" card by simply saying they don't want children.

If that is the case, why not cut it.

No I didn't. The question was for those that think they should not be held accountable.
Yes, you did. You assumed that men won't want children, so they should have a surgical operation. So any time a man wants to have sex but doesn't want to have a child, he should have a surgical procedure beforehand?

Many arguments have been made here and even in the article that men should have a "get out of jail" card by simply saying they don't want children.

If that is the case, why not cut it.
No, the article outlines a, more or less, unique situation in which the woman took advantage of the man and the biased system was subsequently penalizing him for fathering the child.

There are simple facts you deny. A choice made available to one sex cannot be construed to abolish the rights of another. You admit that there was a right to a relationship between the child and father in absense of an abortion.

1. There was never a right for a man to have a child. It is biologically impossible for a man to have the right to have a child.

2. I admitted that the man had a responsibility for the child.

The child's rights to their parents are recognized. This is evidenced by child support payments that are paid to the child not to the mother.

The child is guaranteed support. The support is not mandated to come from the parents. The state can assume guardianship.

About a half a dozen times you tried to claim that single-mothers couldn't exist if rights do, but you ignore the existence fo a surrogate in law.

No, I claimed that if a child had a right to a father, then single-mothers couldn't adopt. The adoption by a single mother would violate the child's right to a father.

Because of the fact that single mothers are allowed to adopt, you must drop the argument that a child has a right to a father.

Deny away, but the facts remain in your wake.[/QUOTE]

Yes, you did. You assumed that men won't want children, so they should have a surgical operation. So any time a man wants to have sex but doesn't want to have a child, he should have a surgical procedure beforehand?


No, the article outlines a, more or less, unique situation in which the woman took advantage of the man and the biased system was subsequently penalizing him for fathering the child.

Ok if you don't want to answer the question that's fine.

Ok if you don't want to answer the question that's fine.
I can't find a question mark.

Why shouldn't a woman get her "tubes tied" then?

If she absolutely never wants children, she should.


Then show me evidence or basis for a natural right to have a father's support.

The basis is in the nature of a child, who cannot take care of himself and thus needs others to do so. Society as a whole is responsible for the child's welfare, but those most responsible for the child's existence are the most responsible for his welfare.

But the decision was not always as free, and men did not always have no say in the matter.

The ease of the decision is irrelevant. It has always been there.

Of course men always had no say in the matter. There is no way for a man to watch a woman every hour of the day - even if the law says he owns her. Not to mention that someone infringing upon a right does not equate to not having that right at all.


No, the article outlines a, more or less, unique situation in which the woman took advantage of the man and the biased system was subsequently penalizing him for fathering the child.

And proposes a solution that has nothing to do with the case in question - as it makes no distinction between a woman taking advantage of a man (by lying or tricking him) and the general case. It doesn't propose to restrict the "paper abortion" to such cases - but would offer them to all men (and not women - already making it a legal problem) equally.

No, I claimed that if a child had a right to a father, then single-mothers couldn't adopt. The adoption by a single mother would violate the child's right to a father.

Because of the fact that single mothers are allowed to adopt, you must drop the argument that a child has a right to a father.

Deny away, but the facts remain in your wake.

You keep arguing this strawman. The statement was not that the child has a right to *a* father, but to the support of her actual biological father (and mother). If a child is up for adoption, then both biological parents are already out of the picture. Since the child has a right to financial and emotional support, only one of which the state can really give, providing a single parent home in which emotional support can be provided is better than providing no home at all.

The basis is in the nature of a child, who cannot take care of himself and thus needs others to do so. Society as a whole is responsible for the child's welfare, but those most responsible for the child's existence are the most responsible for his welfare.

We are agreed on this, a child has no natural right for care that the state can protect, so it provides a positive right for child care.

The ease of the decision is irrelevant. It has always been there.

Of course men always had no say in the matter. There is no way for a man to watch a woman every hour of the day - even if the law says he owns her. Not to mention that someone infringing upon a right does not equate to not having that right at all.

So you are willing to argue that a woman has always had as much control over her own body as she has today?

A woman could either give birth or be killed because she wasn't producing children, but she still had control over their body.

Even you state that the woman was owned by law, how can a woman have control over her body when the law says she doesn't.

You keep arguing this strawman. The statement was not that the child has a right to *a* father, but to the support of her actual biological father (and mother). If a child is up for adoption, then both biological parents are already out of the picture. Since the child has a right to financial and emotional support, only one of which the state can really give, providing a single parent home in which emotional support can be provided is better than providing no home at all.

How is it a strawman? I keep pointing out that there are multiple situations where the child does not receive its father's support. That would lead anyone to believe that there is no implicit right to a father's support, only a right to support from some guardian. Because of the traditional causal relationship associated with the father he was forced to accept responsibility for that care. However, with the rights of the woman extended to completely control the pregnancy, she is fully the cause of the child and fully bears responsibility.


I understand that the state requires the father to care for a child that is the product of his sperm, but that seems to be the central point of disagreement here.

Are you saying that your argument against a father denying responsibility for the birth is that the state requires him to accept responsibility for the birth?

Is that some form of begging the question?

We are agreed on this, a child has no natural right for care that the state can protect, so it provides a positive right for child care.

Once again, I never said there was no natural right. If natural rights even exist, then a child has one - to be protected.

So you are willing to argue that a woman has always had as much control over her own body as she has today?

Of course not. But she has always had the right to her own body - same as all human beings. The infringement of a right does not equate to a lack of said right.

And a woman has always, if she wanted it enough, been able to abort a pregnancy.

How is it a strawman? I keep pointing out that there are multiple situations where the child does not receive its father's support.

Yes, and these are cases in which the father has failed in his responsibility. Giving a child to a single mother doesn't infringe upon the child's right to care from his father - the father himself has already infringed on that right, and the state is simply doing what it can to make things better for the child in that situation.

I understand that the state requires the father to care for a child that is the product of his sperm, but that seems to be the central point of disagreement here.

Are you saying that your argument against a father denying responsibility for the birth is that the state requires him to accept responsibility for the birth?

Of course not. But we were *specifically* talking about legal rights. Thus, the fact that the state requires it directly points to a legal right of the child.

My argument against a father or mother denying responsibility for a child is that it is irresponsible and childish to do so. However, I do not advocate forcing anyone, male or female, to do so - because you cannot force someone to be responsible - it is impossible. But I'm not going to cry for them or respect them.

If she absolutely never wants children, she should.
But that was never a factor brought up. TBF was dicussing it in relation to a person who doesn't want a child in a singular sex act.


The basis is in the nature of a child, who cannot take care of himself and thus needs others to do so. Society as a whole is responsible for the child's welfare, but those most responsible for the child's existence are the most responsible for his welfare.
No, actually. America is a selfish society and sees no need to take care of or be responsible for anyone but themselves. Society is not responsible for a child's welfare here, the parents are. If they can't provide it, they should find some one who can, not pretend they can themselves.


And proposes a solution that has nothing to do with the case in question - as it makes no distinction between a woman taking advantage of a man (by lying or tricking him) and the general case. It doesn't propose to restrict the "paper abortion" to such cases - but would offer them to all men (and not women - already making it a legal problem) equally.
After going over the article again, I don't see how anyone can make the argument either way what the case says because even the basics of the case arn't outlined. It just says reproduction rights. In fact, there are no specific specifics of the case released.


You keep arguing this strawman. The statement was not that the child has a right to *a* father,
You should really keep up with Jocabia's statements if you intend to argue parallel to them. He said both that "a child has a legal right to a father" and "a child has a natural right to a father."

If a child is up for adoption, then both biological parents are already out of the picture.
You hold a narrow view of the adoption process. A child can be prepped for adoption while stille in the mother's custody, or even womb. Adoption is not just a thing found in the state foster care system.

Since the child has a right to financial and emotional support, only one of which the state can really give, providing a single parent home in which emotional support can be provided is better than providing no home at all.Narrow view. You can find adopting families before the baby is born.


Let me interject this, again.
Parents are nothing more than glorified legal guardians.

Yes, and these are cases in which the father has failed in his responsibility. Giving a child to a single mother doesn't infringe upon the child's right to care from his father - the father himself has already infringed on that right, and the state is simply doing what it can to make things better for the child in that situation.
If the father has already infringed on the child's (imaginary) right to support by his "father," then what right does the state have to force the father to support the family financially? If the mother can't do it, she shouldn't have it. This is not my opinion of what should happen, just a response to your statement.

Of course not. But we were *specifically* talking about legal rights. Thus, the fact that the state requires it directly points to a legal right of the child.
But the state doesn't require the father to support the children if there is no reason to.

Why don't birth parents pay child support to adopting parents? If a non-present father has to do it, why don't the birth parents in case of an adoption? Especially if the father has already waived some right, I can't even keep these crazy lines straight, dealing with the child.

this thread has taken such an odd turn that i cant follow all the problems with it

its amazing to me to see men advocating positions that are too radical for the most manhating feminists to take.

if a woman put up the position that men have no natural rights to their own children she would be shouted down so fast and so thoroughly that she would leave the forums and never post again.

this thread has taken such an odd turn that i cant follow all the problems with it

its amazing to me to see men advocating positions that are too radical for the most manhating feminists to take.

if a woman put up the position that men have no natural rights to their own children she would be shouted down so fast and so thoroughly that she would leave the forums and never post again.

Eh? What positions are those?

I can't find a question mark.

Whatever.

this thread has taken such an odd turn that i cant follow all the problems with it

its amazing to me to see men advocating positions that are too radical for the most manhating feminists to take.

if a woman put up the position that men have no natural rights to their own children she would be shouted down so fast and so thoroughly that she would leave the forums and never post again.

That's one of the reasons why I think whoever proposed this law is utterly mad. Currently, barring a history of violence or similar, men have an undisputed right to their kids. If male parenthood is reduced to an 'opt-in' then it will be to the detriment of men everywhere.

Eh? What positions are those?
try reading the last couple pages of the thread


how about the one where men have no natural right to their own children or the one where women should be able to decide whether or not men may have anything to do with their own children.

That's one of the reasons why I think whoever proposed this law is utterly mad. Currently, barring a history of violence or similar, men have an undisputed right to their kids. If male parenthood is reduced to an 'opt-in' then it will be to the detriment of men everywhere.
it reduces men to the afterthoughts of society. something that could be easily replaced by a well stocked sperm bank.

it reduces men to the afterthoughts of society. something that could be easily replaced by a well stocked sperm bank.

Are you saying that a man's role in society is solely determined by his ability to ejaculate?

how about the one where men have no natural right to their own children or the one where women should be able to decide whether or not men may have anything to do with their own children.

I have stated that that only applies to unplanned pregnancies.

Father's have rights to children, however, the right to a child begins at birth, and established by the mother's representation for the child.

Once named the father (which must occur before birth) the father has all of the same rights.

In situations of planned pregnancies and marriage, if a father has an expectation of recieving parental rights as a result of sex, then he will recieve those rights.

EDIT: I don't believe that ejaculation should give a man entitlement to a child.

Are you saying that a man's role in society is solely determined by his ability to ejaculate?



I have stated that that only applies to unplanned pregnancies.

Father's have rights to children, however, the right to a child begins at birth, and established by the mother's representation for the child.

Once named the father (which must occur before birth) the father has all of the same rights.

In situations of planned pregnancies and marriage, if a father has an expectation of recieving parental rights as a result of sex, then he will recieve those rights.

EDIT: I don't believe that ejaculation should give a man entitlement to a child.
and im saying that if *I* said that "feminazi" would be the nicest thing i would be called.