Men’s parental responsibilities, distilled down to a simple logical argument.
First, a few assumptions that you may or may not agree with.
Assumption 1: You hold positions on arguments on the basis of reason and logical thought.
I put this one first, because if you don’t agree with this, we’re done. I have no interest in debating this any further, as you have no reason at all to agree with any of my reasonable arguments. You can stop reading now.
Assumption 2: You believe in equal treatment under the law.
I drank the equal rights and equal protection under the law “kool-aid” a long time ago. I don’t think melanin levels or gender chromosomes should restrict your employment options, and I don’t really care whatever two consenting adults care to do among themselves. I don’t really expect the legislative branch to pass laws entitling me to grow a uterus, and I doubt that such a law, if passed, would change basic biology anyway. Especially, however, I don’t think that some people somehow are entitled to be “more equal” than others.
Assumption 3: You support “anti-dead baby in a dumpster laws” (newborn safe haven law., “Baby Moses Law”, etc).
A lot of these laws were passed after there were a number of live born, but dead or nearly so abandoned babies in the news. Basically they give the mother the right, within a certain amount of time, to go somewhere like a hospital and hand over the kid along with all her parenting rights and responsibilities. The example, link here, [1] states that the mom, or someone with the mom’s permission may drop the kid off and “shall be immune from civil liability or criminal prosecution for the act”. It’s also clear from the reading that the mom won’t be on the hook for 18 years of child support. So it’s pretty clear that moms get a “get out of responsibility free” card here.
You can probably see where I’m going here, but I’ll spell it out for the particularly slow. If you support the “anti-dead baby” law, but you don’t think that men should be able to get out of child support, to be able to stand by your logical argument, you must not agree with assumption number 2. That’s fine, people can disagree, but at least be honest with yourself that you believe in special privileges for different genders. Also, perhaps you firmly believe that assumption one and two are correct, but moms dropping off kids should still be liable for child support, even if they never see them again. That’s fine also, and perhaps you think a law enforcing parental responsibilities is good for society as a whole. Despite the media attention, I don’t think there ever was a whole lot of abandoned babies out there, and I’m not 100% sure that a law like this will make an impression on someone who would abandon their kid anyway.
I think I bring a pretty airtight argument, but you are welcome to disagree in comments. If you do, however, please prefix your argument with which of the three above assumptions that you agree with. That should make your position that much clearer.
(more below the fold)
In the case dubbed “roe v. wade for men”, [2] and in my advocacy arguments elsewhere, I actually requested recognition of rights at a far lower level than this. Instead of having the ability to terminate parental responsibilities after birth. I requested that woman who choses to request child support and share rearing responsibilities from the future father should notify him of his future fatherhood and request that he formally accept and agree. This requirement would be waved in extreme circumstances like rape, and the woman, who has a right to privacy just like everyone else does, would be under no obligation to inform anyone who the father was. She would just be unable to claim child support later. I honestly don’t see this as a huge burden to anyone who approves of the idea of “planned parenthood” for both men and women.
I envision the woman should inform the father shortly into her pregnancy, and the man should have to reply promptly, giving the woman time to chose from the (not so secret, actually pretty obvious) choices of, abortion of the fetus, adoption of the child, choosing to raise the child herself as a single parent, or finding a surrogate father to adopt and share legal custody (That’s not meant as a jab at tgirsch, but he did tell me that I came off as a “paranoid misogynist”, so whatever).
Standard legal boilerplate in a pre-nup or another type of contract could, of course, modify this arrangement with the informed consent of both parties
When Lauren first bogged about this over at Feministe, I think she came very close to somewhat supporting my position, but perhaps she didn’t explicitly state such because she was afraid to be flamed. Zuzu, on the other hand, starts out questioning “what world is it populated by sperm vampires out to steal men’s precious bodily fluids?”
While I’m sure the numbers are quite small, I find it hard to believe that she doesn’t think there’s a single woman out there that gets “accidentally” pregnant for all the wrong reasons, either as an attempt to salvage a relationship or as an attempt to trap a man into marriage (with child support being second prize). In those rare cases, this should provide a proper disincentive. Honestly, with this happening so seldom, I’m having a hard time believing all the rhetoric from all the people that seek to preserve the “right” to “entrap”. What are you all thinking? Do you really condone this type of action? Especially when it was made clear that at no time would any man have control over what you chose to bring to term or any other control over your body?
It was also disturbing to see every debunked anti-abortion argument recycled, twisted around, and used to attack men’s rights. Stuff like, “The man’s right to choose comes in when he decides to wear a condom or get a vasectomy or not.” Yea, she’s surely for equal rights.
Several people brought out the argument that this was a particularly weak case, and not at all like Roe, as the lawsuits seeks to remove a burden rather than strictly allow a man to control his reproductive system. But the filers chose the tagline “roe v. wade for men” more as a discussion starter and buzzword. Strictly speaking, yes, it’s not identical to the landmark case. Doesn’t really matter.
I’m going to end with a quote from the Salon article with the money quote highlighted by me.
[1] This one seems to come in at 244 words or so. I’ve been reading a lot of laws lately and it constantly amazes me how short and simple a law can be when they are trying to use the law to enumerate a right. On the other hand, if they are trying to pull some kind of sneaky underhanded legislative-critter standard mischief, you tend to get reams long obfuscated legalese prose.
[2] Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find or link to any of the filed court papers, or even find the name of the case anywhere out there on the internets. I do try to link to sources when I blog
Related Tags: men’s rights, mens’s reproductive rights, pro-choice, roe v.wade for men, roe v.wade
tgirsch Says :
Without having a lot of time to get into the details, I think there are some flaws with your assumptions, which I’ll tackle quite briefly.
First, assumption 2: “You believe in equal rights and equal protection under the law.”
The thing you miss here is that you seem to assume that not only should these ideas be striven for, but that they are always possible. I contend that they are not always possible, and that in those cases where it isn’t, we must strive to get as close to the ideal as possible, but that true equality may not be achievable. I think that with respect to parental rights, this is very much the case.
Concerning assumption 3: “You support [new baby safe haven] laws,” I think you miss the idea that it’s possible to support such laws while recognizing that they are less-than-ideal and potentially unfair. Support for such laws is almost never born of a feeling that they’re fair, or that they’re the best possible solution, and almost always born of the knowledge that in practical terms, the alternative is usually worse.
Finally, tying assumption 2 and assumption 3 together, as I’ve pointed out before (at SayUncle’s site and mine), your equal protection argument doesn’t really hold water if a man could just as legally drop a newborn off at an emergency room under those laws. If a woman could drop off the newborn but a man could not, that may very well constitute an equal protection problem. But if anyone can drop off a newborn no questions asked, then there’s simply no equal protection violation.
2006-03-28 17:47 Permalinktgirsch Says :
Because you did come off that way!
I asked around — I wasn’t the only one who thought so.
2006-03-28 19:29 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
I think I was pretty clear that I expected responders to indicate clearly which of the assumptions you agree with. It looks like you want to agree with them all. I can hear the gears clicking in the positronic brain from here.
Well, we don’t seem to disagree that equal protection under the law ought to be striven for, and although they might not be fully possible, you can get pretty darn close. Discrimination in this country against the Irish has all but disappeared, and virtually does not matter (even though a few stereotypes get trotted out on St. Patrick’s Day)
But what confuses me is that you seem to be not striving for anything anywhere near the right to chose being a parent for both sexes
Well, I linked to the law in Maryland. I even gave a word count and stated how surprisingly short it was. You pretty much can’t get any clearer than that. Laws vary, but in Maryland only the mother, or an agent with the mothers permission can drop off the kid.
As an aside, I almost didn’t post this, because I though I was letting an debate with people who did not seem to reason bother me too much. I finally decided to because the very action of distilling the argument down caused me to question my own assumptions. I’m firmly in agreement of assumptions 1 and 2. I’m now not sure Safe Haven laws are necessarily a good idea. The idea behind the law is sound, I mean just think of the children, but I’m not sure the consequences of anyone getting a ?get out of responsibility free? card are worth it. This does not mean I want to see dead babies in a dumpster, but like the war on (some) drugs, the cure might be worse than the disease. This revelation also does not affect the fact that I want all sexes to have the right to chose to be a parent. I just think that decision needs to be made before there is a baby involved.
2006-03-29 11:41 PermalinkJay Says :
Hey there, stumbled onto your blog via the blog linked from the Big Giant Button today.
For the record I agree with all your assumptions, with a bit of a qualifier to #2 which I’ll outline below.
I could address this to whole argument right from the start, but I was actually most struck by the last 3 sentence of your response to tgirsch:
> This does not mean I want to see dead babies in a dumpster, but like the war on (some) drugs, the cure might be worse than the disease.
I’m not entirely sure what could be worse than babies in dumpsters, or more correctly what wrong could be created by these types of laws that could be worse. Could you please clarify this?
> This revelation also does not affect the fact that I want all sexes to have the right to chose to be a parent.
I agree with this in principle, but isn’t there a bit of difference between a father deciding he doesn’t want to be a father ‘cus he doesn’t want a few bucks docked from his pay every month vs. a mother who would rather kill her baby than raise it (presumably, in most cases, without support from the father or much from anyone else) for whatever horrible, desperate, sad reasons? Are those two things situations “equal” to start with?
> I just think that decision needs to be made before there is a baby involved.
Again I agree, but we’re talking about situations where it’s already too late for that. And while as I said above I do agree with assumption #2 (equal treatment) I also personally feel that there should be an equally if not more important characteristic of law, and that is that it should protect for those among us who need the most protection. A newborn who may end up in a dumpster, in my books, qualifies as someone who needs the most protection. Let’s keep our eye on the ball here! Anti-dead baby laws & child support laws actually have the same foundational principle as near as I can tell - protect the child, first and foremost, because she is the one least able to take care of herself, obviously. The consequence of giving a mother a “get out of jail free” card might be a little hard to swallow, but I go back to my first question - is that really worse than a baby in a dumpster? Really?
2006-03-31 18:15 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
Foot in mouth. I said that kinda poorly. See what I said above: ?Despite the media attention, I don?t think there ever was a whole lot of abandoned babies out there, and I?m not 100% sure that a law like this will make an impression on someone who would abandon their kid anyway.?
For the record, dead babies in a dumpster suck. I’m just not sure that this type of law would be a deterrent to anyone who would toss one in there. Anyone that is that messed up, I wouldn’t peg as a law-abiding person.
You trivialize the impact of the potential creation of life on men’s feelings. I know at this point In my life, I don’t want kids. I think I’d be a rotten parent. Yet I still have unresolved feelings about the miscarriage my ex-SO had. Personally, I’d have a very tough time consenting to an abortion, even though it is not my choice at all. (To be clear, it was a miscarriage, so no one had a choice, but had there not had been one, there would have been a choice to be made.)
There are very few cases where a woman would not know she was pregnant or would be unable to contact the father in a timely manner. I have no problem writing in exceptions to the law for those cases. Again, hopefully this type of discussion happens well before an unwanted pregnancy. A contract here could remove any ambiguity in this circumstance, just like a pre-nup or a ?living together? or a sperm donation contract.
2006-03-31 21:01 PermalinkPhil Welch Says :
There *is* another way out of this. You could have a Baby Moses law that didn’t make it legal per se for a mother to abandon her newborn child, but did allow the mother to leave her child at a hospital or other designated abandonment zone. In this case, the mother would be on the hook for support if she were tracked down, but her appearance at the child abandonment zone could not be used as evidence to track her down.
This sort of law, along with the inherent male ability to slip away from a pregnancy unnoticed (and the inherent paternity uncertainty in any pregnancy), would establish gender equality without enshrining a right to abandon one’s born children.
2006-03-31 23:16 PermalinkJay Moonah Says :
?Despite the media attention, I don?t think there ever was a whole lot of abandoned babies out there, and I?m not 100% sure that a law like this will make an impression on someone who would abandon their kid anyway.?
Well I don’t think (at least I hope) this isn’t too regular occurrence, but there were at least a couple of well publicized cases here in Toronto in the last few years:
http://www.canadiancrc.com/articles/National_Post_Police_seek_mother_abandoned_baby_24MAY05.htm
http://www.canadiancrc.com/articles/Tor_Star_Woman_charged_abandoned_baby_front_city_hall_28JAN03.htm
(It seems to me there was another in 04-05 but I didn’t turn up anything with a quick search, I’ll look more later.)
And those ones were discovered. You got to think at least a few folks got away with it. And I’m gonna assume if this is happening in Toronto, it’s happening in other North American urban centres too.
I’m not 100% sure this kind of law would work either, but unlike your earlier comparison to something like the war on drugs, having laws like this seems to me to be relatively low impact from an economic and social perspective. The war on drugs (and other such “wars”) cost millions of dollars, require the creation of government agencies, even cost the lives of police and others for what seems to be little effect. I can’t see how having these kinds of laws is in any way comparable on a pro vs. con basis.
“There are very few cases where a woman would not know she was pregnant or would be unable to contact the father in a timely manner. I have no problem writing in exceptions to the law for those cases.”
If you’re saying you “have no problem writing in exceptions to the law for those cases”, what do you use as the measure for this? It’s a good idea in principle but I have no idea how it would work in practice.
I think (hope!) it’s pretty clear that we’re talking about exceptional cases here. I’m pretty sure if we did a survey of the women found to be leaving their babies in dumpsters, we’d find overwhelmingly that they:
1) are poor by whatever measure you want to use
2) are addicted to something bad for them and for their baby
3) don’t have the support of the father in any meaningful way ‘cus he’s either not around or also suffers from 1 & 2
No I have no stats on this, but I’d be willing to be a pretty reasonable sum. Any takers?
I’m also willing to bet that the kind of women who would take advantage of the anti-dead baby type laws are not the ones who would rationally choose (with a mate in the picture or not) such options as abortion or putting the baby up for adoption through the usual means.
As is often the case with law, I think we have to balance the potential good with the potential harm. The potential good of saving even a small percentage of babies from death in a dumpster vs. the potential harm to the rights of some parents who are probably not in the best position to care for their children to start with, and have very likely made some very bad choices. Rational people don’t leave their kids in the trash, so I think it’s a given that the rational options have failed in these cases.
Cheers,
2006-04-01 10:58 Permalink- J.
Standard Mischief Says :
Read it again. It’s not referring to “dumpster babies”, it’s referring to those few women out there who become ?accidentally? pregnant for all the wrong reasons.
2006-04-01 12:15 PermalinkJay Moonah Says :
Okay yeah, I think I know what you’re referring to, but I’ll quote the whole paragraph and try to clarify what I’M referring to, ‘cus I think you’re in some kind of weird denial:
“There are very few cases where a woman would not know she was pregnant or would be unable to contact the father in a timely manner. I have no problem writing in exceptions to the law for those cases. Again, hopefully this type of discussion happens well before an unwanted pregnancy. A contract here could remove any ambiguity in this circumstance, just like a pre-nup or a ?living together? or a sperm donation contract.”
What I’m trying to point out is that there actually ARE those cases where “a woman… would be unable to contact the father in a timely manner”. Perhaps this is news to you, but it’s actually true. There are cases where the woman really can’t get in touch with the husband because he’s taken off for real (it may shock you to learn that there are guys who actually do this), or he’s an addict, (sometimes they have unprotected sex) or he’s a convicted felon behind bars (they have also have been known to have sex without protection), and he is not there to participate in the raising of the child. Sometimes these kinds of men and women do not make good choices - such as committing crimes, taking drugs, and/or screwing someone who does these things.
Perhaps these people don’t exist within your social circles, but I can assure they do actually exist.
You go on to say “… hopefully this type of discussion happens well before an unwanted pregnancy.” Yeah, well hopefully there will be peace in Africa and the Middle East by tomorrow, too. Last time I checked, HOPE is not a magic cure-all. The circumstances where those nice discussions DON’T for all the the kinds of reasons I outlined above are, I think, are exactly the kinds the anti-dead baby laws were meant to address.
If your world only consists of nice, rational people who think about the consequences of all their actions at all times, and write contracts to deal with every contingency, please let me know how I can teleport there and join you. Until then, here on Planet Earth (at least in the parts of it where we do smart things like write laws to protect newborn babies as best we can) laws need to address those kinds of scary people and the potentially tragic outcomes of THEIR actions as well as well.
Cheers,
2006-04-01 16:50 Permalink- J.
Standard Mischief Says :
I’d have to say this is getting a little tedious.
Why would he take off and hide when he has the right not to be the father upon being formally notified that he has been a party to getting someone pregnant?
Why would this make a difference?
If he’s a ?convicted felon behind bars? one has to ask how he managed to get someone pregnant. If he managed to do that, the fact that he’s actually behind bars should make it easy to find and notify him. I have no idea what kind of support he could provide to a child anyway.
Are you even reading my post here?
2006-04-02 12:14 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
That might be workable, in fact it might be in effect under some of the state’s laws, they vary quite a bit.
The main idea here was to show people that if they support equal rights, and they are willing to let a new mother slip out of her responsibilities with a living breathing baby, then it’s not a too radical a thought to allow men to do likewise, except early in the woman’s pregnancy when it’s still a fetus and the woman has a clear choice.
2006-04-02 12:41 PermalinkJay Moonah Says :
“Why would he take off and hide when he has the right not to be the father upon being formally notified that he has been a party to getting someone pregnant?”
I’m still not sure what planet you live in where guys never get women pregnant and then take off.
You’re right, this is getting tedious.
Please send a postcard sometime.
2006-04-02 15:27 Permalinktgirsch Says :
SM:
think I was pretty clear that I expected responders to indicate clearly which of the assumptions you agree with. It looks like you want to agree with them all.
That’s true, as far as it goes. What I don’t agree with is the idea that your conclusion necessarily follows from those three assumptions. Which is why I pointed out the reasons that assumptions #2 and #3 don’t apply.
What you’re talking about creating is a scenario in which any male could impregnate as many women as he feels like and not take any responsibility for this, so long as he formally disavows responsibility within the preordained time frame. Talk about the cure being worse than the “disease!”
That’s the problem with your whole “equal protection” line of reasoning — the scenario it creates is less equal (by far) than the status quo. In fact, the only way it bridges any sort of equality gap is if you were somehow magically able to only apply these rules in the sort of predatory I-got-pregnant-on-purpose-and-want-to-extort-money-from-you scenarios that are far less common than you seem to believe. But I wonder how a guy who doesn’t trust the government to do, well, anything, could trust the government to figure out whether it was the man or the woman who was irresponsible and/or predatory.
And once again, this is where the allegation of misogyny comes in. Your entire line of reasoning is predicated on the idea that in any disputed pregnancy, it is usually the woman who has malicious intent, or who was somehow irresponsible.
2006-04-10 12:39 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
Aw man, if I’m coming across as a misogynist, you are seemingly a condescending person. Please tell me where all these women are that I can score with and then dump. I need some help here, (actually, I’m a nice guy, so I’ll treat them decent and let them down gently if things ain’t working out).
Let me tell you about a first date I had where the conversation turned abruptly toward the a$$ets in my 401k. I’d also like to note that she asked between appetizers and main course, so she was clever enough to at least get a meal out of it before I dropped her at the curb.
I find it insulting that women won’t know the score and start acting appropriately. I would hope most women would find that insulting too.
Just for modest proposal purposes, I’ll let any woman out of the proposed obligations, if she certifies herself as an idiot. She will, however, have to give up her franchise, but she gets to skip jury duty. To make things equal, we’ll figure out some kinda crap for men too.
Hey, I get to quote me again.
Well, they’re pretty good at delivering the junk mail, but I use online bill pay and 3rd party package shipping for nearly everything else (and I’ve complained about the money orders before too).
2006-04-11 21:46 PermalinkJeff Bargholz Says :
Tgirsch,
you sound like a neurotic misandrist (quick, check a dictionary,) or a neutered girly-man.
Enjoy the ad hominem, because you didn’t have a coherent argument to refute.
2006-04-24 02:52 PermalinkJeff Bargholz Says :
Standard Mischief,
I disagree with the euphemism “right to choose,” but I don’t necessarily disagree with you. Both the father and the baby are denied this right. As you pointed out, women are given special “rights” and privileges in this area.
A woman should never be allowed the option of infanticide on demand, especially if the father, who contributed 50% of the baby’s genetic package, is against it. Abortion has nothing to do with a woman’s “right” to control her body. Women lose what little control they have over their (usually fat and poorly maintained,) bodies the instant they become pregnant. It’s not the woman’s body that is most affected, it’s the baby’s/fetus’.
Right now, an American woman has the right to murder her unborn child against the father’s wishes. She also has the right to force the father to financially support a baby (the money is usually spent on herself,) he didn’t want her to have. You weren’t kidding about unequal treatment under the law.
The future will likely judge us harshly for the obscenity of abortion on demand.
2006-04-24 03:10 Permalink*nix mischief: The “Button Guy” sends me an April Fool’s Joke at Standard Mischief Says :
[...] Did you follow that? Good, OK, then I got this obvious “sock puppet” comment here: ?Hey there, stumbled onto your blog via the blog linked from the Big Giant Button today. [...]
2007-02-20 12:53 Permalink