/r/PoliticalDiscussion post: "Should a man be able to get a "financial abortion"?

automatopeapod · 2013-06-26T17:03:16+00:00

This guy:

There is no scenario where there is a child and the women gets to shed responsibility for the child that does not also include the father.

/facepalm

toptrool · 2013-06-26T17:25:05+00:00

my thoughts (also posted in the political discussion topic):

where elective abortions are allowed, abortion is female privilege:

1) females are allowed to legally kill their offspring if they do not desire it; males have no say on whether they want to be a parent and they are legally mandated to provide for the offspring.

2) the "bodily autonomy" argument feminists often try to object with does not work. if we consider the purpose of child support, that is providing shelter and nutrition to the offspring, then there's no reason why females can't be obligated to carry the pregnancy to term. the uterus' sole purpose is to provide nutrition and shelter to the offspring. if feminists think that one method of child support (pregnancy) is unacceptable, then we can argue that other forms (financial support) is also unacceptable. if they want to get into absolute "bodily autonomy" rights, we can go into absolute property rights. thus, for the feminist objection of "bodily autonomy" to work, they would have to clearly and distinctly explain why pregnancy is not a valid form of child support.

there are also several things wrong with the "bodily autonomy" arguments in this case:

i) child support is meant for the child, and the parents' thoughts, feelings, inconveniences, rights etc. take a backseat.

ii) being forced to put your body through labor to provide for your children is a violation of bodily autonomy; not to mention that being jailed for insufficiently providing for your children is also a violation of bodily autonomy.

3) personal responsibility cuts both ways. to avoid looking like hypocrites when they use the pro-life argument of personal responsibility ("you should've not have had sex if you weren't ready to be a father," etc.), feminists come up with a lousy retort of "consenting to pregnancy," which is essentially "just because the woman consented to sex doesn't mean she consents to carrying her offspring for nine-ten months." the flaw with that argument is that you can only consent to acts, you cannot consent to consequences. when b.p. caused the oil spill back in 2010, did they consent to the drilling? yes. did they consent to the oil spill? obviously not. did they have to take responsibility for it? absolutely. thus, the claim that a female does not consent to carrying a pregnancy is not a valid reason for her to abdicate her obligations to her offspring.

this is an equality under the law type of argument. either make both parents responsible for the offspring (ban abortions, mandate child support) or allow both parents to abdicate responsibilities to their children (allow abortions, get rid of mandated child support). pro-aborts start experiencing major cognitive dissonances when presented with this argument.

chocoboat · 2013-06-26T17:56:27+00:00

I'd like to see more discussion of a compromise between the two positions. Instead of "18 years of full child support" vs "I should have no responsibility at all"... why not 4 years of child support? Or 18 years of 10% of normal child support?

Even if it's not a perfect solution, it could be a temporary solution until we work out something better. It would be a step forward.

toptrool · 2013-06-26T17:57:51+00:00

[permanently deleted]

nicemod · 2013-06-26T18:51:47+00:00

Sorry, but this post breaks the following rule:

Links to subreddits with <30k subscribers must be to posts >24h old.

It has been removed.

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2013-06-26T19:11:19+00:00

I like the bodily integrity argument.

You see it's not just about women being able to have an abortion. People would be horrified if a woman's eggs were harvested from her without her consent to produce a child. And they'd be outraged then if she were shamed for not raising a child she never consented to because "only a scumbag would abandon their child".

Granted that scenario is unlikely but the moral argument there stands to reason: it is unjust to use a woman's genetic material to produce a child that is half hers without her consent then demand she pay to raise it.

If only the same logic could be applied equally to both genders.

ExpendableOne · 2013-06-26T20:01:44+00:00

I'm not pro-life but the entire pro-choice argument is a joke. The vast majority of abortions aren't performed because of a pregnancy's effect on a woman's body or because she has to carry it for nine months, they are done because women are unable or unwilling to take care of a child, for whatever reason, at that point in time. It's done because there is a lifelong commitment, burden and responsibility that mothers-to-be cannot or will not take on.

So if we grant women that choice over the rest of their life as a moth, and the life of her child, then the same argument can and should be made for a fathers choice over his own life as a father, and the life of his child. A woman shouldn't get absolute authority over the matter and get to enforce her choice on a man, that will stay with him for the rest of his life, simply because she has to live with a pregnancy for nine months or with the physical aftermath of the pregnancy(both of which are certainly pertinent and substantial in of their own but still completely irrelevant when looking at the greater spectrum of things or at what actually drives the choice in question).

If they are also going to make the argument that men have no say in what a woman chooses to do with that life and if it's already established that the reason for a woman to choose to bring a child to term or aborting it has nothing to do with protecting a woman's body, then how could they justify even telling men that their consent, in regards to their own DNA, does not matter or that there is absolutely no grounds for enforcing safe/clean abortions as a result of a child being unconsented to by the father or that there are no grounds for enforcing unwilling mothers to go through with the pregnancy at the expense of the father/government?

If a woman's choice isn't based on the physical aspect of the initial process, then the same reasoning should apply to both men and women equally. If you're pro-life, the well-being of the child should supercede both the will of the mother and the father. If you are pro-choice, the consent of both the mother and the father should be taken into consideration. The only exception here, which should apply to both points of views equally, is when the health and safety of the mother is put into jeopardy by the pregnancy(in which case, the health/safety of the mother supersedes the life of the child or a woman's choice).

Title	/r/PoliticalDiscussion post: "Should a man be able to get a "financial abortion"?
Author	ShetlandJames
Upvotes	12
Comments	10
Date	June 26, 2013 3:57 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1h44pg/rpoliticaldiscussion_post_should_a_man_be_able_to/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/rpoliticaldiscussion-post-should-a-man-be-able-to.1170131 https://theredarchive.com/post/1170131

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