[AUS] I sent my Member of Parliament an email about Financial Abortion rights for men

EricAllonde · 2017-10-11T09:07:25+00:00

I think this is best addressed in terms of the rights of men vs women. Here's something I wrote on that topic a while back, maybe you'll find some of it useful while talking with your MP:

Women now have both the right to consent to sex and the right to consent to become a parent.

In the past, abortion was either unavailable or illegal, so a woman consenting to sex meant that she automatically consented to become a parent if a pregnancy should result. But now we have legal abortion, both surgically and through the morning after pill. A woman can also unilaterally decide to give a newborn child up for adoption in many places, and thereby relieve herself of any further responsibility for the child.

Thanks to the legal availability of these options, women have the right to consent to become a parent that's entirely separate to their right to consent to sex.

Men have the right to consent to sex, but they are explicitly denied the right to consent to become a parent by our current laws.

If a woman becomes pregnant by any means, including:

theft, e.g. taking a used condom from where it's been discarded and using the semen in it
deception or dishonesty, e.g. lying about being on the pill when she isn't; poking holes in the condom before sex; or offering to have oral sex and then impregnating herself with the resulting semen
fraud, e.g. by forging the man's signature on a form to get access to his semen stored at a fertility clinic without his knowlege
rape, i.e. forcing a man, or even an underage boy, into having sex with her

...then in all of these situations, she can force the man whose sperm she used to financially support the resulting child for 21-26 years.

No, I'm not making this up. Yes, there have been court cases which confirmed legal precedent for all of the scenarios given.

There have even been attempts to force sperm donors to pay child support, despite the fact that the man provided sperm to the women involved as a favour at their request and with the explicit agreement that he would not be financially responsible for the child. (Classic example: gay men helping a lesbian couple have children).

Many of these legal cases have failed, but more than a few have succeeded - reconfirming the way that society and the law view men's position: men have no reproductive rights, they are explicitly deemed financially responsible for any child created with their sperm, regardless of the circumstances under which the pregnancy occurred.

I can't think of any other situation in our society where Person X can face serious legally-enforced consequences for the actions of Person Y, which were taken without the consent and/or without the knowledge of Person X and where no argument for negligence can be made. Can you?

For example, imagine a woman being hauled into court and told, "This man ran over a pedestrian with his car and we're sending him to jail for 10 years. But now we know that you had a one night stand with him 3 months ago, so instead we're going to lock both of you up for 5 years".

That scenario would generate absolute outrage! People would rightly insist that the woman had no role in the accident, in fact she wasn't even aware of it, and has no connection to the man apart from having had sex with him one time. So it's completely unreasonable to make her share his punishment for actions that he alone decided to take.

Yet our legal system treats the unwilling father in exactly this way: he's forced to share the cost of raising a child he didn't want, didn't consent to have and may have been completely unaware the woman was intending to create.

So the legal system explicitly denies men the right to consent to becoming a parent, a right which is granted to women by law and in fact is considered almost "sacred" to most women - just look at the level of outrage attached to any winding back of abortion rights by comparison.

Instead, the law sees men as a mere utility to be exploited in order to provide financially for women choosing to have children. The man is not entitled to reproductive rights or choices - those are reserved only for women. The man's only role is to work and provide financially; his wishes are not relevant, only his wallet matters.

The usual justifications for this situation do not stand up to even superficial scrutiny:

"If he didn't want to pay for a child, he should have just kept it in his pants. If he wants to play, he has to accept that he might have to pay." This is essentially the pro life argument against allowing access to abortion. If you make this argument to women, a majority of society loses their minds with rage. Yet we are supposed to believe it's acceptable to make this exact same argument to men?

"He does have reproductive choice: his choice is whether to have sex or not. All the choices after that are up to her." If we were to say that her reproductive choice is whether to have sex or not, then options like abortion and adoption become unnecessary. Just like the above, this is the pro-life, anti-abortion argument.

"This is not about men vs women, it's about the rights of the child. The child support money is needed to raise the child and that's why the man has to pay." How convenient that the child has no rights at all when the question of abortion is being considered, since that would limit the mother's available options and choices, yet the child immediately gains an inviolable right to forced financial support from an unwilling biological father the moment it is born! It's almost as if...the current system was designed to perfectly suit the needs & preferences of the mother, with no concern at all for the father.

If we accept that men and women are supposed to be equal under the law, then either both sexes are entitled to the right to consent to becoming a parent, or neither sex is. We cannot reasonably provide women with access to options like abortion and adoption, yet at the same time deny men any choices at all.

No amount of mental gymnastics can justify granting rights to women and explicitly denying those same rights to men.

mrmensplights · 2017-10-11T13:01:07+00:00

I can't think of a worse name than "Financial Abortion".

'Financial' makes it seem like it's just about money (and that men just don't want to pony up) but it's not about money - it's about parenthood. It's not like you would get visitation but not have to pay child support. Secondly, tying the issue to 'abortion' muddies the waters and gets people defensive. Abortion is specific thing and just one way that women can opt out of parenthood but again, the actual issue parenthood. Women can opt out of parenthood via abortion or adoption but men have no options at all.

Ordinate1 · 2017-10-11T13:01:58+00:00

You are missing the subtext of the argument.

The stupidest notion in the MRM is the idea that feminists have somehow gotten all of these laws passed, when their influence has never been particularly strong.

IT'S NOT THE FEMINISTS DOING THIS!

It is other, generally conservative, men, who see it as an opportunity to screw over other men for their own gain.

For example, in this argument, your MP doesn't give a crap about abortion rights for women, but there is a large government program devoted to dealing with men who didn't want to become parents.

What happens to that government program if your suggestion is taken? What happens to that money? What happens to that power? It goes away.

So, right now, he gets to appease women, screw over other men, and come out ahead in money and power. You are asking him to throw all of that away.

NeomerArcana · 2017-10-12T03:56:50+00:00

And his response

Dear David,

Thank you for your email.

However, I still fundamentally believe that if a man fathers a child, they have a responsibility to that child.

Dr Mike Freelander MP

Federal Member for Macarthur

gamer_zzzz · 2017-10-11T21:49:57+00:00

I feel that "financial abortion" should allowed if the subject of abortion is agreed upon when discussing contraception with a sexual partner. It's one thing to assume that because you are botching using contraceptives you don't want to get pregnant, it another thing to assume that the women is comfortable with getting an abortion in case the contraceptives fail. So if abortion is agreed upon and then the women changes her mind once pregnant "financial abortion" should be allowed, if what happens if contraceptives fail talk hasn't happened then you should be responsible for the child.

Title	[AUS] I sent my Member of Parliament an email about Financial Abortion rights for men
Author	NeomerArcana
Upvotes	36
Comments	26
Date	October 11, 2017 8:41 AM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/75nrwa/aus_i_sent_my_member_of_parliament_an_email_about/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/aus-i-sent-my-member-of-parliament-an-email-about.913142 https://theredarchive.com/post/913142

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