If "equal rights necessitate equal prerequisites" (and thus women must sign up for the draft), then by that logic, why do you think fathers are entitled equal rights over their children, if they didn't have to endure equal prerequisites?

aussietoads · 2016-09-28T07:19:00+00:00

Strawman argument. What's the difference between the examples you presented? A child, i.e. a third person, exists in one of your examples, the fate of which is determined by only one adult, while it's very existence required the input of two adults, while in the other example, individual adults, both capable of serving their nation equally are treated differently.

fengpi · 2016-09-28T05:28:57+00:00

men should have no guaranteed right over their children because they didn't fulfill the equal prerequisite of childbirth beforehand.

So mothers who have adopted children-- for they did not fulfill the prerequisite of childbirth-- should have no guaranteed right over those children. Right?

mikesteane · 2016-09-28T10:51:22+00:00

If we are going by the whole "absolute blanket equality" that MRAs ... are trying to push

Not all MRAs. I am in favour of reciprocal rights and responsibilities. Currently everything - everything - is fixed to favour women.

BDMR_lurker · 2016-09-28T07:20:25+00:00

Let's accept your argument, and take it to its logical conclusion: fathers should have no rights to their kids, it should be inscribed in law, and men should know it beforehand.

Pass these laws, and watch your country die. As I doubt men would go into fatherhood.

Also, since men have no rights to the children, they wouldn't have any duty anymore. No child support, no alimony.

So you have one answer: men should have a right to their own kids, because saying otherwise destroys family as we know it.

.

Is it unfair? Maybe. Men having the duties of fatherhood without rights is unfair at best, moronic at worst. It's the ultimate Big Daddy State model, look how well it works out.

As for pregnancy, if pregnancy is a duty, the corresponding right is the possibility of abortion, which is a purely female right.

andejoh · 2016-09-28T17:12:28+00:00

I think one of the biggest problems with these arguments you make it that you try to justify them with manipulations of language. Something will be a prerequisite in one comment and then a responsibility in another. Why, because a prerequisite requires equality, but a responsibility doesn't.

Let me break it down. Everyone has the responsibility to defend the country. The responsibility is tied to the rights as a citizen. The prerequisite for this is draft registration. How many people will actually perform the duties to defend the county? Even if everyone is drafted men will dis-proportionally suffer the consequences of the defense of the country. Why should that be if we're strictly looking at gender equality? In theory for there to be TRUE EQUALITY women should do 50% of the killing. They should be in the same combat roles as men in equal proportions.

Prerequisites are tied to all. Responsibility is tied to a person's ability to perform them. Everyone has responsibility, but a person with greater capacity is expected to shoulder a bigger burden. Otherwise there would be no fitness tests. People who are drafted must serve and in any capacity based on the coutry's need not their ability.

So what are the comparisons? Should women have to register? An accurate comparison to the draft would be to ask for consent. Should men be required to get a woman's consent before he has sex with her? Being drafted would equate out to the act of intercourse . Should women have the right to have sex? Pregnancy and parentage would equate out to having to serve. If a man is drafted should he be able to opt out because it's not convenient? It's his body, right? Should women have that option? Staying with your analogy, women shouldn't have the option to terminate a pregnancy.

MalusMalorum · 2016-09-28T06:34:54+00:00

The problem with this is that it ignores the difference between "sameness" and equality.

Sorry, but really, do think of why all men, no matter how big or strong or weak and feeble they are have to endure the draft (even if the most unfit will be exempt), while all women, even those better suited physically than the not very suitable but draftable men do not.

This is fundamentally different from a biological fact that indeed makes the vast majority of women able to bear children (some however will be infertile or not healthy enough for it) while indeed no biological male could.

Let me put it very bluntly: arguing that women have more rights to children because they have to give birth is like saying that smart people need to have more votes because they are better able to male informed decisions.

You can of course argue for auch things if you want, but then you can burs the concept of equality under the law right away.

Yepornope123 · 2016-09-28T12:06:58+00:00

You have responsibilties because they give you rights. Take away the rights, then you have no responsibility to be accounted for. Getting pregnant and getting a decision in having the child, putting it up for adoption, or keeping it is the right you earn for the responsibility of pregnancy. Signing up for the draft is the responsibility and getting the right to vote (as well as financial aid, getting a job, ect.) is the right afforded to you because of the responsibility. Now when men start carrying the babies, then they will be afforded the same rights but until then that right is strictly for women.

Taking away any and all power from the man is a slippery slope because if he has no rights to the child then he has no responsibilties. Women already have this in the form of adoption. When she puts the baby up for adoption then she relinquishes all rights and responsibilities to that child. So if you give all the rights to the mother to decide everything, then she must also shoulder the responsibility. If you take away all rights but leave responsibility, that essentially turns the man into a slave at the mothers beck and call. It would be no different then a master/slave relationship. "Oh you want to see your kid, better pony up some cotton or else you can't see him." "You can see your kid once you've ___(insert anything you want done)." Do we really want to do that???

Vandechoz · 2016-09-28T15:55:50+00:00

Well, back to the draft logic: if women didn’t have the right to vote because they weren’t drafted, but men were, then women would still have to follow the laws made by men, that women had no say in.

Ah, but you're forgetting that women have never been held to equal legal standards as men.

thrway_1000 · 2016-09-28T19:19:58+00:00

"Equal rights necessitate equal prerequisites"

This argument above never existed: it's, "equal rights require equal responsibilities". If this is true thus it's corollary must be true: if you are responsible for something it must come with equal rights. By law a man is held responsible for a child but he is not afforded those same rights, to choose, to give-up, to abandon, etc...

Your argument is a strawman because women have rights without said responsibilities where the draft is concerned, while with parenting men are forced into responsibility without giving them those same rights. The situations are not comparable.

soalone34 · 2016-09-28T06:50:30+00:00

Giving birth is hard, but it's not that hard. It still right now takes two to do it. The child will be the result of two people.

Also, as for the women on the draft thing. What is the unequal prerequisite that women give to be free of the draft?

fengpi · 2016-09-28T09:16:43+00:00

Hm.

So what is best for the child really shouldn't matter in this equation. If a mother-- who happens to be a mentally-ill crack-head-- went-through pregnancy and childbirth, she is presumed by you to be the parent who ought to have sole custody. While the father-- who did not go through pregnancy-- has no right to the child and needs to spend a great deal of time and money trying to prove that the mother is not the best choice for sole custody. Meanwhile, the kid is chained to the radiator and is being beaten for a few years.

The father is a jerk for wanting to have his cake and eat it too. You, mistixs, are truly a moral titan!

Aprilisse · 2016-09-28T19:58:35+00:00

It's not actually about pre-requisites, it's about expected contributions and responsibilities that come with full citizenship. Men are no longer barred from voting if they haven't signed up for the draft (although they are barred from taking part in other things like financial aid), and of course, many men died in war who were too young to vote. It's not as if they had to fight in a war before being able to vote. In that way, it should be "equal rights, equal responsibilities". My personal edict would add "but not capabilities".

Still, voting and the necessity of being able to fight in a war was historically the basis for becoming a full citizen way back in ancient Greece and is the reason why rich men alone could be citizens (because by being rich you had money to buy weapons and enough free time to train, and by being male your death didn't pose as much of a threat to a decimation of the population). This aspect of 'the duties of a citizen' still applies only to men today and not to women. Women have no equivalent pregnancy draft that they must sign up for as a citizen should the government call for it, and they are not barred from anything for not having signed up for it. I believe women should have some civic duty that comes with their full citizenship, but I do not believe that should be being drafted into combat roles simply because women would weaken the ability of the army for numerous reasons.

I would still prefer women to have some kind of expected civic duty which requires involvement in war, such as non-combat roles, so that they can experience and therefore have a more legitimate say in the matter.

If not, then we need some gender exemptions in voting ability. Men cannot vote on pregnancy matters and women cannot vote on war matters.

(Since the majority of men do play a supporting role in pregnancy at some point in their life, I think it is right that they already have a say in it. It is also something that is visible to them most days. The same is not true for war and women. With the exception of the civil war, women have not been exposed to war in their daily lives- and even then they were still pretty sheltered from it.)

Rasalom72 · 2016-09-28T20:01:11+00:00

Let's take your arguement a step further. It's not the child that the man wants/ doesn't want. He has no say in it. But the use of his genetic material is his alone. "I didn't consent to my genetic material being used to create a child. She assured me she was using protection of some type (which the man can not verify), so the use of my semen to become pregnant is fraudulent." She can have the child, but then the guy would be able to have her arrested and charged with proceeds of crime, and "should" be allowed to "be made whole" by the system... and since they can't extract his genetic material from the child, he should be able to remove any link to the mother/ child legally.

If someone stole my car, and used it to commit a crime, I'm not on the hook for aiding in the crime because it's my car... it was taken from me and used in a way that I didn't approve of.

Spoonwood · 2016-09-30T16:58:27+00:00

"Equal rights necessitate equal prerequisites."

No, they don't. People have an equal right to their freedom of speech, their freedom of assembly, their right to a jury trial, etc. even though they do not have the same education, intelligence, ability to defend themselves in court, money, and social influence. Nor do they pay the same amount to the state, but they still have equality of rights for those things.

However, if we are talking about earned rights, then yes equal rights necessitate equal prerequisites. But, not all rights need to get earned, such as the right to life, liberty, property (you can legally inherit property... so you don't have to earn it) and some others listed above. Some rights do need to get earned though. A right to wealth or resources not given to you does need to get earned. Anything else is theft, and advocacy for a right to wealth or resources not given to you, might get accurately compared to advocating for theft.

Shadowless323 · 2016-09-28T06:13:46+00:00

Why does giving birth to a child have more meaning/so much meaning that it should mean that the fathers contribution to creating that child mean literally nothing? If a child is born both the mother AND the father did their biological duty to make it so. Having a child is a partnership and while one side of the partnership takes longer to do its "duty" and it may be more painful/stressful it is STILL a partnership, neither can do it alone and you stating that giving birth as the only defining factor in who gets to decide what is good/right for the child is, in my mind at least, insane.

In regards to the draft, I for one would never say women shouldn't be allowed to vote if they don't register (nor in my mind should men suffer if they don't) but there is a large difference between what biologically is impossible for a father/mother to switch places (until science works its magic) it is NOT biologically impossible for women to also be drafted.

So, unless you have some knowledge I don't about women being inferior to men to the point where it would completely destabilize and hurt our military in the event of a draft being needed I don't see why they shouldn't be made to register since they have been cleared for "front line" duties.

Gellingwell · 2016-09-28T07:20:55+00:00

Maybe it's time the courts are shown that single mothers tend to produce criminals and prisoners and in the end are a drain on the penal system.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/the-real-complex-connection-between-single-parent-families-and-crime/265860/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/fatherhood/the-uks-first-male-surrogate-on-life-as-a-single-dad-of-tearaway/

If single fathering seems to be such a huge success, its time to petition the courts to reverse the norms of granting automatic custody to the mother.

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