this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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Aside from birth control, abortion and adoption are the options available to moms. What is dad's option?
Ever heard of a condom?
There's also anal. Oral. Masturbating together. Going on Omegle and earning some crack money.
So. Many. Options.
About USD $153.71 for a vasectomy without insurance.
Mine was $700 + the $10 Jack off into a cup taste test for the doctor.
Ignoring that this is a form of birth control, would you quote a woman who asked the same question the price for a hysterectomy?
The point I'm getting at is that women have a disparate amount of control over determining the outcome of the situation. In many ways that's how it should be but the obvious follow up question is is it fair to force someone else to pay money to support a decision that you made without their consent? If you're going to give women the option to back out of a pregnancy without input from their partner after their birth control fails then why can a man not have the same option?
I've never heard an actual answer to these questions aside from "men have had the power for centuries so deal with it" and sure, that's true, but I don't think that's adequate justification for implementing a system that is ostensibly supposed to be more equitable than what we had before. This just seems inequitable in the opposite direction.
A hysterectomy is no where equivalent in terms of surgery itself or fertility later.
I like how you completely ignore the man's options for not getting someone pregnant. Like, say masturbation, abstention, non-vaginal sex, sex with people who can't get pregnant, vasectomy, and condoms. But somehow it's all the woman's problem, isn't it?
Isn't that the same logic anti-abortion activists use to argue against a woman's right to choose? She should have kept her legs closed, birth control exists, abstinence, etc. It's pretty odd to me that you don't see the hypocrisy in that.
Because you're missing "bodily autonomy." The woman has bodily autonomy over her body. Whether she has a baby, an abortion, takes birth control, has sex, etc. It's not hypocritical at all if you innately understand and respect bodily autonomy. Do you get where the boundary of her body starts and yours ends?
A boundary is a limit you place on yourself - eg wearing birth control like a condom, or performing sex acts that won't lead to pregnancy. Being a controlling dickwad is when you start dictating to others what their boundaries and responses should be. In this way, you can see how men are indeed responsible for their actions and for paying child support.
And before you bring up abortion again - the fetus by definition isn't autonomous. It's surviving off the mother.
If a woman chooses to keep a child that a man does not want and demands a portion of his income to support that choice, how is that not "being a controlling dickwad... dictating to others what their boundaries and responses should be" as you so graciously phrased it?
Well, that's part of a larger historical issue involving heteropatriarchy and police state issues. Idk that Lemmy has enough space for this nuance. And idk if you are asking for my personal philosophical position, or genuinely curious why current law demands child support from men under this. Please elaborate so I don't waste my time typing out a complicated answer.
Money isn't your body btw. That you think it's equivalent to dictating child birth is kinda funny. Your money isn't a limb, or a uterus, or blood. The bodily autonomy argument stands.
We already force restitution via money for other conflicts in our current government. If you are critical of this entire system, that's a different discussion.
I don't think money is the same thing as your body and I never said that. I said you're making contradictory statements about the nature of choice. On one hand you're arguing that women should get to make their own choices about the level of involvement they have with their child because becoming a parent is their choice to make and no one else's, which yes we're on the same page there. On the other hand you're saying that men don't get to decide whether or not they want to become a parent because they have to support whatever decision women make. That is obviously not equitable. You are simultaneously arguing for and against the right to choose not to be a parent and all that comes with that decision.
It doesn't make sense to allow one person to both make a decision for someone else and force that person to be financially responsible for the choice that they had no part in. If a woman chooses to keep the child she should be choosing to accept the financial consequences of that decision as well. Anything less is based on the idea that abortion is not available as an option which entitles women to financial support to continue on a path that can no longer be changed. Abortion provides an alternative which, when waived, should remove that entitlement.
No, I'm not saying that and I'm not making the argument about choice. Read again.
I'm saying that it's consistent to say that women have a right to an abortion just like they have a right to giving birth because those rights are involving bodily autonomy. My argument centers around bodily autonomy, not choice. That's why your examples are failing.
Women are financially responsible for their children as well.
In the aspect of why men pay for a child that they have - it's the consequence of their actions. You said "if abortion is a choice," and it's not a choice for men. It's just not. Get your entitlement to forcing abortions on women out of your head. It's not your body. Bodily autonomy. You get to have as many abortions as you want for your body. You don't get to dictate them for others. That's just how pregnancy and sex and natural consequences work. That how bodily autonomy works.
Also, historically - men abuse women a lot via baby trapping and they were the OGs at it. In the 50s and earlier, and later, men would tamper with birth control, refuse to pull out, guilt trip and pressure for vaginal sex, specifically to baby trap women into marrying them. Many men feel like this is the ultimate control card over women, to have a baby with them. There are numerous resources discussing how pregnancy amd childbirth are tools used by abusers and the vast myriad of ways they abuse women like this, including forcing sex right after having a baby or even forcing women to have abortions. This is a very well known aspect of domestic violence.
If you are supporting a scenario in which a woman can choose to carry a child to term without input from her partner which society will then force him to pay her for then you are directly advocating for women having financial control over men. You can say the words bodily autonomy as much as you like but it won't change that fact. No one here is suggesting women should not be able to control their bodies. I've said I agree with you on that several times now. Get that sophomoric strawman out of your head.
Similarly, don't talk about how things were 80 years ago, don't make emotional appeals to unrelated domestic violence victims, directly address the inconsistency between what you say is fair and this obviously unfair outcome or stop pretending that you're participating in this discussion in good faith because you're not. You're refusing to engage beyond regurgitated buzzwords and lines that might as well be pulled directly from a pro-life pamphlet to argue in favor of abortion and that's absolutely asinine. I am legitimately shocked that you can talk about the "natural consequences of sex" for men and refer to abortion as a woman's inalienable right in the same sentence without collapsing from the exhaustion caused by the mental gymnastics required to make that argument coherent.
So close but actually that would be society, or the legal system having financial control, not the woman. Per you. One might even say that when men engage in sex with women, they are accepting the risks and an implict contract of sorts, knowing they will pay later in child support if she has a kid. That you dislike the outcome of this contract is on you. Just like you sign an implict contract every time you eat at a restaurant that if you do damages to the restaurant, you'll pay for them later. That's society for ya.
And before you start getting too personal with your attacks, remember how I asked if you wanted the legal, official reasoning, or if you wanted my personal philosophical views? Please note they are different. The legal arguments are indeed based on decades of precedence. I'm sorry you were unaware of that and how the legal process works. But yes, 80 years of domestic violence cases have informed modern law. Just like how spousal rape was legal until we decided too many wives were getting raped, so we changed that in the 90s.
You claim you agree about bodily autonomy but then get bent out of shape when women exercise it. Then you change the conversation to one about personal choice and equate boundaries with controlling others and not being financially responsible for your actions. It's pretty clear you don't understand bodily autonomy.
It's not a strawman to make an argument, which is what my argument is. I'm directly addressing your points, and you're losing. You have been asking why men can be forced to pay child support, but why women can't be forced to have an abortion, and how these things can be rational/consistent. I've explained. That it confuses you and upsets you is on you. I haven't engaged in any bad faith arguments, even when you try to identify fallacies inaccurately. It's not an emotional appeal to bring up case studies and precedence, that's not what an appeal to emotion even is. It's also not a strawman to have a position and argue it.
I don't have any buzzwords, unless you think bodily autonomy is one I suppose. Even if i have these regurgitated arguments you've seen before - doesn't that mean you should be adept at refuting them? But you're floundering.
You mean you're clutching your pearls that you're losing. What are those mental gymnastics I'm doing exactly? I've explained to you, quite simply - it's bodily autonomy. That's the entire framework on which we justify this - where someone's body starts and another's ends. I get that you willfully want to ignore this because you're in a rush to be a man baby victim, but you look pretty ignorant.
Oh and btw, personally I agree that the child support system is bad. Instead I think men should lose all parental rights to their children; and are all taxed proportionately instead of child support, to fund a robust social welfare system that supports mothers and children including for things like childcare and food. If a man wants to be part of his kid's life, he'll have to keep his kid and baby mama happy enough that they let them. How's that for logical consistency?
It must be nice to live in a world where rape and coercion don't exist, where every pregnancy is carried to term without endangering the life of the mother, and where every child is born entirely healthy. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to live in reality, not your pleasing little fantasy world.
That's a very convenient exit ramp from introspection you've created for yourself. Unfortunately it's not even internally consistent logic, much less a convincing counterpoint.
Can I get a source one that price? I ask cause mine cost $300 with insurance (still worth it).