About Father's Rights Pertaining to Choice and Child Support.

[caseymoz]

Introduction

This entry is my opinion, and it's a rebuttal to this man's opinion, and in fact, the opinion of other men in that section of youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tpLr8jgVTA

To summarize it: the opinion he expresses is that the man should have a say in whether a woman aborts a pregnancy, and if he wants to but she brings it to term anyway, he should have the legal right to refuse to pay child support.

My Counter-argument

The man has the right to turn down sex; he might not like it, he might find it difficult, but that's his absolute right.

In the act of sex, his right is equal to hers, (presuming its consensual and not rape). Somehow I think men would be hurting more if women asserted that right to refuse sex more often, and more men would be much grouchier and probably more pushy and even violent about wanting sex. In other words, the pain wouldn't be equally shared.

Once the child is conceived, the woman then has the complete legal right whether or not to abort it, and he has no legal choice except by her non-binding agreement. Why? Because even though the nucleus is genetically 50-50, her body's contribution in bringing it to term greatly surpasses the man's. He had the completely easy pleasurable task of helping to create just a zygote, one tiny cell, but HER body turns it into a baby, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080502134332.htm">and her cells stay within her offspring throughout its life and help it along, and vice-versa. (Something that has just now been discovered. Mom is with you always.)

Not to mention the DNA in the nucleus, for which the male contributes 50 percent, is not the only DNA in the cell: all of the mitochondria, and other organelles, which have their own DNA, are 100 percent her contribution. Plus, all of the other cellular machinery are her contribution.

There could be no guarantee to him on whether the zygote he helped make becomes a baby. That is true even in nature.

If she keeps it and has a baby, from there, the responsibility and the rights revert to the 50-50 genetic contribution. Why? First, as far what biology has shown, he is the one benefiting, his genes are being passed on another generation. More practically, however, a man cannot be awarded a free lunch when it comes to his offspring. Otherwise the biggest reprobates in society would have 60 kids all being raised by somebody else, and/or raised very badly. It would be a social disaster to the rest of us if genetic parasitism were made a legal right, because genetic parasitism is what it would be. It would be an incredible burden on society, oppressive to women, and harmful to all who decide to be responsible.

Hidden in males is a program not only to get laid, but more broadly, to try to pass on as many of their genes to the next generations. For us guy's, it's too pleasurable to do and take away responsibilities and some guys will work overtime to burden everyone else with their kids. Not all men, or even most, but not too many of them have to do this to disrupt the lives for everyone else and lower the state of society.

Despite what some men might believe, it isn't easy for the vast majority of women to abort if the pregnancy has progressed. At the very least, their bodies want the baby. They are generally not inclined to choose abortions, nor should they be pushed to do so by fathers who derelict their responsibilities. More importantly, it takes a lot of resources to effectively raise a child, the very fact of having one will give the woman a lower chance of finding a mate, anyone else to help raise the child; if not the man who started the process, and who stands to benefit genetically, then who who should get the bill? He might not have a legal say in aborting, but he isn't just a bystander. If he isn't willing to be a father then he is a "perpetrator"; his "bullet" did it.

Now, since we're trying to make things totally equal here, what if the pregnancy goes wrong, and it sterilizes her, and maybe she gets an infection that does more damage? Should she then be able to sue the guy for his part in the injury? Should courts look at his genetics and determine if the flaw was actually his?

Child support (and confidence of paternity) is one of the great, social and cultural advances in humankind. It stems a serious historical problem of a growing class of abandoned children, bastards they used to call them, and for good reason: they were a permanent, growing badly socialized and criminal underclass, that tended to grow constantly in cities. Their fathers were unknown; they weren't any man's responsibility, and the women who had them were cast out by their families, so couldn't get the resources to effectively raise the child. These women generally had to turn to prostitution to raise the child, which in turn created more poor, under-socialized men, or they simply abandoned the child, filling the orphanages.

This is only avoided not just by giving women choice, but by determining the fathers, and having them take responsibility. Rights? They have them already. Anything else is just whining.