The best solution is probably to require a a legal document to be signed by the father prior to birth waiving all legal rights and responsibilities to the child. If no such document is signed, the father is on the hook until the kid is 18.
Child's right. Can't be signed away.
Because I am enjoying this debate, I will throw something at this.
It is not the child that is getting payed the child support, it is the mother. As far as I know, she is not legally obligated in any way to use the money directly on the child, it is just assumed that she will. In extreme cases where it is obvious she is not, she can and often does lose custody.
Well, considering she'd lose custody if she didn't spend the child support on the child (and thus losing child support payments since she no longer has a child), I would consider that rather legally obligating.
That would be covered by my extreme case. So long as she spends just enough to provide for the child, she can legally use the majority of the money she receives to pay for whatever she wants. This can include surgery, expensive car, expensive house, etc.
Isn't this is the very basis of the term gold digger? If she finds a really well off man to get pregnant by, she can live the high life while not saving a dime for the child's future and sending him to whatever public school they live near.
I'm pretty sure the sterotypical gold-digger marries either an older rich man and waits for him to die or marries a rich idiot without a prenup and promptly divorces him.
Those that are only interested in acquiring money for themselves probably aren't too keen on the idea of spending a large chunk of their money on a child.
For all you people who use the pregnancy risk = responsibility arguement, I have a case for you to consider based on a guy I know in Australia.
Said guy got drunk. So totally drunk he had no idea where he was. Sober woman comes up to him and literally starts having sex with him without his consent. He has no idea what's going on. She doesn't use any birth control.
And lo and behold, she WINS child support off him despite the fact that she was the only one consenting in this case. Tell me, is this right? Would it be any righter if they were both drunk? Or even if they were both sober? I don't think so.
My take on this is that you have a responsibility, all right. You have a responsibility to make sure you have the means to look after a child you bring into the world. Now, if you intend to do so together and have planned based on that, fine- then the man is liable even if he changes his mind- we can even assume legally that married couples or de facto couples who've been together for a certain time count as consenting to this sort of arrangement if they haven't signed a contract to say otherwise.
But if the pregnancy is accidental and there was no agreement to raise the thing? Tough shit. The right to abort or adopt away the child waives the opportunity to collect child support. You get one or the other. We already have enough children in this world and we shouldn't be encouraging more into it just for the sake of not hurting the mother's feelings.
That doesn't actually have anything to do with this discussion - that's rape and of course it's not right. Not only should he not have had to pay child support, she should have been convicted and sent to prison. That's a real double standard to complain about.
As the law stands now, men are financially responsible. For those of you who think that it shouldn't be this way, how would you change it and justify that change?
The question isn't pointed at me, but:
It would certainly be easier to change if women made as much as men and single parents and pregnant women were better accommodated in the workplace.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
The best solution is probably to require a a legal document to be signed by the father prior to birth waiving all legal rights and responsibilities to the child. If no such document is signed, the father is on the hook until the kid is 18.
Child's right. Can't be signed away.
Because I am enjoying this debate, I will throw something at this.
It is not the child that is getting payed the child support, it is the mother. As far as I know, she is not legally obligated in any way to use the money directly on the child, it is just assumed that she will. In extreme cases where it is obvious she is not, she can and often does lose custody.
Well, considering she'd lose custody if she didn't spend the child support on the child (and thus losing child support payments since she no longer has a child), I would consider that rather legally obligating.
That would be covered by my extreme case. So long as she spends just enough to provide for the child, she can legally use the majority of the money she receives to pay for whatever she wants. This can include surgery, expensive car, expensive house, etc.
Isn't this is the very basis of the term gold digger? If she finds a really well off man to get pregnant by, she can live the high life while not saving a dime for the child's future and sending him to whatever public school they live near.
Yea, I see your point. Though I'd believe that to solve the slight corruption that may develop, one could have more paternal oversight on where the child support is going. Though, I'm not entirely sure how the courts would side in such a setup and am leaning towards them siding with the mother, so that might not work very effectively.
I have plenty of sympathy of men, but I have yet to see a half-way decent proposal for change. Just a lot of bitching.
I see a lot of double standards and a lot of bitching that "that's life", until we apply the same standard to women.
What's your point?
Ok, let's assume there's a double standard. What do you propose we do?
Simple. The man has the option to give up all of his legal rights to the child in question.
Child support laws are made in the interest of the child. Why is taking that money away good for the child?
Because it gives the man the option, if he dosen't want the child, to show as much.
If the woman is that hellbent on having a child, then more power to her. Otherwise it just falls under the "hay sex leads to children so hay guyz that's life!!!1", so she has to be responsible when she has sex as well.
I'm not sure what your point is here other than "oh think of the children", which falls under special pleading.
The child has no choice in the matter of who they're born to, so it is more than unfair to have it suffer because of something the father regrets.
Following with the whole "life is unfair, get over it" meme, many children already have to pay for the mistakes of their parents. It isn't like a kid who has a parent in jail somehow gets magical child support checks.
What's your excuse for when the parent is financially well off? I mean, we could throw around hypotheticals, but when you're not in a situation where providing any support for the child is impossible, how do you justify not paying for someone you created who is depending on it?
We have child support for the benefit of the child. Just because the father doesn't want to see the child doesn't make child support any less important for the child. Do we, as a society, have a value in seeing children go without that support?
That's very different from saying that that the child has a right to support from two parents, as "Child's right" implied.
I'm all for providing for children as best we can, as a society. It's one of the reasons I'm pro-abortion: making sure there aren't a lot of unwanted children being brought into this world because people mess up all the damn time. The balance to that is personal rights for the father.
I see a disconnect in the responsibility to the child a woman has after conception and the man. The woman can do anything she wants up until birth. The man has no choice at that point. It's an unequal situation that, for me, is not mitigated by the fact that the woman carries the baby for 9 months.
At the time these decisions are being made, we allow the woman to abort the fetus because we, legally, don't recognize it as a person. I feel that, within the same timeframe, the man should be able to take a similar action. He, as of yet, has no responsibilities to the fetus because it is not a person (legally), so, similar to the woman, he should be able to break off legal ties at that point. From a personal rights standpoint, I can't think of a reason to not let both parties off the hook if we're going to let one off the hook.
So it comes to whether society should override personal rights and force the father to pay child support. It sounds like a nice thing to do, except we don't, in other instances involving unborn children, override personal rights in order to make sure that a baby has a good financial setting. We don't only allow people in a certain income bracket to have children, we allow people to raise children by themselves if they want to, etc. I don't see why we should buck the trend in this instance and say, "No, now you don't have a legal right to walk away from the baby because we want it well cared for." In general, our government doesn't give a crap about when and how people decide to have babies. Why, in this case, is government interference warranted?
For all you people who use the pregnancy risk = responsibility arguement, I have a case for you to consider based on a guy I know in Australia.
Said guy got drunk. So totally drunk he had no idea where he was. Sober woman comes up to him and literally starts having sex with him without his consent. He has no idea what's going on. She doesn't use any birth control.
And lo and behold, she WINS child support off him despite the fact that she was the only one consenting in this case. Tell me, is this right? Would it be any righter if they were both drunk? Or even if they were both sober? I don't think so.
My take on this is that you have a responsibility, all right. You have a responsibility to make sure you have the means to look after a child you bring into the world. Now, if you intend to do so together and have planned based on that, fine- then the man is liable even if he changes his mind- we can even assume legally that married couples or de facto couples who've been together for a certain time count as consenting to this sort of arrangement if they haven't signed a contract to say otherwise.
But if the pregnancy is accidental and there was no agreement to raise the thing? Tough shit. The right to abort or adopt away the child waives the opportunity to collect child support. You get one or the other. We already have enough children in this world and we shouldn't be encouraging more into it just for the sake of not hurting the mother's feelings.
It sounds to me like he was raped, and I don't think he should have to pay support in this case.
For all you people who use the pregnancy risk = responsibility arguement, I have a case for you to consider based on a guy I know in Australia.
Said guy got drunk. So totally drunk he had no idea where he was. Sober woman comes up to him and literally starts having sex with him without his consent. He has no idea what's going on. She doesn't use any birth control.
And lo and behold, she WINS child support off him despite the fact that she was the only one consenting in this case. Tell me, is this right? Would it be any righter if they were both drunk? Or even if they were both sober? I don't think so.
My take on this is that you have a responsibility, all right. You have a responsibility to make sure you have the means to look after a child you bring into the world. Now, if you intend to do so together and have planned based on that, fine- then the man is liable even if he changes his mind- we can even assume legally that married couples or de facto couples who've been together for a certain time count as consenting to this sort of arrangement if they haven't signed a contract to say otherwise.
But if the pregnancy is accidental and there was no agreement to raise the thing? Tough shit. The right to abort or adopt away the child waives the opportunity to collect child support. You get one or the other. We already have enough children in this world and we shouldn't be encouraging more into it just for the sake of not hurting the mother's feelings.
That doesn't actually have anything to do with this discussion - that's rape and of course it's not right. Not only should he not have had to pay child support, she should have been convicted and sent to prison. That's a real double standard to complain about.
It has a lot to do with the discussion. This is how these child support laws are being applied in the real world in Australia. That's how gynocentric these laws have become. Unless you think that the interpretation of the law isn't important?
It sounds to me like he was raped, and I don't think he should have to pay support in this case.
Indeed, but this just got threw out because he couldn't prove it. How's that for a fair trial? o_O
Yea, I see your point. Though I'd believe that to solve the slight corruption that may develop, one could have more paternal oversight on where the child support is going. Though, I'm not entirely sure how the courts would side in such a setup and am leaning towards them siding with the mother, so that might not work very effectively.
I only bring up that case because I saw it a fair bit back in high school.
And especially with just how much life costs as soon as you turn 18ish, I would support a split in child support payments where the father is required to supply something like the 17% number being supplied here but the mother has to show she is saving or spending on education whatever percentage of that puts her over the poverty (or average income?) where she lives. This would put it more in line with being a "child's right." (Do those even really exist?)
Child support laws are made in the interest of the child. Why is taking that money away good for the child?
So should these laws be extended to make abortion mandatory if the parents have no viable means of financial support of the child?
No, our current system works better.
By taking away the rights of men who have no choice but to be fathers.
Again, they do have a choice. They can not have sex. It's a calculated risk. If they're comfortable with the possibility that they will impregnate a woman and she will choose to keep the baby then fuck away.
Similarly, if they know for certain that they would want to keep any baby that they help create, they have the choice to not have sex with a person until they're certain that she would keep it.
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
Child support laws are made in the interest of the child. Why is taking that money away good for the child?
So should these laws be extended to make abortion mandatory if the parents have no viable means of financial support of the child?
No, our current system works better.
By taking away the rights of men who have no choice but to be fathers.
You're focusing on the father. But his situation is just an unfortunate side effect. The focus is on the child and not fucking over a portion of the nation's youth. We've already established the situation isn't ideal, but the alternatives are much much worse.
Child support laws are made in the interest of the child. Why is taking that money away good for the child?
So should these laws be extended to make abortion mandatory if the parents have no viable means of financial support of the child?
No, our current system works better.
By taking away the rights of men who have no choice but to be fathers.
Again, they do have a choice. They can not have sex. It's a calculated risk. If they're comfortable with the possibility that they will impregnate a woman and she will choose to keep the baby then fuck away.
Similarly, if they know for certain that they would want to keep any baby that they help create, they have the choice to not have sex with a person until they're certain that she would keep it.
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
Child support laws are made in the interest of the child. Why is taking that money away good for the child?
So should these laws be extended to make abortion mandatory if the parents have no viable means of financial support of the child?
No, our current system works better.
By taking away the rights of men who have no choice but to be fathers.
You're focusing on the father. But his situation is just an unfortunate side effect. The focus is on the child and not fucking over a portion of the nation's youth. We've already established the situation isn't ideal, but the alternatives are much much worse.
Well, in the case of pro-abortion, we're focusing on the mother, and not the child. Why should this situation be any different?
That doesn't actually have anything to do with this discussion - that's rape and of course it's not right. Not only should he not have had to pay child support, she should have been convicted and sent to prison. That's a real double standard to complain about.
It has a lot to do with the discussion. This is how these child support laws are being applied in the real world in Australia. That's how gynocentric these laws have become. Unless you think that the interpretation of the law isn't important?
It sounds to me like he was raped, and I don't think he should have to pay support in this case.
Indeed, but this just got threw out because he couldn't prove it. How's that for a fair trial? o_O
It doesn't have anything to add to the discussion because it's not a problem with child support laws - it's a problem with female rape prosecution.
I see a lot of double standards and a lot of bitching that "that's life", until we apply the same standard to women.
Ok, let's assume there's a double standard. What do you propose we do?
I've been thinking about this some. And cooling off.
My gripe is that this is legally unjust due to the fact that it is blatantly sexist.
I argue that we should drop child support, and legally force a man to either A) pay for the termination of the pregnancy should the mother decide to go that route, or pay for the medical procedure and 3-day hospital stay for a delivery (is it still that?).
This corrects the legal issue. He helped her conceive, and he helped her deliver one way or another. His involvement is over if that's what he wants. Her baby is alive if that's what she chooses.
What she does with it is up to her, as it came out of her body.
Will this "force" abortions via non-choice? Do I think it will cause more women who might otherwise have decided to keep a baby to have an abortion? Yes.
Do I think this is a bad thing? I'm not sure, but I don't think so. It certainly would play a part in cutting down on "stupid parenthood" (people having children just because they couldn't bring themselves to abort or put up for adoption). And I don't think THAT, or having less people in the world, is a bad side-effect, honestly.
The child has no choice in the matter of who they're born to, so it is more than unfair to have it suffer because of something the father regrets.
Following with the whole "life is unfair, get over it" meme, many children already have to pay for the mistakes of their parents. It isn't like a kid who has a parent in jail somehow gets magical child support checks.
What's your excuse for when the parent is financially well off? I mean, we could throw around hypotheticals, but when you're not in a situation where providing any support for the child is impossible, how do you justify not paying for someone you created who is depending on it?
If we are looking for excuses, what would yours be when the mother is the well off one?
More to my point, I was just pointing out that "life is unfair" can be applied to all of them. Mother, father, and child. And, in a great many cases, it is. To think that a child shouldn't be held accountable for mistakes of the parents is an idealistic dream that simply doesn't exist.
Child support laws are made in the interest of the child. Why is taking that money away good for the child?
So should these laws be extended to make abortion mandatory if the parents have no viable means of financial support of the child?
No, our current system works better.
By taking away the rights of men who have no choice but to be fathers.
Again, they do have a choice. They can not have sex. It's a calculated risk. If they're comfortable with the possibility that they will impregnate a woman and she will choose to keep the baby then fuck away.
Similarly, if they know for certain that they would want to keep any baby that they help create, they have the choice to not have sex with a person until they're certain that she would keep it.
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
Agreeing to have sex != Agreeing to be a father.
Yes, it does. Are you familiar with how sex works? Do you understand that whether she has an abortion is entirely a woman's decisions?
Regardless of whether you have to pay support, agreeing to have sex is exactly the same as agreeing to be a father. Just because you said "yes, take off your pants" instead of "yes, I think the baby's room should be blue" doesn't matter.
I still like the idea of allowing the man to sign away all rights permanently, then subsequently increasing government support for any children whose fathers do so. Yeah, sucks for the average taxpayer...but again, "life sucks" seems to be the prevailing argument here. And considering that a majority of the taxes in this country are paid by those than can more than afford it......
Again, they do have a choice. They can not have sex. It's a calculated risk. If they're comfortable with the possibility that they will impregnate a woman and she will choose to keep the baby then fuck away.
Similarly, if they know for certain that they would want to keep any baby that they help create, they have the choice to not have sex with a person until they're certain that she would keep it.
You can never be certain of such a thing. I'm not even certain of that with my wife of several years. I mean, I'm reasonably certain...but the point is still that her decision can change at any time.
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
Nobody's saying that. They're saying they have dramatically less say. Which, you know, they do.
Child support laws are made in the interest of the child. Why is taking that money away good for the child?
So should these laws be extended to make abortion mandatory if the parents have no viable means of financial support of the child?
No, our current system works better.
By taking away the rights of men who have no choice but to be fathers.
Again, they do have a choice. They can not have sex. It's a calculated risk. If they're comfortable with the possibility that they will impregnate a woman and she will choose to keep the baby then fuck away.
Similarly, if they know for certain that they would want to keep any baby that they help create, they have the choice to not have sex with a person until they're certain that she would keep it.
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
Agreeing to have sex != Agreeing to be a father.
Yes, it does. Are you familiar with how sex works? Do you understand that whether she has an abortion is entirely a woman's decisions?
Regardless of whether you have to pay support, agreeing to have sex is exactly the same as agreeing to be a father. Just because you said "yes, take off your pants" instead of "yes, I think the baby's room should be blue" doesn't matter.
Hell no. That's like saying someone agreed to crash their car by driving to work.
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
As soon as you stop pretending the same thing with women and take away abortion.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but if abortion were, for whatever reason, not possible, the same would apply to women.
In the case of the woman that flat-out refuses to abort on moral grounds the same does apply to her.
You had sex, and you have to deal with the consequences. Women have to deal with them, too. The woman has a consequence either way. Either they've got a child to raise or they've got to deal with having an abortion. Neither is easy.
no, they are saying that you agree to the RISK of crashing your car. If you crash it, are you going to leave it there are bitch about not having a car or are you going to pay to get it fixed?
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
As soon as you stop pretending the same thing with women and take away abortion.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but if abortion were, for whatever reason, not possible, the same would apply to women.
In the case of the woman that flat-out refuses to abort on moral grounds the same does apply to her.
You had sex, and you have to deal with the consequences. Women have to deal with them, too. The woman has a consequence either way. Either they've got a child to raise or they've got to deal with having an abortion. Neither is easy.
Sorry, but 18 years of financial support v an hour long procedure?
Yeah, apples and oranges. You were doing better when you said "that's life".
no, they are saying that you agree to the RISK of crashing your car. If you crash it, are you going to leave it there are bitch about not having a car or are you going to pay to get it fixed?
Nope, I'm gonna have someone come pick it up, have insurance write it off, and buy a new car.
Child support laws are made in the interest of the child. Why is taking that money away good for the child?
So should these laws be extended to make abortion mandatory if the parents have no viable means of financial support of the child?
No, our current system works better.
By taking away the rights of men who have no choice but to be fathers.
Again, they do have a choice. They can not have sex. It's a calculated risk. If they're comfortable with the possibility that they will impregnate a woman and she will choose to keep the baby then fuck away.
Similarly, if they know for certain that they would want to keep any baby that they help create, they have the choice to not have sex with a person until they're certain that she would keep it.
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
Agreeing to have sex != Agreeing to be a father.
Yes, it does. Are you familiar with how sex works? Do you understand that whether she has an abortion is entirely a woman's decisions?
Regardless of whether you have to pay support, agreeing to have sex is exactly the same as agreeing to be a father. Just because you said "yes, take off your pants" instead of "yes, I think the baby's room should be blue" doesn't matter.
Hell no. That's like saying someone agreed to crash their car by driving to work.
They may not have agreed to crash their car, but when insurance figures out whose fault the accident is they never ask "Did Bob want to be driving to work today? Whose fault is it that he owns this car and chose to drive it at 8:15 today?"
Hell no. That's like saying someone agreed to crash their car by driving to work.
No, it's not. Why do you people keep saying this?
Pregnancy is the obvious consequence of sex. By having sex with a woman, you are willingly accepting the risk of pregnancy. Condoms do not change this. Infertility might, or other stronger forms of birth control, but they are never 100% certain.
Having said that, there have been cases where a man was told that there was no way for a woman to concieve, but this was either a lie or the birth control failed, and when the baby was born the woman pursued child support.
no, they are saying that you agree to the RISK of crashing your car. If you crash it, are you going to leave it there are bitch about not having a car or are you going to pay to get it fixed?
Nope, I'm gonna have someone come pick it up, have insurance write it off, and buy a new car.
oh, if only there were pregnancy insurance and tow cribs available...
The child has no choice in the matter of who they're born to, so it is more than unfair to have it suffer because of something the father regrets.
Following with the whole "life is unfair, get over it" meme, many children already have to pay for the mistakes of their parents. It isn't like a kid who has a parent in jail somehow gets magical child support checks.
What's your excuse for when the parent is financially well off? I mean, we could throw around hypotheticals, but when you're not in a situation where providing any support for the child is impossible, how do you justify not paying for someone you created who is depending on it?
If we are looking for excuses, what would yours be when the mother is the well off one?
More to my point, I was just pointing out that "life is unfair" can be applied to all of them. Mother, father, and child. And, in a great many cases, it is. To think that a child shouldn't be held accountable for mistakes of the parents is an idealistic dream that simply doesn't exist.
Sure, to a degree every child is held accountable for some of the actions of their parents, but by allowing the father to get off scott free is stripping him of any accountability and placing all of that on the child. Yes, life's unfair, but isn't the aim of the judicial system to apply fairness? To work towards justice? There is no justice in letting a man conceive a child and just walk away from it because he doesn't feel like being a father.
Also, no matter how well off the mother is, that doesn't mean the man shouldn't provide anything. They're equally responsible for the kid.
Fine then. Having sex is agreeing to be a father/mother. Therefore, we shouldn't allow abortions and fathers should pony up dough for the next 18+ years. I concede my point, guys.
Child support laws are made in the interest of the child. Why is taking that money away good for the child?
Because it gives the man the option, if he dosen't want the child, to show as much.
If the woman is that hellbent on having a child, then more power to her. Otherwise it just falls under the "hay sex leads to children so hay guyz that's life!!!1", so she has to be responsible when she has sex as well.
I'm not sure what your point is here other than "oh think of the children", which falls under special pleading.
I'm thinking of the children only because the law is about them, and because I don't want to live in a third world hellhole.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
no, they are saying that you agree to the RISK of crashing your car. If you crash it, are you going to leave it there are bitch about not having a car or are you going to pay to get it fixed?
edit: legally, you can't just leave it there...
That's not really accurate. If you crash your car into somebody else, you're legally on the hook for damages. That's more in line with the responsibilities of a man who doesn't want a child. Perhaps insurance should be offered for sex? (This isn't sarcastic, either.)
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
As soon as you stop pretending the same thing with women and take away abortion.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but if abortion were, for whatever reason, not possible, the same would apply to women.
In the case of the woman that flat-out refuses to abort on moral grounds the same does apply to her.
You had sex, and you have to deal with the consequences. Women have to deal with them, too. The woman has a consequence either way. Either they've got a child to raise or they've got to deal with having an abortion. Neither is easy.
Sorry, but 18 years of financial support v an hour long procedure?
Yeah, apples and oranges. You were doing better when you said "that's life".
And it's magically my fault that biology has supplied us with an unfair situation to which their is no perfectly fair solution?
I don't like punishing children. Child support, in theory, keeps children from being punished. The mother and father both helped make the baby ergo it's both of their responsibilities to raise it if the mother decides to keep it.
Is it unfair that women have longer to decide they don't want a baby? Yes, but life isn't fair, and when life isn't fair the law can't be split down the middle either. It's impossible to fairly control a process that is, by its very definition, unfair.
Child support, I think, is the best solution out there right now.
That's how gynocentric these laws have become. Unless you think that the interpretation of the law isn't important?
Gycenocentric, or child centric? (Flame me if they mean the same thing)
The womans a cunt. The few who would disagree have serious problems. But the government is acting in the best interest of the child, who had no choice in what his mother did.
And this is not an anti abortion argument. I admit that if the genders were switched it could be construed as such, but abortion laws and child consent laws are totally different. The first one has to do with whether the government can choose what goes inside a woman's uterus. The second chooses what happens inside a mans wallet. If what goes on in a mans wallet becomes a privacy issue, then I guess I'm wrong. But making the man pay is better than the child getting fucked up from a single parent, low income childhood and messing with me in the future.
If habeas corpus extends to the wallet, then let me know and I'll shut up.
I realize I'm essentially what would happen if Elkamil was half as smart and used 10x as many words.
Fine then. Having sex is agreeing to be a father/mother. Therefore, we shouldn't allow abortions and fathers should pony up dough for the next 18+ years. I concede my point, guys.
Regardless of whether you have to pay support, agreeing to have sex is exactly the same as agreeing to be a father. Just because you said "yes, take off your pants" instead of "yes, I think the baby's room should be blue" doesn't matter.
Hell no. That's like saying someone agreed to crash their car by driving to work.
Hell yes: when you choose to drive a car, you're also choosing to drive a car that you might also crash on the way to work.
Most people don't crash their cars on their way to work, so it's a pretty safe calculated risk.
Similarly, when a man chooses to have sex with a woman, he's also choosing to engage in a behavior that has a certain probability of pregnancy as the result, and since the woman owns her body, and therefore, the pregnancy, he's also choosing to engage in a behavior which may result in the creation of a human baby that he's now responsible for rearing.
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I'm pretty sure the sterotypical gold-digger marries either an older rich man and waits for him to die or marries a rich idiot without a prenup and promptly divorces him.
Those that are only interested in acquiring money for themselves probably aren't too keen on the idea of spending a large chunk of their money on a child.
That doesn't actually have anything to do with this discussion - that's rape and of course it's not right. Not only should he not have had to pay child support, she should have been convicted and sent to prison. That's a real double standard to complain about.
No, our current system works better.
The question isn't pointed at me, but:
It would certainly be easier to change if women made as much as men and single parents and pregnant women were better accommodated in the workplace.
Yea, I see your point. Though I'd believe that to solve the slight corruption that may develop, one could have more paternal oversight on where the child support is going. Though, I'm not entirely sure how the courts would side in such a setup and am leaning towards them siding with the mother, so that might not work very effectively.
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Because it gives the man the option, if he dosen't want the child, to show as much.
If the woman is that hellbent on having a child, then more power to her. Otherwise it just falls under the "hay sex leads to children so hay guyz that's life!!!1", so she has to be responsible when she has sex as well.
I'm not sure what your point is here other than "oh think of the children", which falls under special pleading.
By taking away the rights of men who have no choice but to be fathers.
What's your excuse for when the parent is financially well off? I mean, we could throw around hypotheticals, but when you're not in a situation where providing any support for the child is impossible, how do you justify not paying for someone you created who is depending on it?
That's very different from saying that that the child has a right to support from two parents, as "Child's right" implied.
I'm all for providing for children as best we can, as a society. It's one of the reasons I'm pro-abortion: making sure there aren't a lot of unwanted children being brought into this world because people mess up all the damn time. The balance to that is personal rights for the father.
I see a disconnect in the responsibility to the child a woman has after conception and the man. The woman can do anything she wants up until birth. The man has no choice at that point. It's an unequal situation that, for me, is not mitigated by the fact that the woman carries the baby for 9 months.
At the time these decisions are being made, we allow the woman to abort the fetus because we, legally, don't recognize it as a person. I feel that, within the same timeframe, the man should be able to take a similar action. He, as of yet, has no responsibilities to the fetus because it is not a person (legally), so, similar to the woman, he should be able to break off legal ties at that point. From a personal rights standpoint, I can't think of a reason to not let both parties off the hook if we're going to let one off the hook.
So it comes to whether society should override personal rights and force the father to pay child support. It sounds like a nice thing to do, except we don't, in other instances involving unborn children, override personal rights in order to make sure that a baby has a good financial setting. We don't only allow people in a certain income bracket to have children, we allow people to raise children by themselves if they want to, etc. I don't see why we should buck the trend in this instance and say, "No, now you don't have a legal right to walk away from the baby because we want it well cared for." In general, our government doesn't give a crap about when and how people decide to have babies. Why, in this case, is government interference warranted?
It sounds to me like he was raped, and I don't think he should have to pay support in this case.
It has a lot to do with the discussion. This is how these child support laws are being applied in the real world in Australia. That's how gynocentric these laws have become. Unless you think that the interpretation of the law isn't important?
Indeed, but this just got threw out because he couldn't prove it. How's that for a fair trial? o_O
I only bring up that case because I saw it a fair bit back in high school.
And especially with just how much life costs as soon as you turn 18ish, I would support a split in child support payments where the father is required to supply something like the 17% number being supplied here but the mother has to show she is saving or spending on education whatever percentage of that puts her over the poverty (or average income?) where she lives. This would put it more in line with being a "child's right." (Do those even really exist?)
Again, they do have a choice. They can not have sex. It's a calculated risk. If they're comfortable with the possibility that they will impregnate a woman and she will choose to keep the baby then fuck away.
Similarly, if they know for certain that they would want to keep any baby that they help create, they have the choice to not have sex with a person until they're certain that she would keep it.
Stop pretending that men have no say in whether or not they become fathers.
You're focusing on the father. But his situation is just an unfortunate side effect. The focus is on the child and not fucking over a portion of the nation's youth. We've already established the situation isn't ideal, but the alternatives are much much worse.
Agreeing to have sex != Agreeing to be a father.
Well, in the case of pro-abortion, we're focusing on the mother, and not the child. Why should this situation be any different?
It doesn't have anything to add to the discussion because it's not a problem with child support laws - it's a problem with female rape prosecution.
I've been thinking about this some. And cooling off.
My gripe is that this is legally unjust due to the fact that it is blatantly sexist.
I argue that we should drop child support, and legally force a man to either A) pay for the termination of the pregnancy should the mother decide to go that route, or
This corrects the legal issue. He helped her conceive, and he helped her deliver one way or another. His involvement is over if that's what he wants. Her baby is alive if that's what she chooses.
What she does with it is up to her, as it came out of her body.
Will this "force" abortions via non-choice? Do I think it will cause more women who might otherwise have decided to keep a baby to have an abortion? Yes.
Do I think this is a bad thing? I'm not sure, but I don't think so. It certainly would play a part in cutting down on "stupid parenthood" (people having children just because they couldn't bring themselves to abort or put up for adoption). And I don't think THAT, or having less people in the world, is a bad side-effect, honestly.
If we are looking for excuses, what would yours be when the mother is the well off one?
More to my point, I was just pointing out that "life is unfair" can be applied to all of them. Mother, father, and child. And, in a great many cases, it is. To think that a child shouldn't be held accountable for mistakes of the parents is an idealistic dream that simply doesn't exist.
As soon as you stop pretending the same thing with women and take away abortion.
Yes, it does. Are you familiar with how sex works? Do you understand that whether she has an abortion is entirely a woman's decisions?
Regardless of whether you have to pay support, agreeing to have sex is exactly the same as agreeing to be a father. Just because you said "yes, take off your pants" instead of "yes, I think the baby's room should be blue" doesn't matter.
You can never be certain of such a thing. I'm not even certain of that with my wife of several years. I mean, I'm reasonably certain...but the point is still that her decision can change at any time.
Nobody's saying that. They're saying they have dramatically less say. Which, you know, they do.
Hell no. That's like saying someone agreed to crash their car by driving to work.
Um...abortion has nothing to do with sex. It's an entirely separate issue.
Sex causes pregnancy. Not fatherhood or motherhood. Or so the argument goes when we're talking about abortion.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, but if abortion were, for whatever reason, not possible, the same would apply to women.
In the case of the woman that flat-out refuses to abort on moral grounds the same does apply to her.
You had sex, and you have to deal with the consequences. Women have to deal with them, too. The woman has a consequence either way. Either they've got a child to raise or they've got to deal with having an abortion. Neither is easy.
edit: legally, you can't just leave it there...
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Sorry, but 18 years of financial support v an hour long procedure?
Yeah, apples and oranges. You were doing better when you said "that's life".
Nope, I'm gonna have someone come pick it up, have insurance write it off, and buy a new car.
They may not have agreed to crash their car, but when insurance figures out whose fault the accident is they never ask "Did Bob want to be driving to work today? Whose fault is it that he owns this car and chose to drive it at 8:15 today?"
Also, I hate car analogies.
No, it's not. Why do you people keep saying this?
Pregnancy is the obvious consequence of sex. By having sex with a woman, you are willingly accepting the risk of pregnancy. Condoms do not change this. Infertility might, or other stronger forms of birth control, but they are never 100% certain.
Having said that, there have been cases where a man was told that there was no way for a woman to concieve, but this was either a lie or the birth control failed, and when the baby was born the woman pursued child support.
Bad car analogies should be an instant infraction.
Actually, good car analogies should be an infraction. Bad ones...straight to permaban.
oh, if only there were pregnancy insurance and tow cribs available...
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Sure, to a degree every child is held accountable for some of the actions of their parents, but by allowing the father to get off scott free is stripping him of any accountability and placing all of that on the child. Yes, life's unfair, but isn't the aim of the judicial system to apply fairness? To work towards justice? There is no justice in letting a man conceive a child and just walk away from it because he doesn't feel like being a father.
Also, no matter how well off the mother is, that doesn't mean the man shouldn't provide anything. They're equally responsible for the kid.
I'm thinking of the children only because the law is about them, and because I don't want to live in a third world hellhole.
That's not really accurate. If you crash your car into somebody else, you're legally on the hook for damages. That's more in line with the responsibilities of a man who doesn't want a child. Perhaps insurance should be offered for sex? (This isn't sarcastic, either.)
And it's magically my fault that biology has supplied us with an unfair situation to which their is no perfectly fair solution?
I don't like punishing children. Child support, in theory, keeps children from being punished. The mother and father both helped make the baby ergo it's both of their responsibilities to raise it if the mother decides to keep it.
Is it unfair that women have longer to decide they don't want a baby? Yes, but life isn't fair, and when life isn't fair the law can't be split down the middle either. It's impossible to fairly control a process that is, by its very definition, unfair.
Child support, I think, is the best solution out there right now.
Gycenocentric, or child centric? (Flame me if they mean the same thing)
The womans a cunt. The few who would disagree have serious problems. But the government is acting in the best interest of the child, who had no choice in what his mother did.
And this is not an anti abortion argument. I admit that if the genders were switched it could be construed as such, but abortion laws and child consent laws are totally different. The first one has to do with whether the government can choose what goes inside a woman's uterus. The second chooses what happens inside a mans wallet. If what goes on in a mans wallet becomes a privacy issue, then I guess I'm wrong. But making the man pay is better than the child getting fucked up from a single parent, low income childhood and messing with me in the future.
If habeas corpus extends to the wallet, then let me know and I'll shut up.
I realize I'm essentially what would happen if Elkamil was half as smart and used 10x as many words.
Hell yes: when you choose to drive a car, you're also choosing to drive a car that you might also crash on the way to work.
Most people don't crash their cars on their way to work, so it's a pretty safe calculated risk.
Similarly, when a man chooses to have sex with a woman, he's also choosing to engage in a behavior that has a certain probability of pregnancy as the result, and since the woman owns her body, and therefore, the pregnancy, he's also choosing to engage in a behavior which may result in the creation of a human baby that he's now responsible for rearing.