My LJ has gotten really boring
Jan. 22nd, 2007 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdMy LJ has gotten really boring since I started school back up. The photos are still okay, I suppose, and the CWUs I manage about once a week, but I used to write stuff for here and now I kind of don't. I spend all that time on botany instead. Now you're lucky if you get a bunch of links.
And I want to write something about this, too, but I really need instead to be working on botany or Japanese vocabulary and katakana, so I don't have time. I'll summarise a few things anyway:
I'm pro-choice, and I'm not "personally anti-abortion" as a codicil. I think legal abortion has been a net social good, period, and I don't think, from a rationalist standpoint, you can make a real coherent argument otherwise. I think laws stating that women need to be "informed about abortion" - usually meaning "lectured in theology masquerading as science" - before getting an abortion is creepy and paternalistic in the worst of senses. I think the idea that a zygote is a human being entitled to the rights of a child is benightedly stupid if sincerely held, and sophistic, at best, for the majority of people who claim such a belief. I think the idea that women should die or have their health ruined for someone else's religious beliefs - the "better two tragedies than one murder" school, as put pretty much into law in South Dakota - is obscene, and convinces me that the holders of such beliefs consider a woman to be less of a person than even a diploid cell floating in fluid which will die on its own 70% of the time.
I think enforced pregnancy is slavery.
And I think I should be able to have these opinions without being accused of hating babies, or having to append a codicil that I don't like forced abortions either. That's why it's called a choice, and why it's a freedom, not a mandate. If you can't tell those apart, you shouldn't even be talking to me, because you're some kind of reproductive Stalinist, and I'm certainly not interested in talking to you.
Anyway. Now back to vocabulary. Fun!
And I want to write something about this, too, but I really need instead to be working on botany or Japanese vocabulary and katakana, so I don't have time. I'll summarise a few things anyway:
I'm pro-choice, and I'm not "personally anti-abortion" as a codicil. I think legal abortion has been a net social good, period, and I don't think, from a rationalist standpoint, you can make a real coherent argument otherwise. I think laws stating that women need to be "informed about abortion" - usually meaning "lectured in theology masquerading as science" - before getting an abortion is creepy and paternalistic in the worst of senses. I think the idea that a zygote is a human being entitled to the rights of a child is benightedly stupid if sincerely held, and sophistic, at best, for the majority of people who claim such a belief. I think the idea that women should die or have their health ruined for someone else's religious beliefs - the "better two tragedies than one murder" school, as put pretty much into law in South Dakota - is obscene, and convinces me that the holders of such beliefs consider a woman to be less of a person than even a diploid cell floating in fluid which will die on its own 70% of the time.
I think enforced pregnancy is slavery.
And I think I should be able to have these opinions without being accused of hating babies, or having to append a codicil that I don't like forced abortions either. That's why it's called a choice, and why it's a freedom, not a mandate. If you can't tell those apart, you shouldn't even be talking to me, because you're some kind of reproductive Stalinist, and I'm certainly not interested in talking to you.
Anyway. Now back to vocabulary. Fun!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 06:23 am (UTC)Way very yes. Well said.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 07:57 am (UTC)Response, Part 1
Date: 2007-01-24 12:55 am (UTC)First, I do not think they have that much to do with one another. To the best of my knowledge, they are conflated solely as a rhetorical weapon against progressive ideas. Now I don't think that rhetorical weapons are a conservative-only phenomenon. They are found on both sides of the aisle, because both sides of the aisle are very frustrated. But I do think that that is the only rational reason to consider these two issues together---as a weapon.
That said.
I think that child support comes out of a basically conservative idea. A sense that what "personal responsibility" means is to somehow struggle through even when other people make decisions that screw you over. I think that the idea was originally intended as a template for statements to the oppressed, a recipe for good women and good racial minorities and good poor people to follow. But now it applies to everyone but the richest people in the country, and I think that more people feel its sting.
I think that the real progressive answer is that we need to come together as a society to support children. I think that the problem isn't just child support. It's broader, and the way you can see that it's broader is all the families where the kid is wanted but neither parent can really afford the support the kid deserves. I don't think that any child deserves to grow up without their basic necessities met. I think that child support as an idea came out of the notion that children deserve to have their necessities met; but that it doesn't do that.
Every child needs a roof, three square, intellectual nutrition, books, toys, preventative and emergency health care, and a field of bountiful opportunity.
This isn't just justice. It's also about economics. Our most valuable resource as a society is our people. Each of them has potential to do valuable work---and while some individuals are better at innovation and some individuals are better at physical labor and some aren't good for much, that doesn't break down along the lines of class, race, sex, orientation, or anything else that people assume that it must.
Our people are our source of wealth, of everyone's wealth.
So we must nurture our children, as a society. And because we need children in such a quantity that we cannot spare only the women most talented for it and least talented in other regards to bear them, we must also nurture the mothers---by which I mean, maintain a field of opportunity for them that is not unnecessarily restricted by childcare.
So I believe that as a society we must provide for the children and that that includes a mix of substantial recompense for the physical labor and health risks of carrying and bearing children and a wide variety of options for custodial parents in terms of child care---substantive payment for their work in raising the child, or easy access to child care, or a mix of both.
You'll notice that nowhere in that progressive argument is child support from the father; and this is because I think that that is a bad way to answer the child's needs.
Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-24 12:55 am (UTC)Most of all, I think we are in this situation because of a conservative ideology that says, "Even if other people screw you, you're responsible to fix it," and I think that it is very telling that conservatives become progressive on this point when there is a danger of it inconveniencing men.
I'm barren. My horse in this race is purely the awareness that this is the nexus of things that keep American children growing up without adequate resources and keep women financially disadvantaged and ultimately waste most of the wealth we as a country have. My horse in this race is wanting to see everyone in the world, starting right here because this is where I am, fulfill their potential and become useful. What's yours?
Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-24 03:55 am (UTC)In today's day and age, Birthing is fairly safe, and contraceptives are highly effective. If used. And even abortion is safe, especially if done early.
That said, if a woman gets pregnant without the consent of the man, and he does not want the child (and as stated before, they are not married and have not previously agreed to have children), should he be liable for child support? Yes or No, and explain your answer.
Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-24 04:24 am (UTC)Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-24 04:45 am (UTC)Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-24 04:59 am (UTC)And has the wherewithal to support the child without him?
No. Child support is not warranted. She has voluntarily assumed his share of the responsibility. This is only morally sticky if she can't actually do so.
Further, that woman is the proverbial soulless trickster we discussed above.
Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-24 05:01 am (UTC)Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-24 05:23 am (UTC)Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-25 03:34 am (UTC)Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-25 06:22 am (UTC)(That a man cannot use contraception and that, if a man does not, a woman has total control over whether she conceives.)
Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-25 06:54 am (UTC)Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-24 05:05 am (UTC)I'd propose a more typical case is this:
Mr. X and Ms. Y do not communicate about beliefs on abortion, adoption, or children.
Mr. X and Ms. Y have consensual sex with protection.
The protection fails.
Ms. Y has no relevant health complications.
Mr. X states that he does not want children.
Ms. Y has really good access to abortion.
Ms. Y states religious or personal beliefs that cause her to not seek abortion, or to change her mind during a waiting period.
Mr. X informs her that he would be happy to pay for half of (alternately, all of) the abortion but that he does not want a child or to pay for one.
Ms. Y bears the child.
Ms. Y does not agree or choose to give the child up for adoption.
Mr. X does not apply for custody and has no interest in the child.
In which case I think child support is warranted. (In the absence of a better solution.)
I do not see an affirmative duty on Ms. Y's part to abort the child. Abortion is surgery. And in the absence of such a duty, I do not see anything to take away Mr. X's responsibility to the child.
Do you disagree?
Would you like to focus in on the case where no protection was used?
Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-25 03:38 am (UTC)Well then, how about this. The man wants the child, and the woman does not. Shouldn't she be forced to have it then?
Fair is Fair. You cannot say one is right and the other is not. They are equivalent cases.
Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-25 06:41 am (UTC)I've posited that, in the absence of any other information, the man and the woman both have a duty to the child. And that the man can only give up this duty if someone acts to claim it.
What you seem to be saying is that as of the conception, the man has a duty only to a child he wants, and possibly to an abortion he wants, but that he inherently has no obligation to a child he doesn't want.
And that from the moment of conception, that I must posit either that the woman has a duty to carry a child the man wants or a duty to abort a child the man doesn't want.
So in exchange for sexual pleasure, you seem to be saying that the man has the opportunity to buy an outcome that favors him, while the woman has a legal obligation either to have a surgical procedure that the man wants or, alternately, to spend nine months in a mildly or severely disabled condition followed by a probably painful, certainly difficult, and occasionally fatal labor.
In short, you're saying that by consenting to sex the woman takes on legal obligations to help assure the outcome the man desires, and the man takes on no meaningful obligation save perhaps part of the financial burden of an abortion.
I'd argue that you can't construe a woman's choice to have a baby or abort as a legal statement accepting the man's obligation to the child.
A parallel case might be the right to secure one's home. Suppose that you visited. Solarbird would have no legal obligation to let you into the house. However, at the same time, she would have no legal obligation to keep you out. Her letting you in is not a statement absolving you of responsibility if you break the furniture. Her locking you out is not a statement absolving you of responsibility if you break in. Rather you remain responsible for your contribution to the situation until such time as Dara says, "Nah, I'll cover it."
So what I'd propose is this. Could you look at the Mr. X and Ms. Y example I gave and my reasoning and tell me where you think it's wrong, or alternately walk through my moral and legal reasoning with your abortion example above and show me why I should believe your conclusion follows from my ideas?
Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-25 06:43 am (UTC)> man has the opportunity to buy an outcome that favors him,
> while the woman has a legal obligation either to have a
> surgical procedure that the man wants or, alternately, to spend
> nine months in a mildly or severely disabled condition
> followed by a probably painful, certainly difficult, and
> occasionally fatal labor.
Let me clarify this.
You seem to be saying that the law must either impose a specific obligation on the woman to have a surgical procedure that the man wants; or the law must impose a specific obligation on the woman to have the child that the man wants. That the law must command her to do one of these two things if the man wants it, although she is free (if the man wants the other thing) to decide.
Certainly she must do one or the other; but I don't see why the law must have a preference.
Rebecca
Re: Response, Part 2
Date: 2007-01-25 05:48 pm (UTC)Payments which can be increased at the woman's request, but can never be decreased, even under finacial hardship for the man. And if you end up in a situation where you cannot meet the payments (loss of work, change in pay) you often go to jail.
I'm sorry, but I think going to jail is a lot more dangerous than an abortion, which is safe, easy, and less dangerous than crossing the street - your calling it a 'medical procedure' is misleading as to the dangers involved - (after all pro-abortionists tell us so all the time). And the same goes for Pregnancy and childbirth, (I'll grant you it is uncomfortable in the third trimester and the day of delivery, but going to jail is far more dangerous and painful).
What it comes down to is women still refuse to accept responsibility for 'their bodies' by making it the man's fault if they get pregnant. Women know their cycle, they know when they can concieve. They have access to large amounts of safe and proven birth control methods, and even if there is some unforeseen accident where none of it works (rare), they have access to safe and easy abortions.
The decision to have a child lays solely with the woman, the man has no say in the process.
As for how often this happens, check the numbers on paternity suits in your local city.
My point is simple: The current system is not fair to men.
I have no problems with birth control or women having abortions. I do have a problem with a system however that allows men to be trapped into 18 years of slavery for one night of what he thought was recreational non-procreational sex. I'm not sure what the answer to this situation is, I only know that it is severely broken, that the man is punished harshly for a good portion of his adult life. At the very least child support should be tied to the child, and the mother should not profit off of it.
Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-26 12:29 am (UTC)And certainly the idea of having responsibility for a child that one didn't carefully plan for is scary for anyone---for men and for women both, whether as happy couples or as isolated individuals divided by dispute.
Pregnancy, childcare, food, clothing, school, medical care, books, toys, space, financial payments---I mean, it's *huge* and *scary*. And I would hope that we can agree that it is scary for women as for men---that women have been quite rightly terrified of this in every era and in every place, just as men have been.
But I think that you are wrong and even flippant when you say that I'm okay with the law having a preference.
Because everything I've said has been premised on the idea that the law should not have a preference---that from the moment of conception, the duties of the man and the woman to the child are the same, and from the same origin. That I believe that it is exactly as incumbent upon the man as to the woman to support the child, no more, no less; and that the man and the woman have identical sovereignty over their own bodies.
Yes, it is unfair. This is not because the woman is unfair. This is not because the law is unfair. It is because children are unfair. It is because life is unfair. This is not about whether women get an advantage. It is about whether the law shall distribute the unfairness of life entirely to women, or equally to women and men.
I think that you are imagining the fetus as already the man's child, already an equal possession of the man and the woman, and thus you say---but the man has no right to abort it and the woman does!
But it is not already the man's child. It is cells of the woman. It is a body growing in the woman. It is a medical condition which she suffers on result of their sexual encounter; and I cannot see how you can say that his equal responsibility for that condition and his equal rights in regards to the child must translate into equal choice in her medical care. If eating his kidney would make for a smoother pregnancy, would she have a right to demand it?
The sovereignty of the man over his body and affairs cannot enter the womb; it is not his body, it is not his affair. His equal rights do not extend to making demands upon her womb, any more than hers extend to his blood, his genitals, his kidneys. Even should we accept the fetus as life, it is distinguished from a baby by the fact that it is a part of a woman, woven into the woman, in her flesh.
And I think that if you were to write out your model for what you consider their legal rights to be at each stage, you would see that---that you are writing that on pregnancy, the woman should lose rights, and the man gain opportunities, or perhaps that the woman had fewer to begin with---that, or I have misunderstood you.
And here I will point out, again, that child support is not my solution; it is not a progressive solution; it is a conservative solution on its face, as it has always been the aim of the feminist movement to ensure a broad societal support for children, not to inconvenience men, and particularly not to send men to jail for no reason what so ever, as you suggest is child support's outcome. I will point out, again, that I am speaking solely as to whether we should discard it and replace it with nothing better---in which case, and reluctantly, I would say 'do not discard it.'
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-27 09:31 pm (UTC)This is an example of blatent (if unconscious) bias. First of off, pregnancy is not something you 'suffer' from, it is not a 'medical condition'. Sorry.
You statement that:
Ignores the fact that a woman can simply abort an unwanted pregnancy. So it's not 'scary' for her. She has an out. The father however does not possess that option.
legally it is! Otherwise that man would not be liable for all the hospital costs that ensue.
However hers do extend to making demands on his body: ie that he must fork over 1/3rd to 1/2 of his take home pay for 18 to 21 years, supporting both her and the child or he goes to jail.
Again, that is not a true statement. And child support is not a 'conservative' solution, it's a liberal one. The conservative solution is, if you don't have a contract for the raising of that child (marriage, or some other written agreement) than you have no right to child support. Just half the cost of an abortion. That is the conservative solution.
The simple truth I see from reading your comments isn't that you want a -fair- solution, you want one where the woman is in control and the woman makes the decisions. For your arguments above to be 'fair' then abortion would have to be illegal, which you seem to be making a argument for.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 05:46 am (UTC)Particularly when talking about pregnancy.
Dude, you don't get to define pregnancy. At most you get to give your picture of it. You want to tell me it's a magical, wonderful time? Sure. But that doesn't mean you can rule out the experience of the people for whom it's a major medical adventure. Do you understand what actually happens during pregnancy? I don't. I understand barely a little. You can get sick just about in any body system, I know that much. You can hurt your back or your neck or break your pelvis or have incontinence issues for the rest of your life. I know that much. You get nausea in the morning, if you have the genes for it, I know that. Your nutritional needs change dramatically. Your mobility changes. You can get temporary diabetes. You have enough weird hormones washing through you that you can get depression even if you're sane---or, presumably, recover quite a bit even if you're depressed. Sure, it's all a buffet, different women get different bits, some die, some love it, some don't even notice until they're in labor---I don't know how the heck *that* happens but I'm not going to pretend that the experience of people who have that happen doesn't count. It's all a buffet---but there's a lot of stuff going on and it can be the most profound medical experience in a woman's medical history as well as the most profound spiritual experience.
Or just a hassle.
It can be sacred or profane.
It can involve visions of Heaven or lots of unwanted pooping.
Two minutes of google searching got me to a description of tipped uteruses, where after pregnancy a woman can suffer recurring pain during sex or menstruation, urinary tract infections, minor incontinence, back pain, fertility problems, and difficulty using tampons. I'd never heard of that before. Maybe it's easy to treat. Maybe it's hard. I don't really know.
Stuff happens.
It's a massive repurposing of many of a woman's bodily functions, and it's profoundly medical in character.
And maybe that's not always the best way to think of it.
But I don't think you have any grounds to rule it out; and I think that you must not have thought about it at all? or you wouldn't have dismissed as a trick or something a truth that so many women experience.
Not all, sure.
But it's a medical condition for the doctors, and for many of the women who experience it, and that perspective deserves to figure in this debate.
This isn't envelope-pushing. I'm not calling it "patriarchally-induced uterine infestation" or "Republican womb bomb!" or something. I'm just trying to talk in a way that reflects the experience of the women I know who've been pregnant and had babies, miscarriages, or abortions.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 08:25 am (UTC)As for all of the things that can happen that you listed above, they're not common, many are actually very uncommon. If pregnancy and giving birth were so dangerous the human race would be long extinct. And all of those things are rather easily handled in today's world of modern medicine.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 10:15 am (UTC)But surely you've seen that it's a huge impact on the lives of the women who are pregnant, medically and otherwise? And that, for all the rarity, things do happen, a trickle compared to the number of pregnancies, but still, things do happen, and to real people, who have to deal with them?
I think that it can be easy to dismiss these things if you come from a place of "well, of course women get pregnant, always have, always will" and not from the perspective of the individual person's life. But it doesn't seem to me like it can possibly be small for any individual woman who is pregnant---and, since the topic of this particular thread is whether it's a medical condition, it still seems profoundly strange to claim that it's not.
People integrate that medical condition into their worldview in different ways, some thinking backwards from the child, some thinking forwards from the conception, some focused on the body as it's happening; or all three. But . . . I don't know. I suppose I'm not clear exactly what you're asserting when you say that it's *not* a medical condition or something you suffer from. If you're saying that's an inferior way to look at it, then I've given my answer; if you're saying that your paramedic training taught you that pregnancy was basically non-medical, then I gape; but did I miss what you actually meant?
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 05:58 am (UTC)I don't think I want to get into the reality of abortion access.
I mean---the facts would be on my side there, but---we're talking, at least a little bit, about a utopia, right? I mean, we're assuming that there's good access to birth control and abortion and the market or regulation or something has made sure of that.
So let's assume that access is easy.
The truth is---
Women are scared.
I mean, it's nice to think that they wouldn't be. I don't want anyone to be afraid. I don't *like* it when people wind up trapped, and hopeless, and desperate, and afraid. Making sure everyone has the basic resources to act in a clear-sighted fashion and contribute to the economy and the world is pretty much the backbone of all my political and social beliefs and it's something I'm actively working towards being able to help with.
But for all the shouldn'ts and wouldn'ts and can'ts and stuff, women are scared.
Maybe that's just religion---mysticism, I mean, not so much Christianity, but the cultural thing where people see zygotes as more than they are. Where people apply a kind of cognitive shorthand and confuse things with other things and simplify down to labels until a woman *can't* just abort without a spiritual and mental toll.
And maybe sometimes it's right.
I mean, one of the things that gets me is, maybe some of them are future babies. Mothers sometimes think that. They sometimes think there's a person in there already. Not all the time---and obviously there *can't* be, all the time, unless most of the people in the world die by miscarriage pre-birth, abortion or no abortion. But maybe when the mother feels that there's a pre-person there, that means something. Maybe the mother knows.
I'm not going to rule that out because that's a person's experience too.
All I know is, women are scared.
Not everyone can just casually get an abortion the instant they get pregnant like you could.
Maybe it's fear of shame. Of having family connections and the opportunity to inherit vanish---or maybe just their parents' love and respect.
Maybe it's fear of the crowds of protestors---although I guess that falls under acecss. So let's leave that out.
Maybe it's fear of scorn.
Or fear of making the wrong choice.
But women are afraid; and even where there's easy access to abortion, women are scared of unwanted children.
I don't have to worry about that. No uterus, plus I don't have sex. You certainly don't. So maybe they know something we don't.
I should probably pretend I've just gotten knocked up and see how fast I can actually find resources and solve the moral issues, some day, as an experiment. I bet it's harder than you'd think.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 08:28 am (UTC)Your argument is basically that women are inferior to men, you realize that don't you? And I refuse to buy into that one, sorry.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 11:21 am (UTC)And no; I think you've lost context. Which is fair, as this is a long and threaded conversation.
My argument is that you're constructing an illusion---that the very idea of the man's involvement in her choice is a castle in the air, with walls and windows and towers most beautifully constructed but all of them together built on a nonexistent foundation.
My argument is that cheating and deception is not the norm.
I raised the point that it's scary for everyone and strange for everyone to highlight that cheating and deception is not the norm---that we more typically have two people in a strained and messy circumstance making decisions as best they can.
And in that context, because you quarreled with the notion and presented abortion as making the woman entirely and necessarily comfortable---well, I pointed out that there is reason for fear.
So, to put it bluntly, no: the fears women have are not the source of a male's legal obligation to a child.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 05:58 am (UTC)> them and so it's not scary.
The second 'you' is a typo.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 06:07 am (UTC)Is there a legal theory in some states that the mother's expenses need to be paid?
I can sort of vaguely imagine how that might come up in law but I'm not aware of it. Are you talking about alimony? Or suggesting that child support payments are high enough for the mother to live off them, even though they're only supposed to be high enough to pay some percentage of the child's expenses? Or is there actually a law somewhere I should be reading up on?
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 08:37 am (UTC)It is the new alimony, and yes, in many cases it is enough for the mother to live off of if the man makes enough money. Or if she has two or more children from different fathers (rare I'm sure, but not so rare that I haven't seen it), then yes, she can live off of it.
And yes, someone did (rather recently) try to do this to me.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 11:31 am (UTC)That said---
I don't think anyone approves of government waste or poorly applied laws except the specific people benefiting from it. Certainly not in principle!
*I* do not approve of child support that is intended to pay X% of a child's expenses that is not used for such.
I've heard, like I said, that the men's movement routinely underestimates the actual cost of raising a child---and so imagines that a 50% payment towards the child's expenses provides a palatial living for woman and child alike.
In the best possible legal system, I assume that .5% to 4% of all cases are decided incorrectly. Bad law or entrenched corruption/laziness/bad ideas can increase this.
Still?
In cases where that's actually happening? I do not approve of the inflated child support amount.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 12:01 pm (UTC)I hope you are not suffering an unsustainable financial burden; if you are, you have my best wishes and hopes for a brighter future. :(
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 06:28 am (UTC)I don't know why you are denying that without making any response to my illustration of an actual progressive solution. I don't know if you missed that or just don't think it's relevant.
But to dramatize my understanding of how the current state of affairs came about, it was:
FEMINIST HIPPIES: It's ridiculous for women to bear the whole economic weight for children! If the market can't assign a fair wage for pregnancy, labor, and child raising, then the market needs regulation! We need vastly superior day care so that women can participate equally in the job market! Also, stop disrespecting us! *burn bras*
THE UNITED STATES: Here, we'll ding the men who sexed you up and left you to tend the kid. Well, if those men can afford it, and if we bother to enforce. That'll teach men to respect the traditional family structure!
FEMINIST HIPPIES: But that doesn't solve the problem!
MEN'S MOVEMENT: Well, we can take that away again . . .?
WOMEN DESCENDED FROM FEMINIST HIPPIES: Ack, we need that money or our kids won't have SHOES!
MEN'S MOVEMENT: Bah, you can totally afford shoes for the kid. Just sell one of your beach houses or something.
MONSTER HOUSE: Rwwwaaar!
. . .
I don't expect you to respect that dramatization as fact. It's mostly for entertainment.
But there is something here that's worth saying.
See, where I'm coming from here is, we need to support the kids. We need to support the kids, and we need to not make women as a group pay the whole cost. We need to not set up a policy that's 100% fair to men and 30% fair to women, even if the alternative is only 70% fair to each.
And child support doesn't do that.
Putting men in jail isn't *useful*.
Why should any child ever go hungry? Why should the child go hungry if the woman can't feed the kid and the man can't pay to help? Why should the child go hungry if the woman can't feed the kid and the man *won't* pay for help? Why should the child go hungry if the parents didn't sign a pre-coital agreement?
Why aren't we supporting every child's food and medicine and clothing and fun and high-quality education as a society? Why should women or men have to be afraid of this? Why do we have an inefficient method of possibly bludgeoning a few extra bucks out of poor and middle-class men when we could be pouring our taxes into the *kids?*
Child support is conservative because it doesn't *support the child*. It encourages a certain kind of family structure and certain responsibilities---it fights for traditional marriage and Christian duty and for the little guy paying the costs of the system so that the corporations don't have to. It's a free-market idea: don't want to get pregnant? Don't have sex! Don't want to pay for the kid? Don't have sex! It's an idea based around encouraging good character and someone else's notions of "responsibility" rather than compensating for circumstances. And if you think that I'm hitting conservative stereotypes, well, let me balance that. Where is the taxing and spending in child support? Where are the employment quotas for moms? Where's the grand social engineering that overreaches and wastes money? Child support is petty. It's petty, and it's a way of pitting poor men against poor women by setting them up as natural antagonists.
I believe in looking *up*.
In aiming for the maximal development of human potential.
Child support doesn't do that.
But it is better than having the child go without shoes; so I don't think we can ditch it without putting something better in place.
That said, if a man goes to jail over it and he isn't one evil misogynist bastard skipping it just to twist the knife in a mother who's doing the best she can---well, that's overzealous. It's a waste.
I wonder how much of her take-home pay the average mother spends on the kid. Not directly relevant, just kind of curious.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 08:45 am (UTC)I told you what conservatives believe on the subject, however you choose not to believe that. Yes I'm sure you looked it *up*, but not everything you read, especially not on the web, is correct or factual. Also the whole concept of child support predates abortion. Women wanted and got 'control of their bodies'. Isn't it time men got that too?
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 11:41 am (UTC)And that child support is liberal and not conservative.
So . . .
What is the conservative plan for ensuring the health and quality of life of children, then?
If the mother thinks she can handle it on her own, but becomes paralyzed from the waist down due to either pregnancy complications or a hit and run, what's the conservative solution?
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-02-02 03:49 am (UTC)Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-02-02 06:43 am (UTC)Okay, point 1: not the government's business.
. . . and where does conservative thinking go from there?
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 06:45 am (UTC)You say you see a simple truth in my statements that I don't want a fair solution.
I don't think that's a simple truth; I don't think it's any kind of truth; I think it's somewhat risky to characterize your emotional reactions that way.
But I've probably committed some sin of that caliber sometime along the way, here, so let's leave that to rest.
You say that what you see is that I want a solution where the woman is in control and makes the decisions.
And I answer:
Yes.
Not as a first principle; rather, as my reasoned conclusion.
It's okay for women to control some things. It's okay for a woman to make some decisions.
Like, if a woman is the CEO of some company, and deciding whether to fire a guy, and it'll hurt him a lot financially if she does---I think it's still her decision.
Or if she wants to open a plant in some city, I think it's okay if she can do that, and I don't think a man needs to be involved.
Or if she wants to close a plant.
Or post to a blog. Or listen to music.
I don't think you can get a fair solution here by giving a man control over which medical procedure the woman has.
I recognize that this is not---in our cultural context---immediately obvious.
I recognize that there's grounds for debate.
But I think, as a reasoned conclusion---and not my initial leaning when I first encountered the problem at age 8---
That it's a fallacy to consider that particular choice a choice that they share.
It's very easy to build an argument that you have a right to participate in some choice.
Like: why is it that even though this is our discussion, you're the only one who decides when you post? Shouldn't you have waited longer after the little tragedy here at the murk so I wasn't still sick over Polly's death before I got your comments in my mailbox? How come you get to make the decisions on your own for when you reply next? I'm interested in this now. Why don't I get a say in whether you post *now?*
Or: I think that Christianity is pushing too much into the public sphere. I think that I should have a right to dictate people's private expressions of faith. If I see you praying quietly, that offends me; I should get to tell you to stop.
It's easy to build these ideas.
But I think that when you look at it carefully, and go through each step, what you discover is that it is unduly onerous on the woman---that is, it requires that she be a priori unequal to the man---to assign even 1% of the choice of carrying a child or aborting it to the man.
So that's where I'm coming from.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 08:57 am (UTC)As for Polly's death, I do not know what goes on at Murk. I am not plugged into any other journals by any of the other people who live there.
Dara did not mention any of it to me, and the one post I saw wasn't exactly clear on what had happened. (No where in it did it say that Polly had died, or that Polly was one of the cats at the house, nor even how Polly had died).
And last of all I did not know that you lived there either. I talk to Dara's friends so rarely that I cannot remember who is whom.
However, do not think for a moment that I would ever use the death of a cat to score points on someone or win an argument. To say that I am passionate about cats would be to put it rather mildly. I am sorry for your loss, I just lost my cat of 17 years not that long ago.
Re: Response, Part A
Date: 2007-01-31 10:07 am (UTC)I don't think you were using it for points. Nor was I using it for points. It was very much on my mind and it happened to fit the example. Thank you for your sympathy.
Response, Part B
Date: 2007-01-26 12:29 am (UTC)I don't know of anyone who thinks that women should profit by child support; I certainly don't. Why, even the woman who raised me---the nastiest piece of work I know---chose not to pursue the child support the court had ordered for me, for reasons of pride.
I *have* heard it said that men's rights advocates falsely imagine the financial burden of the child on the woman to be an order of magnitude less than it is; and if that were definitively resolved, I can't imagine that anyone I know would argue that the man should pay any more than his just share.
For reference, a google on the failure rates on the various birth control methods led me here: http://www.americanpregnancy.org/preventingpregnancy/birthcontrolfailure.html
I think that the difference between our positions is mostly found in all the little costs, the little health problems, the little percentages, the little details, that add up over the course of 20-30 years of fertility and hundreds of millions of lives. If you handwave them away, if you assume that the woman is totally in control and everything is always easy, and if most importantly you assure yourself that it is her responsibility if she is not or things are not and so it merits no consideration---well, then I can see how your position would feel extremely reasonable.
But I think that in practice, in our real and messy world, that it is not.
Re: Response, Part B
Date: 2007-01-27 09:35 pm (UTC)The difference you seem to be ignoring here is that when a man fails, he goes to jail, when the woman fails, nothing happens.
Re: Response, Part B
Date: 2007-01-31 05:27 am (UTC)that when a woman does not fulfill her legal duties to the child, she is safe from jail time.
Do you have a source?
I can't imagine that there's no jail time if the custodial parent refuses to pay the necessities---food, shelter, clothing, medicine---for a child. Isn't that neglect or child abuse? I'd think that the penalties would be higher than just not sending a check---if not in theory, then in practice, since a photo of a child that's starving or sick or dead is going to sell the jury on the underlying crime a lot faster than an angry ex-wife. Which would *you* want to punish, if you were on the jury? The guy with the delinquent child support or the woman with the blotchy rail-thin kid? Don't you think that America agrees with you?
And a woman can be dinged for child support, too, if the man's custodial. I'm willing to stipulate that that's rare, and, much like child support in general, poorly enforced.
Response, Part C (An Addendum)
Date: 2007-01-26 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 08:46 am (UTC)That seems simple.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-23 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 05:25 pm (UTC)(found it due to reference on juliansinger's lj; who I friended due some similar "liked the referred post" sort of thing) I'm not even gonna do my usual check-the-profile thing. You are friended. Let me know if you want me to unfriend you or something, as I don't wish to be intrusive.