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What's not so great is that the media STILL does not recognize that men have, and have a right to, an opinion on this and related topics. True enough, we have our opinion, but what's missing, glaringly in my mind, is the recognition of this fact by the media, both print and broadcast.
Frank H
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I guess it has a lot to do with the way we judge people. Obviously, a woman advocating for abortion and a man advocating for c4m has some self-interest. It's when one person advocates for the rights of another that can really make a difference, and rightly so, IMO.
Of course, when it comes to c4m, it shouldn't matter that it's in our self interest, because we're arguing for *equality*. What's fair is fair, period.
Scott
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Ultimately, men are biased against in this matter because of biological inequalities. In our hearts, we believe that since women must bear the children, parenthood "means" more to them than it does to us. Press any biased person long enough and they will inevitably break down and admit that that's the key reason why they feel as they do (usually coupled with a certain popular belief about women being simultaneously more noble and innocent than men in all matters pertaining to sexuality).
The hypocrisy in this is that feminists and egalitarians have effectively taken society to task for holding biases against women on the grounds of innate biological and physical inequalities between the sexes - and I think we've done our level best to heed their plea and give women the benefit of the doubt. Yet we don't hesitate to continue using biology and physiology against men - which is truly hitting "below the belt", if you ask me.
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday September 18, @03:17PM EST (#4)
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As one of those children whose father (and mother, for that matter) "opted out" of parenthood, and whose birth "ruined [their] lives," this subject is very uncomfortable for me. I know I wasn't "supposed" to be born, I know I "shouldn't" be walking this Earth, but you know what...I had no choice in the matter. If I had, I would have made sure I wasn't born. Trust me.
I really feel like the C4M people ignore children like me, simply saying that we weren't supposed to be born anyway, we're unwanted mistakes, we're not really human and therefore we should have no rights. For example, why did I not have the right to work before I turned 16, so that I could make up for the financial support my parents refused to give me?
Telling me, "Your mother shouldn't have gotten pregnant, or she should have aborted you" doesn't make me feel any better. It didn't make me feel better when my father told me this. It didn't make me feel better when my mother told me this. It certainly didn't make me feel better when bot of them told me I ruined their lives, that everything was going great until I got here, that they wished I'd died before being born, or right after birth. It filled me with a dark hatred, not only for them but for myself. It's taken me years to work through my self-hatred, and, in recent years, I've finally gotten to the point where I don't want to kill myself anymore.
Still, little things happen that trigger feelings I can't put into words. Like when a co-worker innocently asked me, "Did you talk to your father on Father's Day?" My shoulders slumped, I cleared my throat, and I said, "I can't talk to my father. He doesn't want anything to do with me."
Knowing that your own parent hates you...That they wish you'd never been born...That they wish you were dead...That they'd spit on you if they saw you...I can't describe how that feels. That is the daily reality that nothing will ever change. I will never, ever, ever get over this.
I agree that the Constitution does not provide minors with the right to support from their parents, whether or not their parents supposedly "wanted" them (which happens less than 50% of the time--most parents are like mine, they don't want their offspring, we ruined their lives, we are worthless mistakes). However, I REFUSE to make a hero out of someone like my father--and that's what I feel the C4M people are doing. If he'd looked beyond his utter hatred for my mother, if he'd given me a chance, I would have loved him past the point of dying. I really did want to. Unfortunately potential dates are not the only ones who can reject us. Parents reject their children all the time.
Just because something is, or should be, legal, doesn't make it morally right. My father is no hero. His abandoning me, not even giving me a chance to be his friend, was not heroic or morally right.
Another thing is that I would be against C4M being implemented unless welfare, child labor laws and mandatory schooling laws were all abolished. Otherwise everyone else would end up paying for the unwanted mistakes of other people, our taxes would skyrocket. Better to abolish welfare, then abolish child labor and mandatory schooling laws, so that the mistakes can go to work and pay for themselves. That is something I would have been willing to do, had I been permitted to. The society that didn't want me to be born, should not have prohibited me from earning money. I don't buy this crap about "protecting" me. Remember, I wasn't a wanted child. I was an unwanted mistake.
I also think I should have the right to sue my parents, especially my mother, for having me even though they hated me so much. I was born prior to 1973, but my mother worked in a hospital. She could have gotten an illegal abortion. She should be held accountable for not obtaining one. I will never stop hating her for not obtaining one.
Although I think everyone has the *legal* right to breed a kid you don't want, then abandon it, I would implore anyone who's thinking of abandoning their offspring to please think twice. If not, your offspring will go through the same thing I did, and continue to go through right now.
In the U.S. over 50% of all births are of "unplanned children"...the nice word for "unwanted mistakes." Over 50% of the population is just like me. With that in mind, spaying and neutering shouldn't just be for cats and dogs. If you know you don't want to breed, please just get yourself fixed. And make sure you don't sleep with, or marry, anyone who's also not fixed.
That's my $0.02 on the "choice" issue. You talk about hitting "below the belt." Well, try living your life being labeled a MISTAKE--like I am, as if this were all MY FAULT.
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by Anonymous User on Tuesday September 18, @03:29PM EST (#5)
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I am also in favor of legalized suicide. If parents can opt out of parenthood, children should be able to opt out of life. If parents have no legal responsibility to support the kids they breed so casually and carelessly, they should have no legal rights to keep that kid alive if the kid doesn't want to keep on living.
While I'm glad I didn't commit suicide when I was younger, I SHOULD have had the LEGAL CHOICE to do so if I'd opted to. "Biology doesn't allow us to ask fetuses if they want to be born" is NOT an excuse. As many of you have said, biology doesn't allow men to choose to be fathers. If women have a choice, and men have a choice, then the unwanted mistakes they breed should also have a CHOICE.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday September 20, @04:05PM EST (#7)
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You just don't get it, do you? It wasn't the money that was the issue. It was the fact that I wasn't good enough for my parents. I was such a terrible person that my own parents didn't want anything to do with me. It was the fact that my father hated his own flesh and blood so much that he was just willing to walk away from me. He never even tried to be my friend. I would have been satisfied with him being my friend, but he hated me too much to even try to be my friend.
Your reply solidifies my position. The C4M people don't give a damn about what happens to their worthless, unwanted bastards once they drop out of the mother. In fact, you people are actually lying to the men you claim to be protecting. If child support is abolished, that means at least 50% of all children (because 50% are like me, unwanted) will end up on welfare. That means our income taxes will skyrocket. That means EVERYONE will be paying child support, not just for 18 years either. They'll be paying it for their entire working lifetime, to support the mistakes of other people. Instead of child support, it'll be called income tax.
The C4M people say that I'm a mistake, a worthless bastard that shouldn't have been born. You agree that my existence ruined my parents' lives. You hold my father up to be a hero, and that sickens me.
Remember this. *At least* 50% of all children are unwanted. At least. It may be more like 75% or more. That means out of every 10 people reading this message, FIVE of you are just like me. You are unwanted bastards and your fathers didn't want you to be born. They've hated and resented you your entire lives--if you died, they'd be GLAD. And you make HEROES out of them for thinking this way.
Two loving parents...Yeah right. 75% of BIO parents don't want their offspring. Loving parents are going the way of the Dodo bird, and you're making heroes out of those who breed irresponsibly and then abandon their offspring to die.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday September 20, @04:25PM EST (#8)
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Anyway, you're arguing about the wrong laws. Child support is not awarded to the mother, it is awarded to the child. If the mother died and your own parents took guardianship of the kid you don't want, you'd have to pay *them* child support. This because it's due not to the deceased mother but the live child. The only thing that would get you out of it would be if your parents legally adopted the kid, therefore making the kid you hoped would die into your sibling. That would make for an interesting family reunion.
Abortion negates child support because there's no kid around to have support owed to, same as if a live child died. The point is moot. Adoption is the voluntary transferring of all parental rights to another person or persons, with all parties involved in agreement, and with the understanding that the parents who are adopting can adequately provide for the kid. Why do you think the purpose of adoption hearings is? The prospective parents must prove not only that they want to care for the child, but that they CAN.
C4M is none of these things. It's not the same as abortion, because the kid is still alive at the end. It's not the same as adoption, because there is no voluntary transferring with proof of adequate support. The kid is being dumped on the mother, whether or not she can support it; the bio father doesn't care what happens to the kid, if the kid developed a brain tumor he wouldn't shed a tear. C4M does not strip the mother of any rights--it strips away the rights of the *child.*
Constitutionally, you do have an argument. Nowhere in that document are minors given the right to financial support from their parents, whether or not the parents "wanted" the kid. So if the C4M people litigate this and win, any parent will be able to dump their kid in the street without any legal repercussions. A married couple who decide they don't get along with their three-year-old, will be able to evict it from their home.
Doesn't sound very good? Well, that's just the way the law works. If you litigate this arguing about "equality," you will never win. You must litigate it under the Constitutional premise that children have no right to support from their parents.
Personally, I don't think the Founding Fathers purposely left that out. I just don't think they ever envisioned an America where millions of parents have kids they don't want, then decide to callously and without any remorse, dump them in the street. I think they thought parents would always care for their young, like other animals care for their young. Gee, guess they thought wrong. 50% to 75% of children would agree.
On a cold, Constitutional level, I agree with these arguments. However, I also think that parents who have kids they don't want, then leave them to die, have no moral compasses. They are far from the heroes C4M makes them out to be.
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> I was such a terrible person that my own parents > didn't want anything to do with me.
Have they ever told you why they didn't put you up for adoption? It seems to me that would have been a great solution.
> The C4M people don't give a damn about what
> happens to their worthless, unwanted bastards
> once they drop out of the mother.
Not true.
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by Anonymous User on Friday September 21, @03:04PM EST (#11)
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They didn't put me up for adoption because they wanted to punish me for being born.
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