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by Boy Genteel on 10:56 PM November 19th, 2005 EST (#1)
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...on this issue is because you will find a myriad views on the topic of abortion, and we don't want to dilute our men's rights cause by taking an official stance on the abortion issue.
bg
Men are from EARTH. Women are from EARTH. Deal with it.
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by Anonymous User on 04:45 AM November 20th, 2005 EST (#6)
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the question of abortion is morally unresolvable, since this concerns who, besides moral agents, meaning persons who understand what common morality prohibits, requires, encourages, discourages and allows, is protected by common morality. Morally unresolvable questions are transferred to the lega and political system for resolution. In the case
of abortion, it is morally unresolvable whether fetuses are protected by common morality. Animal rights are in a similar category.
That being said, it does make sense to ask whether there are consequences for males if Roe v. Wade is overturned. This is an entirely different matter than whether abortion should be legal. The discussion of what possible consequences there are can be entertained without committing oneself on abortion. I imagine there are some persons for whom this exercise is emotionally impossible either way. This need not deter those of us who can maintain a rational separation of concerns.
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by shawn on 11:57 PM November 19th, 2005 EST (#2)
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If Roe vs Wade were overturned, I doubt it would have much impact on either men or women. Such a reversal would not make abortion illegal. Instead, it would give each state the right to decide on the legality of abortion. It seems likely that the majority of states would allow abortions under most conditions (e.g., first trimester) (in the early 70's, I believe that abortion was illegal in 37 of the 50 states, but values have changed since then). Women in those states where it became illegal (e.g., Utah), would simple travel to a nearby state (e.g., Nevada). This would add perhaps $100 to the cost of an abortion. There would be no need to travel to Canada.
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by Konovan on 12:15 AM November 20th, 2005 EST (#3)
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I doubt child support would change any. After all, the system is already lodged in the belief that it is the 1950s and women can't provide for children. The only risk is that more child support cases will occur. However, technology (such as the male pill) and public awareness campaigns my MRAs could help reduce these cases.
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by neverdiplomatic on 03:46 PM December 6th, 2005 EST (#18)
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Actually, it's not that people don't think women are unable to provide for their children, it's about forcing lazy deadbeats who claim they want to be daddies to pay their part in helping to financially support a child. I receive $276 a month to raise my daughter. My ex clears almost $4000 a month. I COULD have him audited to receive the full 17%, but why? What I receive is more than enough to help her have a good life. It is a FACT that women invest more time in the raising of their children than men do (not the fault of males, btw; just the roles that society has defined). How on earth is a woman going to work 50 hours a week, get at least four hours sleep a night, AND spend that vital time with children? It takes more than half an hour a week of roughhousing to raise a child.
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by Anonymous User on 02:39 AM November 20th, 2005 EST (#5)
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If we're going to insist the fetus is protected by morality, we should absolutely include the infant and outlaw involuntary circumcision.
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by Anonymous User on 02:31 PM November 20th, 2005 EST (#7)
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Mensactivism is about mens equality including the area of fertility control. A woman can kill a mans unborn child without him having any say in the matter. Whatever you think about abortion, the repeal of Roe/Wade would bring some measure of gender equality to the abortion issue. That is, neither gender could kill the unborn child. I would contend therefore that the repeal of Roe/Wade is more a mens rights issue rather than its retention. Alternatively, give both genders equal rights to the "terminate" the unborn child. The fact that a man may, in certain circumstances, benefit from a "womans right to choose" does not make it a mens rights issue.
Frankly, I think "unrulypassengers" post is more suited to one of those feminist so called mens rights sites where "mens issues" and feminist issues are defined as one and the same.
The current fertility control legislation is hopelessly biased towards women. Anyone who advocates retention of the status quo is promoting the feminist agenda.
Hotspur
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by Anonymous User on 03:24 PM November 20th, 2005 EST (#8)
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I agree. The main effect I see of the recent Supreme Court nomination is the usual mainstream media frenzy of concern about women's currently constitutionally enshrined right to choose. Women's "choice" includes the right to choose whether the government will stick a guy with child support payments. Men have no meaningful reproductive choice, except celibacy.
Roe or no Roe doesn't make much difference.
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by Anonymous User on 05:07 PM November 20th, 2005 EST (#9)
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Whatever you think about abortion, the repeal of Roe/Wade would bring some measure of gender equality to the abortion issue. That is, neither gender could kill the unborn child. I would contend therefore that the repeal of Roe/Wade is more a mens rights issue rather than its retention. Alternatively, give both genders equal rights to the "terminate" the unborn child.
None of these things are ruled out by common morality, since it is a matter of controversy whether fetuses are protected by morality in the following sense: significant numbers of equally informed impartial rational persons hold that the fetus is protected, and signficant numbers hold that the fetus is not protected (until some period after conception, say six months after conception). So the matter is transferred to the legal and political system, which can decide the matter according to legal and political procedure. Once the matter is given to the legal system, we have a moral obligation and a duty to abide by the law; ad interim we can try to change it.
One way to avoid splitting up the men's movement over this issue is for there to be general agreement that that the abortion issue is morally controversial, and that it must be transferred to the legal and political system for resolution.
This does not mean that the legal and political system converts a morally unresolvable question into a resolvable one: it makes it a duty for citizens to obey the law, however this is decided.
The idea that every moral question has a unitary answer is politically troubling. Persons who maintain this tend to favor anti-democratic governments, and will want to elect representatives who they consider to have the "correct" answer to political questions. They have lost sight of one of the significant roles of the government: to decide morally unresolvable questions in the legal and political sphere. But the legal and government answers have moral force to the extent that we are duty bound to obey the law. The political decision on a given morally unresolvable question does not erase its moral unresolvability.
I think it is politically optimistic to believe that the accession of conservative judges to SCOTUS will represent some kind of progress for the men's movement, in the sense that the role of government to take over morally unresolvable questins will be understood. It is not understood, and there is no indication that there is much widespread concsious understanding of this role.
Instead, one has the tired notion that the moral question will be resolved according to "correct" moral principle, as if there were unitary answers that equally-informed impartial rational persons could agree on.
They can't. They never will.
The idea that a reversal of R v. W will mean that women will have to be more careful misses the point that there will never be agreements that will satisfy all persons in every respect. There have to be compromises. Necessarily.
One thing the men's movement could do differently than feminists is to suggest that there must be general agreement that the question of abortion (and men's reproductive rights) is morally unresolvable, and that it is the function of government to handle the question of its resolution in a manner acceptable to as many parties as possible. This is how men's activists will have a chance to gain some recognition that the father is also an affected party to an abortion. Otherwise it's a matter of pitting intransigent dogmatists against one another in endless, futile ideological battles, with all sides forced to ignoble retreat, in wounded ignorance, to their armchairs.
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by Anonymous User on 05:27 PM November 20th, 2005 EST (#10)
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"If women were restricted from getting abortions, they would be a lot more careful and get pregnant a lot less. As far as the shotgun weddings, give me a break."
Are you sure, or are you ranting? Women had abortions before they were legal or safe. Where's the evidence that they would be 'more careful', especially with safe abortion as a prescedent?
"After Roe v Wade is reversed, our next step should be doing away with child support in unmarried situations. Then women would really be careful before getting pregnant outside of marriage. At that point, they might even wait to get married before getting pregnant."
It takes a woman to make a man pay child support. It takes a man for a woman to get pregnant to make him pay that child support.
Maybe--just maybe--men do have some responsibility, though in this post you advocate the removal of child support and therefore removal of that responsibility. Pity I don't know your position on men and their rights to their children, but I'm not getting a great impression on your views of women's rights.
Smart people wait until they are financially stable before having children, alone or with a partner. The world, it seems, is chock full of idiots, and I can't see where their behaviour would change short of drastic, inhumane treatment...execution of abortion providers and users?
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by Anonymous User on 06:38 PM November 20th, 2005 EST (#11)
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dittohd doesn't have evidence. He's a bloviating opinionator.
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by Anonymous User on 09:15 AM November 21st, 2005 EST (#12)
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I think that some investigation might help with this. We currently (as a people) abort a huge number of fetuses each year, (no judgement intended) - and I think that this number does significantly exceed the combined number of intentional crib-deaths/extra children that we might see if abortion was made illegal. Abortion is not something fun that people do on a whim, but I suspect that some people are behaving more foolishly than they might if they did not have it to fall back on. So the idea that men would be supporting an significantly larger number of unwanted children may not be accurate.
I do think that abortion is overdue for a revised and more educated look, a look that respects the life of the baby 1 second before birth just as much as it does 1 second afterwards, while still providing both parents with some form of reasonable and effective 'choice', other than insisting that they just 'zip it up'.
As far as the impact on men's rights of 'revoking' roe v wade - I am not sure that taking away what is currently a woman's right will help men in particular. It certainly would level the playing field a tiny bit, but help men? I don't think so.
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by alphamale on 11:17 AM November 21st, 2005 EST (#13)
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I concur with my friend that if Roe v. Wade were overturned that men's lives would be adversely affected - to an extent. What my friend fales to realize is that men are already getting screwed over by abortion laws. Men have no say in whether the child lives or dies. None. However, men have 100% of the responsibility should the woman decide to let the child live and is still denied custody and/or access. This is intolerable. This is akin to "taxation without representation". The very impetus which created America. Why should men's lives (for the next 25 years) be determined on the whim of some female who may or may not be pregnant with his child? Why should the child suffer? If abortion on demand was eliminated, accountability and responsibility would return to the lives of both men and women.
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by Anonymous User on 02:17 PM November 21st, 2005 EST (#14)
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If abortion on demand was eliminated, accountability and responsibility would return to the lives of both men and women.
That's a mere slogan, meaning, "accountability according to my way of deciding an in-principle morally undecidable question." There is accountability, and there would be accountability either way. The current way isn't your way. It is true that the other moral agent, besides the woman involved in a decision to abort a fetus, is the father. The fetus doesn't yet count as a moral agent, since infants and small children do not: they don't know or understand what morality is, and what it requires, prohibits, encourages, discourages and allows. The controversy, and the in-principle unresolvable aspect of the abortion issue, is whether the fetus is impartially protected by morality.
Now, whether abortion on demand has had widespread social consequences is beyond question. The difficulty for men's activists is:
1. to recognize the in-principle moral undecidability of the moral status of the fetus;
2. to acknowledge the role of government in taking over in-principle morally undecidable questions, such as this one;
3. to articulate its concerns regarding the reproductive rights of men in a manner cognizant of the foregoing.
Because if instead you intend simply to pretend to have the "correct" unitary answer to a moral question no one can solve, and which is therefore transferred to the legal and political system, you end up in senseless ideological battles. This is precisely what the conservative language of "accountability" does. It's unhelpful and extremely misleading.
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by unrulypassenger on 09:25 AM November 22nd, 2005 EST (#15)
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i see there are people here who can't see past their own personal issues to understand or see down this slippery slope of overturning Roe v Wade. i for one do NOT wish to forfeit MY right to decide what happens to MY reproductive organs and reproductive life in exchange for a power trip over the woman's God given ability to decide all things having to do with what goes on in HER body. i take pride in not that big of an oinker for one thing. i AM happy in my hetro male role in life and although some men may envy the females limited powers in nature (birthing)...frankly i want no part of it, not one contraction would this guy trade for that...no way.
Secondly, i can see that if we have or gain any control whatsoever or HER reproductive activities and issue therefrom, we will be opening ourselves up to being told whether we may or may not have a vasectomy or a Viagra prescription based on nothing else but some female partner's wishes. Oh Yes. Think about it for a while... the way of law. The slippery slope and i am not volunteering for that one!!!! Let women decide their own medical issues. Get over the uterine envy thing. Otherwise we can NEVER expect to be relieved of responsibility for an accidentally left behind single sperm.
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by unrulypassenger on 10:03 AM November 22nd, 2005 EST (#16)
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I keep getting lost in trying to come back and read these threads.
One of you posed the question of my views of womens rights. Well frankly they don't have a right to snag, nab or crucify a man because she's pregnant (allegedly by him).
i feel women should accept responsibility for their own actions, own bodies and choices.
i am against child support.
i don't feel that a decision which is not the male's, should be available to be used as a legal noose. The end.
i feel that if a woman doesn't wish to embark on motherhood without financial support, she should keep her legs together or use adequate birth control until she's able to support her own issue. i would apply that to women married or unmarried because nothing lasts forever and divorce and childsupport too often go hand-in-hand. They should BE RESPONSIBLE both morally and fincacially for all that attends their decision to bring a person into this world since both NATURE and LAW leave those decisions to her anyway and we have no say. That's not to say that i dont wish we had a Pill for US. i would love to have a 99.999% control over who gets a live sperm of MINE, especially since i will be blamed for it for 20 years after the party. Noo don't think "condoms" since they break too often. A reversible vasectomy isnt reversible by the week or mood like taking the Pill on time is. That's off-topic. My opinion of women's rights on the subject of reproduction is ..follow nature's example. My rights are obvious according to nature and so are theirs. Everybody be responsible for their own actions and we wouldnt have all these arguements.
If i one day meet a woman with children, and she's obviously supporting them properly and has no hidden agenda with her claws out, i would have no objection to a relationship or contributing to the support of the kids or stepping into the Daddy role if invited. i am presently unaware of any danger in that. If i'm not the father, not married to the mother, but have a Father relationship with the kids, i can't realistically be "gone after" if i'm given the boot one day. i was just a visitor like so many divorced males paying child support.
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by Anonymous User on 10:40 AM November 22nd, 2005 EST (#17)
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It is simple. The male abortion allows all that you have pointed out. A legal procedure disallowing entrapment.
It allows her the choice of bringing forth a child, if she wishes, and him the choice of being involved or not. There would be a period of decision as to being "in or out" - for example, the first trimester.
Papers are signed and best wishes are granted.
"Justice therefore dictates that if a woman makes a unilateral decision to bring pregnancy to term, and the biological father does not, and cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable for 21 years of support. Or, put another way, autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice."
Karen DeCrow - former President of National Organization of Women.
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by denny599 on 07:03 AM December 14th, 2005 EST (#19)
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I dont belive the rights
From my expeince women considering abortion find out the guy wants the realtionship to end with them they will elect to keep the child. is it spitte? is it some hope the baby will bring the guy back? not my call.
My expeincre was being a NCO in the army for 6 years and being incharge of both the male and female soldiers involed?
to be honest i think the solution is to ditch child support system and put in place a system where if your a single mom and make below X income you receive Y amount of money. to prevent abuse is pretty easy use the IRS, they already check to see if people are living above thier means all the time.
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