Hear me roar:

[trinityvixen]

...with mighty anger at even the possibility of this law being considered, let alone discussed, thought over, or--HEAVEN FORBID--passed. Someone from Ohio: please reassure me that your state is not so fundamentally misogynist that this looks like a good idea to anyone.

Let's break it down and cut through the bullshit right now. Do parents have rights? Yes. Do fathers have rights? They sure do. Do those rights need to be defended? All human rights should be, and fathers are human.

But so are mothers. Defense of rights does not permit offense against the rights of others (your rights end where mine begin, and so forth). If a father says he wants a child, by this proposal, his word carries more weight than the incubator--sorry, the human fucking being who actually has to go through the physical and emotional (to say nothing of financial) burden of actually birthing the fetus. In the case where two people are responsible but one is biologically more responsible, the one with greater responsibility to the fetus should have the greater voice. If a man wants a baby so bad, he'll have to arrange a barter/expense system for obtaining one (some guys call it "marriage," nyuck nyuck). But until they can birth their own, their word must, logically, play second to that of the mother.

And, no, token idiot woman brainwashed by the sky-fairy, men don't have an automatic right to all knowledge about any given uterus their penis might have flirted with. That uterus does actually belong to someone. So fuck off and die. Preferably in childbirth that you couldn't abort because your husband didn't say yes. I would appreciate the irony as much as the efficacy.

...with mighty joy: Anna Quindlen sings it like it is. Of all the things I don'tmiss about my fairly useless subscription to Newsweek, her column isn't one of them. They were often the best thing in the whole magazine. And this new tactic against the policies of considering women as either gullible fools to a woman or less-than-man beings of similar genetic make-up? DYNAMITE.

So, let's hear it anti-choicers: Just how much jail time does a low-down, dirty, child-murdering woman deserve when abortion is a crime? Worm your way out of that, you sons of dogs (yeah, you wish bitches).

Comments

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

I loved that Quindlen article, got it through Wonkette. What's brilliant is that if the prison sentence is too short, women will go get abortions anyway and risk a fine or some light jail time. If they make it too harsh, well then we can't see women as victims anymore, can we?

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

WTF. That is disgusting.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

First off, let me say that this is disgusting and I agree with your analysis.

Now seconly, (and I'm sure this is a bad idea - and only tangentially related), but I'd like to consider the last two sentences:
"But if a woman doesn't have an abortion, men sure have a lot of responsibility then. It's really not fair."
What about the other direction? If a woman has an unwanted pregnancy and aborts it, the father has no further responsibility. *However*, if she does not abort it (her prerogative), and the father would have wanted her to, he'll most likely need to deal with child support etc. She can end her and his responsibility pre birth with no interaction from him (and I agree with and support that). He can't without her assistance and agreement. That dichotomy seems unfair to me. I'm not saying he should be able to force her to abort the pregnancy, but it seems like a worthwhile problem to consider.

I don't see an easy solution here, but it's something I've been idly thinking about recently (for no particular reason). Just thought I'd see what you think.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You basically object not to the woman controlling the choice over her body, but the consequences of that for the man who got her pregnant after the fact. This is a pretty distraction--DO NOT GET BOGGED DOWN BY IT. For one thing, it ignores the fact that, financial burden or no, the man doesn't have any emotional work to do if he chooses not to. Basically, to even have the financial onus of child support is up to the woman with the child to make happen (unless he's a good Samaritan who's going to offer that up without a court order, and, if he were so charitable, you'd hope he wouldn't just stop there in terms of responsibility to his child but work to be equal parent such that child support laws would then be unnecessary for his case).

So, is it unfair that, after not getting to choose to tell the woman he got pregnant not to have the baby he didn't want that he then be obligated, legally, to support it? Perhaps not. However, we do hold people responsible for their actions after the fact whether they were made with a clear head or not. He chose to have sex (or, if he didn't, he needs to prove that she assaulted him), so therefore any consequences related to it--STDs, pregnancy--are ones he accepted. It's not fair that he didn't win the Russian roulette, but he did play. He doesn't get to walk away and write the thing off as a loss.

Pregnancy takes two. If either tried to prevent it, it's unlikely that they'd be so unwilling to abort/adopt the baby that we even need to explore that reasoning. If she tried to prevent and he did not, the same. If he tried and she refused, he was under an obligation--if he objected so strenuously to the possibility of children and that responsibility--to walk away. Just because he was muddled up by hormones doesn't excuse the fact that, if pregnancy was a definite no-no for his future, he ought not to have gambled on it for his own gratification. Hey, drunk drivers love booze; doesn't make it right when they get in cars after having it though, does it?

But suppose he did try, and the prevention failed. Again, as there is always a chance of contraceptive failure (especially with human error factored in), he still doesn't get off the hook for financial support. Sucks, but true. If babies were born in eggs outside the human body and man wanted it but the woman did not? I'd hold her to the same standard. This isn't about punishing men--it's about forcing both partners to accept responsibility. When the fathers do, child support doesn't have to be enforced, it's freely given. Mothers, being unable to get away from the reproductive act quite so easily, appear to be getting off lightly by comparison, but I promise--promise, promise, promise--the abuse is so much worse the other way to make your objection seem ridiculous in comparison. It's a valid what-if, but it's so far from being the reality and is so often used to erode the paltry protection against the abusers that it can be really grating.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

First off, I don't have an objection. I think this law is shit and should never have been conceived, let alone brought up as a serious attempt at legislation. I'm trying to bring up another semi related point.


"It's not fair that he didn't win the Russian roulette, but he did play."
So did she. She has the option, with or without his consent (which, again, I unconditionally support) to walk away and try again. He does not.

"Pregnancy takes two."
I agree. That's part of my point.

"If either tried to prevent it, it's unlikely that they'd be so unwilling to abort/adopt the baby that we even need to explore that reasoning."
There are many people who object to abortion but not to contraception, and as you say, contraception can fail.

"Just because he was muddled up by hormones doesn't excuse the fact that, if pregnancy was a definite no-no for his future, he ought not to have gambled on it for his own gratification."
Why does this apply to him but not her?

I'm all in favor of reproductive freedom. My problem is that if he has no objections to abortion and she does, he's held to extra responsibility compared to if he objects and she doesn't. Yes, humans are placental mammals and we are grown inside (adult) females. But I don't see how that makes the entire choice for responsibility for both parties hers to make.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

You're both missing an important point: You're implying that if she has an abortion, they both get off scot-free. He does. She doesn't.

Aside from the hormonal factors of being pregnant, even for a month or two; aside from the surgery and the stress of that on her body: Because our society puts such an immense social emphasis on the gavity of an abortion, she will be dealing with the emotional and political consequences of that decision for the rest of her life. She probably doesn't want to, as I know I wouldn't, but from the protestors who verbally assault her about "killing her baby" to the periodic religious haranguing and the constant mention in any political news report, she is far from getting off free.

I've written about this before. Your question is the physics problem that ignores friction. You can assume that the consequences are the same in one case and then postulate that they should be the same in the other. Because the first part isn't true, and that muddies the waters.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

All that means is that you have to weigh the repercussions of aborting vs those of having an unwanted child. It's a complication, but it doesn't kill the question, just like sliding with friction is a question I can ask about with just as much validity as sliding without.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

From my perspective (as someone who'd prefer to quantify everything that matters), it does pretty much kill the question, by making it too complex and too reliant on estimations of "this emotional trauma is worth this much money".

This isn't a box sliding across the floor. This is trying to figure out the relative efficiencies of two engines when you don't know (and can only guesstimate) the coefficient of friction for every piece. And you don't know what all the pieces are. And you can't take apart the engine. And the room is on fire.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

Human emotional problems in general aren't quantifiable. If you want quantifiable questions and answers, sociology isn't the right field for you.

In this case, it is a personal decision which is more of a hardship. Being a single mother is no picnic, both socially and economically. If you're considering adoption, prenatal care still isn't free.

[earthrise.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to add to the argument here because I'm too tired and disgusted with that video and law to do much at the moment, but I wanted to commend you for using the term "reproductive freedom." The way to beat 'em is to beat 'em at their own word game.

[slackwench.livejournal.com]

I just want to add that I don't think this comes up much in any way that I would find morally questionable. It's mostly just an ansatz.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

Wait wait, the father has VETO over the mother's wishes? That's just fucked up. At first I thought it just meant that they would have more equal say, which in theory makes sense (even though you'd worry about the negative uses it'd be put to), but giving the father MORE rights than the mother? That's bullshit.

"As written, the bill would ban women from seeking an abortion without written consent from the father of the fetus. In cases where the identity of the father is unknown, women would be required to submit a list of possible fathers. The physician would be forced to conduct a paternity test from the provided list and then seek paternal permission to abort."

WRITTEN PERMISSION?!?! What are we, in fucking nineteenth centuy England?!
And a 'list of possible fathers'? What if the baby is a result of rape, and there is no way of knowing who the father is? One hopes they would not make the mother go through with it in cases like that.


Also, I think you might find this post interesting, a friend linked me to it, and I'm still shocked at the views expressed by this woman.

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

The whole 'father's say' thing is difficult though. I can understand some men being distressed because they do want to have the baby and have practically no say in it, but then it would be horribly cruel to force a woman to go through with a pregnancy she didn't want.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's not "you poke it, you own it." It's "I was born with it, so it's mine and fuck your sperm-preservationist instinct."

[saikogrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming you're being hyperbolic? Surely you don't see men simply as walking sperm banks?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'm reducing them to the same denominator as women are reduced with the "you poke it, you own it" comment in the first sentence.

But yeah, sperm magic believers annoy the piss out of me, and they tend to be the ones who object to women's autonomy because it denies the magic of the sperm. Which is Not Cool.