puasamanda: “…whether married, dating, or just one-night-stand – a man “signs up for it” by putting his penis in a woman’s vagina.” In one sense, I agree with you. Sex can lead to babies, period, and both parties are responsible. The point I’m trying to make is that I think that there is a degree of difference in the the situation of (1) the husband who is married and knowingly signs up for caring for his wife and any offspring, planned or not, and (2) a guy out to have fun and a girl (presumably) out to have fun who get pregnant. Biologically, it’s equal responsibility as far as conception is concerned, you’re right. But emotionally and socially and psychologically, there is a huge difference between a married couple and a one-night stand. Biologically, both men “signed up for it” by having sex; in every other way, the one-night stand guy (and girl) signed up only for sex, nothing else. The married woman can fairly EXPECT her husband to be there for her (though he might leave), while the one-night stand doesn’t have the luxury of that same expectation. She’s the one who will be more likely to raise the kid alone, financially and emotionally. Since the burden does fall on the woman to bear (or abort) the child, I just think that women would be doing themselves a favor if they themselves kept the guy out of their pants long enough to get a commitment. As you pointed out, life isn’t fair, and I think that avoiding an unwanted pregnancy is one way to keep it “more fair.” It probably won’t surprise you that I’m an abstinence supporter (but note, I didn’t say “an abstinence-only education supporter” — there is a difference!). I hope that I answered your question at least somewhat clearly. It’s late and I can’t think.

Lula: Trust me, I know that any man, married or not, can flake. DH’s father owes 18 years of child support, and his parents were married for a couple years before he came along. I do think, though, that the married woman will at least have better legal standing and social sympathy if/when her husband flakes than the pregnant half of a one stand or casual relationship will have. As I said above, biologically there’s no difference, but saying that there’s no difference “at all” is a blind denial of millions of years of human social evolution. Okay, and “women who are so male-identified…”? I would hardly consider myself as such and do in fact consider myself a feminist (though a pro-life one, the horror!). Some of us women simply haven’t bought into the male-hating and male-blaming bit of much feminist rhetoric. Women are as responsible as men to make sound decisions. I guess I would say that I’m a woman who is human-identified, and guess what? That includes males. And babies. Thanks for trying to psychologize me, though; that was fun.

Bunny, I must’ve gotten you confused with a different poster regarding political leanings. Sorry. And I’m not sure that I’m actually proposing a solution. Like I said, I can’t imagine a legal system that would equally weigh conflicting ideas about having a child and then impose its will on the mother to bear or abort. As much as I hate the sheer numbers of children aborted every year, any govt’ that would have that much control over our lives is just as scary — it sounds like the Fascists and the Nazis.

I’m not a libertarian at all – I’m very liberal, bordering on outright socialist. Not sure where you’d get the libertarian thing from.

As far as the so-called double standard: as Lula correctly pointed out, this is a “double standard” created by nature, not by people. There’s no way to make this situation “fair” to all parties involved. Whatever decision is made, is made at someone’s expense – father, mother, fetus. Your solution seems to be to say that it should always be the woman’s expense, which strikes me as odd.

“Fair” doesn’t apply to reproduction. There is no way to make pregnancy an egalitarian venture the way you propose it, ChiLaura. It’s not a “double standard”. It’s a biological fact that pregnancy can only take place in a woman’s body, and therefore that women are *obligated* to make a decision about taking a pregnancy to fruition or terminating it. It’s not “fair” that women are saddled with 100% of pregnancy-related responsibilities either, but that’s the way it is.

As to this:

“If the woman doesn’t respect herself or her future offspring enough to make sure that the man is serious about her before giving it up? I think that that changes the picture.”

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, but women can’t “make sure” that men won’t flake out on them if they get pregnant. Men are the ones in charge of their own behavior, regardless of their marital status. Plenty of self-respecting women have been bailed on by a husband or boyfriend who decided he didn’t want to be a father after the fact. It’s not a woman’s job to “keep her man”, and it’s not a woman’s failing if her male partner proves to have character defects that surface abruptly once a pee stick comes up stripes.

You and my mom are so incredibly concerned about the men. I do not understand women who are so male-identified that they prioritize the reproductive concerns of men, who can never become pregnant, over those of women, who do.

Bunny, my point isn’t that Dad shouldn’t actually have to pay. I’m pointing out the fact that while Mom has a choice in the matter (to abort or not to abort), Dad doesn’t. Simple as that. It’s ironic and a double standard. Mom doesn’t want kid? Abortion. Dad doesn’t want kid? Take half his paycheck. I should say that I think that in the case of marriage, where husband and wife are having sex and are in a legal relationship, and where baby is always a possibility regardless of the 3 types of birth control used: Well, Dad in that case signed up for it. If the woman doesn’t respect herself or her future offspring enough to make sure that the man is serious about her before giving it up? I think that that changes the picture. Besides, Bunny, I thought from previous posts that you tend to be a libertarian? Why do you care about child support? (I’m not trying to be snotty but am actually curious.)

Amused: It ain’t me.

Anyone wanna place bets on which person here is married to a man making child support payments?

Knitty, are you kidding me? Every suggestion you gave for how men can “be responsible” can also be applied to women, yet you leave that out. But when the mistake happens, women DO have a choice, while men don’t. Besides, who needs men to take care of them, via child support, when our wonderful huge government is there to do the job? Isn’t that what big gov’t AND the feminist movement have been telling us for years? Who needs a man?

Reading what you write raises my blood pressure, and I need to stop. I don’t understand people like you, pure and simple.

Motherof3: I can’t stand Sarah Palin. Just so you know. And curious: Do you comment on posts that you find obvious, or uninteresting, or even those that you agree with? Most people, it seems, are attracted to controversy, myself included. (Though I do comment on my fair share of non-controversial posts, like almost any involving food.) If you followed a parenting blog that did love Sarah Palin, chances are that you’d have a lot to say. I like babble for the articles; stupidly, I read the parenting blog, even though I disagree with the worldview of nearly all of the writers at least from what I can tell.

Anavoog: it’s only a “controversy” because there’s a certain group of commenters on the Strollerderby blogs who only appear when a topic they can turn into a political argument appears. Parenting? They’re totally uninterested. Pro-life, pro-Palin, pro-”family values”? They’re here! And ta-da, controversy! Even when the topic is something as seemingly straightforward as wow, it’s terrible that pregnant women are so commonly murdered.

hello, WOMEN ARE BEING MURDERED
where is the outrage about that?

I think child support laws are central to this phenomenon. Yes, pregnancy is preventable but mistakes happen. And once that mistake happens the man is obligated for the next 17 years of his life. It’s too harsh of a punishment and I bet a lot of men feel trapped and the only way out is to get rid of what’s trapping them. And if they are caught and plea bargain they might be able to get off on a lighter sentence than 17 years.

Bunny, if you read what I wrote carefully I say that a man having legal power to force a woman to carry to term, or to abort, is ridiculous. Nor did I say that a man’s interest was actually as compelling as the woman’s. But no consideration is given to the man WHATSOEVER in this issue, which I also find ridiculous. If a man has no legal say in what happens to his child before birth, why should he be forced to provide for his child after birth? Maybe we should say that child support payments only need to be made in very specific situations (e.g. only if the child is the result of marriage and the husband has consented). I’m no misogynist, but I find the treatment of men in this area to be pretty crazy. If a woman doesn’t want a baby, she can abort; if a man doesn’t, no matter, AND he’s on the hook for child support? Crazy. I think that framing pregnancy and abortion as “women’s issues” does damage to women, in the same way that framing, say, domestic violence or rape as “women’s issues” is damaging. Both place the focus (even the blame) on women when men are inherently involved in said issues.

Is my writing as unclear as your post seems to indicate, or do you just read the first sentence and decide ahead of time what I *must* be saying? Just curious.

Um… because a pregnant woman is the only one whose body is capable of sustaining the fetus? Or is that a facetious question?

When fetuses can be taken out of women’s bodies and grown to completion in men’s bodies (or embryos can be transferred into men’s bodies via IVF and successfully gestated there), I’ll be open to talking about “men’s rights” where pregnancy decisions are concerned. We’re not there yet.

Bunny, you so completely rock. As always.

And ChiLaura, I think this is probably one of those “we’ll have to agree to disagree” cases. The topic of abortion can (and probably will) be argued forever.

I’d be OK with applying the 500gm-weight rule in cases where murder of a woman also results in death of her fetus. I think 500gm is the minimum weight for resuscitation efforts when a baby is born — under that weight, no effort is made to get an extremely premature baby to breathe, put her/him on life support, etc.

How do you make a woman’s decision to terminate her pregnancy contingent on permission from the man involved without also creating the situation in which men have to give a woman permission to take her pregnancy to fruition? The argument for “men’s rights” makes no sense from an anti-abortion perspective, since it would inevitably be used to force women to have an abortion if the father doesn’t want a child to be born.

I never understand what self-proclaimed “pro-lifers” are after when they start spouting on about “the man’s right to choose”. It’s not a good tactic, and for the sake of your supposed goal I wish you guys would drop it.

And thumbs up again to Bunny’s perfect statement re: the value of women’s lives apart from the state of their uteri. We get killed all the damn time because some man doesn’t like something we do or say. Sex-based hate crime is a very real danger for us, pregnant or not.

Manjari: When it comes to the fetus itself, how is there no difference? Either way, the fetus is being killed. Granted, if the forced abortion/killing leads to the death of the woman, then there is a double-death. But in terms of the fetus alone, the only difference is whether or not the child is wanted by the mother.

Lula: Trust me, I get the point of the article. Disturbed as you may be by the fact that I dare turn this into an abortion issue, I’m more disturbed by the hypocrisy and idiocy of pro-choicers who seem to think that (1) abortion is a legit “choice” and (2) the only human being of three involved who has a choice in the matter is the woman. You, in fact, have no idea how outraged I may or may not be by the fact that men kill women and their children. I simply can’t understand why it’s apparently so outrageous that men might try to kill their unborn child when a woman’s “right” to do so is protected by law. (And again, lest I fail to make this clear, I am only talking about the bare fact that a man may not want his own child, NOT the fact that a woman might be killed in his pursuit of eliminating said child.) Are women the only ones allowed to make decisions about an unborn child’s fate? This is somehow treating all people equally under the law? Incidentally, I absolutely agree with you in your last paragraph.

Knitty: Nowhere did I say that. Again, I’m referring to the issue of BOTH parents’, mother’s and father’s, right to choice in the life of his or her child. In fact, I think that killing a mother and fetus/unborn child IS worse than “simply” killing a child. I think, though, that it ridiculous to say that only the woman has the right to protect or terminate her child’s life, regardless of the wishes of the father. If our society is truly “pro-choice”, shouldn’t there be a legal process for weighing the mother’s and the father’s interest in aborting or birthing HIS or her baby? Yup, chances are that I think that this sounds as ridiculous as you probably do, but, if a woman has the right to decide whether or not a child is forced on her, why doesn’t the man?

I am so tired of stories about murdering women, women, GROWN WOMEN being killed that emphasize that the important thing about them was that they contained a fetus.

When do we get to start thinking of ourselves as important, instead of subordinate to a fetus?

You’ve got to be kidding me, ChiLaura. You’re really saying that killing a pregnant woman is somehow the same as a woman ending an unwanted pregnancy?

ChiLaura, are you serious? It’s one thing to oppose abortion, and another to say that there is no difference between a woman aborting her fetus and someone else deciding to do so against her will. Even if you think elective abortion is wrong, you have to agree that forced abortion is far worse.

I was actually referring to the fact that the mother can kill her child via abortion, but the father has no legal say in whether his child lives or dies and can in fact be charged with murder for what would be legal if the mother were performing the same action.

Well, we all know the solution! Let’s just kill more babies! Abortion for all!

So when the mother kills her unborn child, we call it legal abortion? When the father does it, it can be charged as a double murder? What a bunch of horseshit. This is what we call equal rights for all? People are insane.

I wish that my hometown could occasionally produce a bit of news that doesn’t reflect how COMPLETELY CRAZY OUR CITY IS.

I feel like a woman has control over her own body so it’s her choice to get an early abortion (or late if the fetus has a condition that is incompatible with life).

If someone ELSE takes her fetus against her will? I think that’s murder, or at least grand theft. Either way, I think it should be a more stiff penalty for the perpetrator.