Children, Adults, and Choice For Men!

Once again I find myself horking out a missive that's much too long for Blogger's "comments" - so another post is born.

In comments to a post at Sipsey Street, a couple of issues/questions were raised by others.

Take a moment to read the original post and the comments - it will make the rest of this easier to follow.

===========================================================
@ Dennis30: The distinction you're looking for, and coming so close to finding, is simple -- It's Adults vs. Children.

Adults - us - know that we're responsible for our lives and actions.

The Enemy - them - have ever grown up.  They FEAR responsibility, they loathe anyone who is truly self-reliant, they NEED someone to tell them what to do.

Best of all, just like all the REAL teenagers in the world, they believe they know EVERYTHING, and absolutely despise true adults who try to tell them that their juvenile plans and theories are unworkable.

They're perpetual adolescents.

@ PioneerPreppy: You too are ALMOST there.

Our current system - with universal access to abortion on demand and literal slavery for the poor, unsuspecting sperm-donor - ENCOURAGES irresponsibility.

"If I get pregnant I can get an abortion.  I can make him pay for 18+ years.  I can get food/clothing/shelter/etc. for FREE!"  What part of this encourages responsible behavior?  NONE - obviously.

I too am morally opposed to abortion.  IMHO when it's still a "blob" of cells, it's just that - not a "human."  The small-l-ibertarian in me also believes it is morally wrong to try to force my opinions on others at this point.

When it develops the ability to feel pain however, no reasonable person can describe an abortion in other than horiffic terms, and I lose all restraint in opposing it.  If you were to rip the arms, legs and head off a puppy before feeding its remains through a grinder, you'd be jailed -- and rightly so.  How can we tolerate this being done to a tiny being of ANY species?!

Still, I agree that it's a slippery slope to a VERY big problem.  We simply cannot legislate morality.  We CAN however - with properly composed legislation - accomplish some serious reductions in abortions and still be 100% in line with Libertarian and Constitutional principles.

This would need 2 laws to be passed: 

(1) Any abortion process must inform the mother of the details of the chosen procedure.  This may be accomplished in any format from printed literature to one-on-one tutoring, so long as she's fully informed of exactly what level of development her child has reached, and exactly what she's choosing to do to it.  This would - no doubt - cause a drastic reduction in abortions all on its own.

To REALLY reduce the problem however, all we need to do is SOLVE an existing unfairness and Constitutional crisis -- the unfair, disparate treatment of men.

Women are granted a minimum of 60 days from the time they know (or SHOULD know) that they are pregnant, to avail themselves of a relatively safe and legal procedure to absolve themselves of the life-long consequences of an ill-conceived sexual union.

All we need to do is provide men with the equal protection under the law.

Obviously for men to be able to force or deny an abortion to a woman is unacceptable for a whole host of reasons - so what we're discussing here is a "virtual abortion", or a "legal abortion" if you prefer.

In essence, it would grant men access to a safe, legal procedure by which they too can absolve themselves of the aforementioned consequences.  In sum, men would be given 60 days from the time they are informed of the pregnancy, during which they could avail themselves of the services of an attorney to sign a document absolving themselves of any possible rights or responsibilities as regards the unborn child.

This would IMMEDIATELY reduce the rate of both abortion and bastardy, because women would no longer be guaranteed a paycheck.

Any reasonable person would agree that this would force women to be MUCH more careful, and reduce "accidental" pregnancies to the nearly infinitesimal rate of true accidents where properly-used precautions have failed.

A near 100% of what we call "accidental pregnancies" are in fact negligent, or - as happens much more often than we know - a deliberate act on the part of the woman to "trap" a man into a relationship or simply allow her to steal a large part of his earnings for 18+ years by first fraudulently stealing his DNA.

I - personally - was once the victim of such a woman.  She insisted that she was "allergic" to latex, and to some component of all the non-latex condoms.   She swore there was "no possible way" she could get pregnant due to previous surgery, and that - even so - she was on "the pill" for other medical reasons.

My daughter was born 10 months and 2 days from the night I met this woman, and she's flatly confessed that she lied because she wanted another baby, believed I'd make a pretty one, and that I had the potential to also provide a much higher amount of "child support" to her.

She's made life a living hell for nigh on 2 decades because I refused to pay up and go away.

I didn't want to be a Father, but when forced into the role I determined to be the best Father I was able to be - which has been my overriding life-goal for nearly 2 decades.  Nobody's perfect, but I give my all to the attempt - and I possess no delusions as to the rest of us.

Frankly, this responsibility is what made a good man of the worthless POS I was before.  I would not be capable of turning my back on my offspring, and would gladly go through all the hell I've lived 10 times if its avoidance  meant losing the people I love most in the world.

Still - those were *MY* choices.  The fact that thousands of young men are forced into slavery every day is the worst sort of travesty.

Why "slavery"? Simple.  The average child-support order ranges ~1/3 of a man's income for 18+ years - this means *ALL* of his income for 6+ years.  SLAVERY.

Further, he's robbed of all choices.  He cannot accept a lower-paying job, even if he's doing so due to grave and obvious medical concerns.  Any lapse in payments - even through no fault of his own - will result in his being stripped of his right to travel, any licenses he may hold, even of his very freedom.

This truly is SLAVERY - there's no better word for it.

Bottom line:  Remove all the rewards and return all the risks, and "unplanned" pregnancies will return to their previous rarity.

Ensure every woman wishing to kill her child must face the ugly reality of what she is about to do, and abortions too will become a rarity.

This leaves us with the problem of unwanted children.  They are *NOT* "society's" problem - they are the responsibility of their MOTHER, and then their extended family and community. 

As in times past, people *WILL* GLADLY step up and do whatever is require -- be it adopt the child or provide other needed assistance -- but not when they're being robbed at the point of a government gun.

Sorry for another excessively-long response, but this is a deep and important subject, and I can't let the opportunity to educate pass...

Respectfully,

DD
===========================================================