"So-called fetal personhood laws would make abortion murder, ruling out all or most of the exceptions for abortion allowed in states that already ban it. So long as
Roe established a constitutional right to abortion, such laws remained symbolic in the few states that managed to pass them. Now they are starting to have practical effect. Already in Georgia, a fetus now qualifies for tax credits and child support, and is to be included in population counts and redistricting.
The laws also open up questions well beyond abortion, about immigration and who is entitled to public benefits.They have the potential to criminalize common health care procedures and limit the rights of a pregnant woman in making health care decisions.... [F]or anti-abortion advocates, simply returning the regulation of abortion to the states was never enough.
'Life begins at conception,' Representative Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said in proposing the Unborn Child Support Act in Congress this month, 'and this bill is a straightforward first step towards updating our federal laws to reflect that fact.'"
Here's the text of the proposed Unborn Child Support Act. You might think, reading the NYT, that Johnson is talking about a federal takeover of this subject that the Supreme Court was supposedly leaving to the states, but it's about the federal government assisting in the collection of child support payments
if state law imposes it on fathers of children who exist in utero.
I see the reason to fear the general "personhood" movement, but even if you favor abortion rights, you might still want men to owe financial support to women who are carrying their children.
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133 comments:
Going to be tough. Planned Parenthood already doesn't trouble itself with statutory rape reports. If you can't get a name, you can't get any money. Or, if you can't get a name, you can't get a DNA test. And then money.
i don't understand?
we were Told, that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Americans favored abortion, up to (and PAST!) the onset of labor. Yet, these laws are being passed.
Shouldn't tens of millions (HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS!) of Americans be protesting this?
Shouldn't they? Aren't They? Will They?
Every state will allow abortion at least in the first trimester.
In no state will there ever be enough votes to ban abortion entirely.
What a mess. To your point that even if we don’t favor fetal personhood from conception, we might still favor making men pay women who are carrying their children: sort of early child support, right? Guys should reimburse their pregnant partners for the time and trouble resulting from their earlier dalliances; a contractual damages approach?
Well, maybe. We need to (sorry) reconceive this whole subject.
The pro-abortion crowd had 50 years to walk itself down a slippery slope toward infanticide as it put abortion on a weird death cult pedestal. But, two wrongs don't make a right.
With these proposals the anti-abortion crowd wants to tilt at windmills. It took 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade in the softest possible fashion (i.e., state versus federal control). I expect hardcore pro-life laws to never ever be national and lead to election losses in red state for those who push them.
Most people fall somewhere in the middle of the abortion debate. Is the best outcome detente? Stalemate?
If a pregnant woman is murdered, a non-leftist DA will charge the murderer with two homocides.
I used to ask students: if a pregnant woman, and no one else, gets to decide whether to abort a pregnancy or not, how can the biological father be held responsible if a child somehow is born and survives, and I guess is not put up for adoption? A decision to have sex leads directly to the responsibility of parenthood for him, but not for her?
Well reading the Times was your first mistake
Everyone involved is going to regret putting government in charge of fetuses.
You dumb fucks haven't learned your lesson yet with gay marriage and transgenderism?
You are always so quick to give the government more power. They fuck up everything they touch but here you are again. It is the definition of insanity.
I am beginning to think the anti-abortion wackos are funded by the same people that fund the pro-abortion ghouls.
" you might still want men to owe financial support to women who are carrying their children."
An incentive for women to get pregnant. An incentive for men to keep it in their pants. Let's see who wins.
This to me is the ACTUAL ISSUE around Abortion. Law should filter down from this issue.
In college I was a proponent of abortion rights/capability, with some limitations (i.e. term).
During an actual discussion on this matter, I was challenged to express in clear language when an independent life begins. At conception? At some pre-defined in utero milestone? At live birth? When does a person BECOME a person?
Forcing me to define that for myself was the most important part of my journey on this matter, because I realized how much I was trying to define life as beginning at a convenient time to my views on abortion. I kept trying to define it as viability, which is a fluid term. And that's when I realized:
- If aborting a fetus the day of delivery is murder, then it's definitely life then.
- If abortion at viability is killing an entirely capable independent life, then that's wrong and entirely consistent with murder.
- Somewhere before viability I could make a case, but it became entirely up to my feelings and not based upon a bedrock principle. And in consideration of defining what ending life is, I probably shouldn't be loose about it.
I think most have come to similar conclusions. And, let's face it, there are absolutely tons of laws that put additional value and protections on either pregnant women as a class of people OR on harm to unborn children.
The only "safe" way to protect life here is to assess that life begins at conception. Anything after that is an accommodation for a situation no one wants.
P.s. I'm not taking a position on law here, much, but the moral assessment and principles here are more important than the law itself.
This to me is the ACTUAL ISSUE around Abortion. Law should filter down from this issue.
In college I was a proponent of abortion rights/capability, with some limitations (i.e. term).
During an actual discussion on this matter, I was challenged to express in clear language when an independent life begins. At conception? At some pre-defined in utero milestone? At live birth? When does a person BECOME a person?
Forcing me to define that for myself was the most important part of my journey on this matter, because I realized how much I was trying to define life as beginning at a convenient time to my views on abortion. I kept trying to define it as viability, which is a fluid term. And that's when I realized:
- If aborting a fetus the day of delivery is murder, then it's definitely life then.
- If abortion at viability is killing an entirely capable independent life, then that's wrong and entirely consistent with murder.
- Somewhere before viability I could make a case, but it became entirely up to my feelings and not based upon a bedrock principle. And in consideration of defining what ending life is, I probably shouldn't be loose about it.
I think most have come to similar conclusions. And, let's face it, there are absolutely tons of laws that put additional value and protections on either pregnant women as a class of people OR on harm to unborn children.
The only "safe" way to protect life here is to assess that life begins at conception. Anything after that is an accommodation for a situation no one wants.
P.s. I'm not taking a position on law here, much, but the moral assessment and principles here are more important than the law itself.
"Fetal personhood, which confers legal rights from conception"
So women who don't do everything in their power to keep the fetus alive and avoid miscarriage would be liable in some way?
"In Georgia, it also means a $3,000 tax credit"
Clever. Since abortion has been a form of convenient birth control, a financial incentive could change the calculation.
"even if you favor abortion rights, you might still want men to owe financial support to women who are carrying their children"
Even if? For women, it has long been and-and: they get to decide exclusively whether to have the baby conceived together, and they get to claim child support if they do decide to give birth. Equality!
"Fetal personhood, which confers legal rights from conception"
So women who don't do everything in their power to keep the fetus alive and avoid miscarriage would be liable in some way?
"In Georgia, it also means a $3,000 tax credit"
Clever. Since abortion has been a form of convenient birth control, a financial incentive could change the calculation.
"even if you favor abortion rights, you might still want men to owe financial support to women who are carrying their children"
Even if? For women, it has long been and-and: they get to decide exclusively whether to have the baby conceived together, and they get to claim child support if they do decide to give birth. Equality!
They'd have to ban the IUD which prevents persons from implanting in the uterus.
Just mandate (persondate?) both parties signing a form prior to intercourse that specifies support requirements in the case of a pregnancy.
A fetus is human as opposed to wolf, but is not a human. It's a human in embryo, it's okay to say.
A law that says otherwise can't survive against natural language, which language reflects how things are perceived before dogmatists (e.g. God implants a soul in each fertilized egg) arrive to fix it.
Sociologically, you learn to be a human, so there's no bright line at the other end either, but what society goes on is cuteness, the real bright line. A sonogram makes that kick in around 15 weeks, where it used to be birth. The thing worth preserving is society's care for cute things.
Achilles @ 7:41: “… I am beginning to think the anti-abortion wackos are funded by the same people that fund the pro-abortion ghouls.”
You are making way too much sense here. Power abhors a vacuum, and the abortion debate is so loaded with incompatible emotions and so jammed with irreconcilable views and values that in political terms it’s a singularity. A stalemate; and people stuck in a stalemate are tempted (compelled?) to shift the mess to a (wise? Ha) arbiter. Outsource your moral quandary to Government. Which, strangely, is willing, even eager, to take over the responsibility, at the cost of everyone’s freedom.
TreeJoe said...
P.s. I'm not taking a position on law here, much, but the moral assessment and principles here are more important than the law itself.
Good point.
People should stop trying to pass laws and start trying to get people into church.
In no state will there ever be enough votes to ban abortion entirely.
That will be true after republican activist politicians learn the consequences of legislating otherwise. In the meantime dems wind up in charge again with awful ideas that don't get punished until the republicans learn. The damage they can do may be permanent.
This is fear-mongering that some state legislature might ban abortion entirely.
The purpose of the fear-mongering is to make people think that our all abortion laws should be made again by a five-member majority of the US Supreme Court.
However, maybe some future five-majority might ban abortion entirely! We all should be afraid of that possibility!!
Every corporation is in the moloch business, one way or another
...you might still want men to owe financial support to women who are carrying their children.
Keep telling yourselves that men who support abortion are just altruistic allies, gals.
Occam's razor indicates it makes more sense to blame hubris - the primary human survival default mode - rather than some Rube Goldberg Swiss Watch Conspiracy theory to explain Pro-Lifers Shooting-the-Moon.
The net effect will be an accelerated brain drain and youth drain from red to blue states, further increasing the economic gap and red state dependency on the Federal $$ largess of libtard socialist baby killers.
A real lose-lose situation bad for the country.
Mike Sylwester said...Every state will allow abortion at least in the first trimester.
In no state will there ever be enough votes to ban abortion entirely.
It will take some time to settle out but in the long run I think you're right. Very few people support the Democratic position of death until you can hear its screams that the media dishonestly portrays as the only caring position. A larger minority, but still a minority, supports outright bans in most situations. The mass of people fall somewhere in the "you can kill it until it's cute in the ultrasound" range.
Leave it to the NYT to misrepresent whatever it needs to misrepresent to push its own extreme position.
Howard: "The net effect will be an accelerated brain drain and youth drain from red to blue states,...."
LOL
The precise opposite is happening.
Howard remains the perfect indicator for what reality is.....and all you have to do to take advantage of that is to take what Howard writes and assume the opposite is true. Because it is.
I'm not seeing the problem.
The tax credit and child support provisions for pregnant women seem like bad policy. Women could intentionally get pregnant, or fraudulently claim to be pregnant, simply to get these financial incentives, and then, once secured, go to NYC (or claim to) to get a late-term abortion. The only workaround would be to allow the women to "earn" these incentives from the time they get pregnant, but only allow the incentives to become vested if and when the baby is actually born. The problem with that workaround, however, is that it tends to reinforce the very message the pro-life people are trying to convey, which is that fetuses are full-fledged human beings from the time of conception.
A wan attempt to stir up the crowd, but most of us have no problem with making men pay for their own damn kids. You play, you pay, not force your decision to play on the taxpayers.
Another problem with the approach of financially incentivizing pregnant women to stay pregnant is that it undermines the idea of personal responsibility. One of the arguments used by pro-life folks in favor of overturning Roe was that it isn't a huge imposition on sexually active women to take away abortion because they can instead just be more scrupulous about using birth control. And if it's not the right time in their lives to get pregnant, or it's not the right father to have a baby with, then they can and should make better choices and not just rely on abortion as a way out. This business about the tax credits especially goes against all that, implying that if women don't use birth control and otherwise don't make good decisions in terms of when and with whom they have sex, nevertheless the government will be there to pay the freight. So feel free not to exercise personal responsibility!
Tax credits for unborn children?
There might be a wee opportunity for fraud there....
Remember that in 1987, 7 million children who were alive in 1986 disappeared, never to be seen again.
1987 was the first year the IRS required a Social Security number to claim a dependent child.
Twelve years ago a young woman, begged by the grandparents who had raised her, decided on adoption only one week before a scheduled early-third-trimester abortion -- the carve 'em up and sell the parts type. On the recommendation of my attorney I immediately began covering all her medical expenses, sending her $500 per monnth in support, and volunteered annn extra $1000 to cover earlier expenses.
I'm a single father, and my daughter is one of the great blessings in my llfe. At least I could save ONE.
The fringe on either side of this issue attracts some unsympathetic people. You may be sure, however, that the anti-abortion activists will attract the most publicity. The abortion issue will cost the Republicans some votes.....China's One Child Policy was pro-abortion and enforced with barbaric severity. It affected tens of millions women. I saw one documentary about it, but, for the most part, it is not much discussed or publicized. Enforced scarves attract more outrage among feminists than enforced abortions.....The left doesn't have Holocaust Deniers. Its various holocausts are swallowed in oblivion. Can anyone here name a single person who perished in the Holodomor or during the French Revolution's efforts to bring the enlightenment to the Vendee.
The Republicans have found the hill that they can both die upon, and lose upon. I'm so impressed. Such vision. Such leadership.
So how are these forced pregnancy geniuses going to confer upon zygotes/embryos legal personhood when they lack almost all the traits one would use to establish the identity of that status in a court of law? No name, no date of birth, no social security number. Not even a realization by the woman that they exist prior to 6 weeks in most cases.
There really is a point at which it’s less about ignorance about the basic workings of a woman’s body and pregnancies in general and more so just outright misogyny.
Wasn't Dred Scott about legal personhood? Does somebody have another, less inflammatory analogous case where legal personhood was denied to a class of human beings? The Holocaust comes to mind as another case, but that's kind of inflammatory.
I support the right to abortion, I hate dishonesty.
Howard said...
Occam's razor indicates it makes more sense to blame hubris - the primary human survival default mode - rather than some Rube Goldberg Swiss Watch Conspiracy theory to explain Pro-Lifers Shooting-the-Moon.
The net effect will be an accelerated brain drain and youth drain from red to blue states, further increasing the economic gap and red state dependency on the Federal $$ largess of libtard socialist baby killers.
So all the women that value life and try to make responsible decisions involving sex will go one way.
All the women that do not value life and want to avoid all responsibility for decisions involving sex go the other.
Which ones are the smart ones?
I wonder where the smart men will go?
Brains go where the incentives for being smart are better, which is why the financial industries are moving to Florida from NY/NJ.
China’s one child policy was definitely more barbaric than the the Third Reich’s more family friendly forced birth (for favored races) policy. They definitely did not want to deprive the nation of such miracles as the wonderful babies that German women were either willingly carrying or forced to carry.
I have no idea why the anti-abortion idealists don’t publicize this more. It’s a missed opportunity and no less utopian than the goals of the right wing’s other groups - like Unite the RIghts, etc. A chance for real collaboration exists and I’d like to see them work together more.
It’s a shame how disunited the right wing groups are, and I for one am glad that Trump reminds me every day of how much more powerful they’d be if that weren’t the case.
People who say life begins at conception are really showing their contempt for living sperm and eggs. Sperm and eggs are alive, why not personhood for them as well? What did they ever do wrong?
Was anyone here conceived from dead sperm and dead eggs? If so I apologize for offending you.
Vasectomy from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
balancing - definition
To make two or more aspects of a situation 'equal'.
Example:
If you favor abortion rights, you might still want men to owe financial support to women who are carrying their children.
Note:
The terms 'child' or 'children' are used to humanize the fetus to facilitate emotional support in direct contradiction of the popular phrase 'a clump of cells' typically favored as a supporting argument for abortion.
No one would mandate financial support for a clump of cells.
Proposal:
At the death of the 'child', the woman must fully refund the financial support and if the death is the result of an abortion, additional and punitive damages for fraud are imposed and possibly charges for the killing.
Reason:
If the support is mandated simply because of pregnancy, the woman has the incentive to become pregnant, obtain support for the duration of the pregnancy and then abort the 'child' to move on to another monetary 'donor'.
Prediction:
It is our belief that those supporting abortion rights will vehemently oppose this proposal.
I think this subject is a rare case where a fair analogy is just not available. A fetus is neither fully a person nor a mass of tissue devoid of worth or natural rights. It is simply something else in between temporarily, and it changes dramatically during it's time in limbo. There are clear problems with going all the way in either direction, and it requires a special status not analogous to anything else. We should be serious and careful about the challenge and how we address it. It's too serious for hyperbole or emotional stands. It's hard serious work for us as a people. It may be beyond our abilities, but we have no way to avoid the challenge. Let's try our best for once.
Did the article quantify what a "near total ban" means? I wonder if their Europe has a near total ban by their definition.
A baby when wanted. A fetus, a technical term of art for social distance from a medical property or wicked solution.
That said, Roe was not overturned, but viability was restored to six weeks where baby meets granny in state, if not in process, and a compelling cause to discourage human rites performed for social, redistributive, clinical, political, and fair weather causes (e.g. murder or elective abortion in darkness, DIE).
There is no mystery in sex and conception, a human life evolves from conception to either Her or her Choice do us part.
I'm not sure why folks are thinking it would be so hard to administer the pregnancy tax credit or child support. Nothing says it has to be paid immediately upon a woman suspecting a pregnancy. Child support would just be retroactive for 9 months prior to birth, and the tax credit for a pregnancy that started after March of the prior year would be paid during the year of birth, subject to adjustment for taxes paid the prior year.
Why should a man pay parental support for a fetus?
Brains go where the incentives for being smart are better, which is why the financial industries are moving to Florida from NY/NJ.
People... persons have seen past the handmade tales brayed by proponents of the wicked solution if special and peculiar interests, and recognize the dignity and agency of women and men, girls and boys, and human life in our infancy.
Women, men, and "our Posterity" are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus.
Every state will allow abortion at least in the first trimester.
The first hexmester would be closer to where baby meets granny in state, in law, if not in process.
Federal programs like Medicaid, WIC, EBT and TANF already consider the unborn members of the household when calculating eligibility and benefit levels.
It shows how bubbled these activists are, that they didn't realize this is already SOP at the federal level.
"Why should a man pay parental support for a fetus?"
Housing and food costs.
***
But I'm still an embryo
With a long, long way to go
Until I make my brother understand
And by "housing," I do mean the woman's body. Everything related to keeping her alive, safe, and healthy is the housing cost for the child.
Those of you who had trouble with the time line before — because the woman, with a right to an abortion, had the power to say "no" later than the man — should have less trouble now where the right is gone. I have heard so many of you say that the woman who doesn't want a child already made her decision at the point in time when she chose to have sex. Now the woman and man are in the same position: the decision point is when you have sex. If you have sex, you are inviting into your life the potential new person and if that person arrives, that person has priority. Stick to your template! You were so sure. You got what you wanted.
I see the reason to fear the general "personhood" movement, but even if you favor abortion rights, you might still want men to owe financial support to women who are carrying their children.
Well, IMO you can either be pro-abortion "rights" or you can be in favor of demanding that men support "fetuses" / babies.
Because if women have "a right to choose", then so do men.
And if the accident of existence doesn't give the "fetus" a claim on Mom, then there can also be no claim on Dad
And by "housing," I do mean the woman's body. Everything related to keeping her alive, safe, and healthy is the housing cost for the child.
Yes, this is about her and his choice(s), separately, together, and through reconciliation, and a compelling cause to recognize our dignity agency in a civilized society, which will be, unfortunately, or fortunately to the benefit of "the People" and "our Posterity" on a present and forward-looking basis. Choose wisely, ladies and germs.
Ann Althouse said...
Those of you who had trouble with the time line before — because the woman, with a right to an abortion, had the power to say "no" later than the man — should have less trouble now where the right is gone. I have heard so many of you say that the woman who doesn't want a child already made her decision at the point in time when she chose to have sex. Now the woman and man are in the same position: the decision point is when you have sex. If you have sex, you are inviting into your life the potential new person and if that person arrives, that person has priority. Stick to your template! You were so sure. You got what you wanted.
Um, we haven't "got what we wanted" in CA, NY, or many other States.
But in States where women do not have a "right" to an abortion, then by all means the man should be just as much on the hook.
I'm open to a wide range of options. I just require that men get the exact same rights as women. If you're going to allow aboriton, then you have to allow men the right to say "I don't want this child, you're on your own if you don't kill him / her". If not? Not
Told you so. Even though almost everyone here was claiming that Dobbs would lead to "reasonable restrictions like they have in Europe" (which of course is double bullshit).
I warned you, but of course I am just an asshole, so no one (especially Althouse) listens to me.
Now the woman and man are in the same position: the decision point is when you have sex.
Yes, it's our choice, our responsibility of two mature people. Perhaps if there was a mystery, or involuntary exploitation, but, in the first part there is not, and in the second part, despite sincere efforts to allege truth, is a political myth.
Mike Sylwester said...
Every state will allow abortion at least in the first trimester.
In no state will there ever be enough votes to ban abortion entirely.
What sort of world of delusion do you live in?
What part of the Texas "heartbeat" law do you not get?
Those of you who had trouble with the time line before — because the woman, with a right to an abortion, had the power to say "no" later than the man — should have less trouble now where the right is gone.
I agree.
Because if women have "a right to choose", then so do men.
Althouse's position was that men had the right to chose whether or not to have sex, and then their rights ended and their responsibilities began. They became splooge stooges. The woman's right to choose extended past birth with adoption and abandonment as possibilities, rights without responsibilities.
"Why should a man pay parental support for a fetus?"
Housing and food costs.
Does the woman have a responsibility to provide housing and food also? For herself or the fetus? Or is this yet another case of women with rights and no responsibilities and men with responsibilities and no rights?
People who say life begins at conception are really showing their contempt for living sperm and eggs.
This argument is not nearly as cute or witty as you think it is. It's actually ignorant and asinine.
Wasn't Dred Scott about legal personhood?
Close. The decision was about citizenship though. No one said Scott wasn't a person, they said he wasn't a citizen.
In the most radical jurisdiction in the country -- Washington, D.C., where the only limit on abortion is the imagination -- one can file for child support prior to birth.
In the most radical jurisdiction in the country -- Washington, D.C., where the only limit on abortion is the imagination -- one can file for child support prior to birth.
"Does the woman have a responsibility to provide housing and food also? For herself or the fetus? Or is this yet another case of women with rights and no responsibilities and men with responsibilities and no rights?"
The pregnant woman is necessarily already providing housing and food for the unborn. It's built in by nature. Isn't that obvious? How can you be so obtuse?
The pregnant woman is necessarily already providing housing and food for the unborn. It's built in by nature. Isn't that obvious? How can you be so obtuse?
I thought you supported the right to an abortion? Such a right must necessarily mean a lack of responsibility to provide food and housing to the fetus.
Bagoh20 said…I think this subject is a rare case where a fair analogy is just not available. A fetus is neither fully a person nor a mass of tissue devoid of worth or natural rights. It is simply something else in between temporarily, and it changes dramatically during it's time in limbo. There are clear problems with going all the way in either direction, and it requires a special status not analogous to anything else.
I tried to post earlier but it’s either lost or still in moderation…tried to make a similar point to what Bagoh stated more succinctly here.
There really is no analogy, but the issue still hinges on whether or not the fetal human life has the right to state protection. At the very least I’d argue that some form of personhood amendment would disallow the state from certifying physicians to kill unborn humans unless that killing was incidental to the provision of life saving medical care for the pregnant woman.
And I think solving the moral dilemma of “is it murder” needs to start with yes and then work backward to cover exceptions in a similar way to the criminal statutes handle degrees of murder and manslaughter. The premise is that the motive matters even though the victim still has a Constitutionally protected right to life, and in some cases that motive might even outweigh the right to life. Fetal right to life would be weighted against maternal rights and legislatures would have to determine how far that could go (saving mother’s life is clear self defense, rape and severe anomalies are more problematic but still possible as extenuating circumstances if the people so decide.)
My own convictions are still 100% for full rights of personhood (the financial stuff is a side issue IMO but not unimportant.) I want personhood recognized by the law even though convicting people of the value and dignity of unborn human life is the real battle….but without the legal protection that battle is nearly hopeless. If the prolife side were to settle for allowing first trimester abortions it would only save a fraction of the babies and the women aborting during early stages are not going to suddenly have a change of heart.
"Because if women have "a right to choose", then so do men."
Your right to choose is limited by your own physical body, which is very different from a woman's, and if anything, the woman has the more onerous side of the deal that nature made. She has to endure pregnancy and childbirth, a very limiting imposition on her. It is an imposition that can be avoided with abortion, if abortion is available. But the woman's time line and the man's are different by nature. The man must chose a vasectomy or to avoid sex that has potential for procreation. Once the sperm is out of the body, his powers are spent. The woman has a much longer path to take. These 2 paths can never be made equal. The arguments for equality that deny nature are doomed, but I know I am doomed to hear them over and over. I wonder if the guys who keep making this argument have ever loved and cared for a woman who went through a pregnancy. You sound like adolescents or just clods who don't deserve a woman.
You sound like adolescents or just clods who don't deserve a woman.
A small improvement over splooge stooges. I take it you're fine with me calling women who want to kill babies ghouls who don't deserve men?
I wonder if the guys who keep making this argument have ever loved and cared for a woman who went through a pregnancy. You sound like adolescents or just clods who don't deserve a woman.
Do you presume that only men make these arguments? Have you ever had these discussions with prolife women? Do you think a woman can be both prolife and feminist, or are they just women who’ve been brainwashed by the male clods in their lives?
I for one think child support through pregnancy sounds extremely ethical! Obviously there would need to be some concessions to proving pregnancy and paternity, and retroactive support could be one solution - though I don't think it's ideal. I would have to think about it some more, this is new ground to look at legally and should be carefully considered.
I hope the pushback about women also having a responsibility in housing and feeding the fetus is a matter of how that percentage is divided, not that such responsibility also falls on the man. Would the current model of support for the first few months after birth not sufficient, when the mother tends to have primary custody almost by default?
I'm both a woman and someone who has known and loved women who have been pregnant, if that matters when weighing my position.
“Your right to choose is limited by your own physical body, which is very different from a woman's, “
This is the part of your argument that makes no sense IMO.
I completely agree that nature gives women a far greater burden in bearing children. This is obvious by observation and borne out in my personal experience.
But the “right to choose” to avoid pregnancy is NOT a greater burden for women than it is for men. Personally I’d even go so far as to say it’s far easier for a woman to choose abstention during times when she is fertile, but without even relying on that argument I can’t see any reason that the choices for avoiding pregnancy could be said to place more burden on women. The ONLY situation where i would concede that is in situations of rape.
It seems like you are conflating the burden of pregnancy itself (again, no argument this is greater for the female) with the burden of avoiding the conception of a child- which in almost all cases can be avoided just as easily by women as it can be by men.
I agree with Althouse holding men's feet in the fire for child support. But I think the government gets it wrong with men. Child support is very expensive and men, who typically are not custodial parents, get zero credit for that expense on income tax. And they are taxed as a single person on top of it.
Meanwhile the government hands out money as an incentive for buying way overpriced electric cars that only well off people can afford. I'd say that tax money would be much better spent on helping single dads financially support their children. If the custodial parent can file as head of household to receive very generous tax benefits (and outright credits), why not do something similar for the men who do make that financial sacrifice on behalf of their children?
Men and women must be treated equally, unless the unequal treatment benefits women, in which case they must be treated unequally you Neanderthal.
The arguments for equality that deny nature are doomed, but I know I am doomed to hear them over and over.
Now you know how we've felt about feminism for the last fifty years.
hpudding said...
So how are these forced pregnancy geniuses going to confer upon zygotes/embryos legal personhood when they lack almost all the traits one would use to establish the identity of that status in a court of law? No name, no date of birth, no social security number. Not even a realization by the woman that they exist prior to 6 weeks in most cases.
Do you believe that legal status through an already established name, social security number and date of birth is the difference between having the right to life and not? In the United States, or to you personally?
Through most of human history people didn't have social security numbers assigned to them. There are plenty of countries that don't have them even today, and the United States would still considered it murder if someone where to kill someone without one.
A name can be unknown or changed, that doesn't change the fact of personhood. Or the right to life that is recognized legally - if that is the point you believe matters.
The "date of birth" is the only factor unique to a fetus, and that can still be estimated - which would also be the case in murders where for whatever reason that factor was unknown (ie: a Jane Doe. And not every birthdate was or is recorded or registered, and it would absolutely be considered the ending of a person to kill them.
She has to endure pregnancy and childbirth, a very limiting imposition on her. It is an imposition that can be avoided with abortion, if abortion is available. But the woman's time line and the man's are different by nature.
Has no one heard of the birth control pill or the IUD? Come on.
It’s a shame how disunited the right wing groups are, and I for one am glad that Trump reminds me every day of how much more powerful they’d be if that weren’t the case.
Careful. You're approaching Freder territory.
If a woman has the right to unilaterally renounce a fetus via abortion, regardless of the sperm donor's will, doesn't the concept of equal protection extend to the man, who should also be allowed to renounce the fetus, via a demand for abortion, adoption or simple financial dis-engagement (woman to choose which of the three)?
rhhardin said...
They'd have to ban the IUD which prevents persons from implanting in the uterus.
I think this is a question full ban supporters absolutely need to grapple with for moral consistency. Doesn't Plan B also only prevent the implantation - but not fertilization?
I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on this, especially if you are someone who believes that conception is when protections to life and bodily autonomy begin? Do you define conception as both fertilization and implantation, or something else?
woman has the more onerous side of the deal that nature made
How very sad it is, this modern trend of some women that despise their womanhood, that see the natural actions of their bodies as burdens, that sees their own bodies as inherently diseased, rather than celebrating the wonder and privilege and glory of their womanhood.
Thankfully there are new generations of women that actually value their essential womanhood, including their natural fertility and capacity for the transmission of new human life.
Since the conversation has veered toward the inevitable presumption of consensual sex as the conception norm, I’d like to make sure we don’t forget the rapes! (Those, and of course the pregnancies that in addition to taxing the health of the mother could very well kill her - a not so insignificant risk). Neither of these scenarios were even considered in the Dobbs decision, revealing the moral helplessness of the majority.
So I guess we’re going to say that rapists pay? Well, good luck getting someone whom I presume you’d at least lock up to pay for his victim’s pregnancy on bartered cigarettes and the prison library job.
So since these decisions are being made by theocrats, and in the spirit of America’s increasing Saudi Arabianization under the conservatives when it comes to energy policy, social policy and democracy - it looks like we’ll be back to enforcing the biblical and Islamic standard whereby rapists aren’t punished by the law, as long as they agree to marry their victim. Fits in perfectly with the paternity forced-pay standard, no? And does away with the annoying court backlog on prosecuting so many of those darn rapists!
The conservatives have no clue how embarrassing and primitive a society they are pushing America to become.
Very annoying to get those posting errors. More annoying when the post actually goes through rather than being rejected, but blogger doesn't bother to tell you that. Sorry about the multiple postings and deletions.
"The man must chose a vasectomy or to avoid sex that has potential for procreation"
No. The cases where a man with a vasectomy impregnated a women are very rare, but they exist. On about the order of me accidentally shooting you with a gun I "know" isn't loaded. Low risk but very bad consequences, so I don't point the barrel at you even as a prank.
But I've buried the lede, haven't I? You've found the answer to a riddle that the best medical science has failed to solve:
Q:When does the fetus become a human?
A:when we want the Father to support it
"do you define conception as both fertilization and implantation, or something else"
DNA never lies
Do you define conception as both fertilization and implantation, or something else?
It wasn't pro-lifers who redefined "conception," it was the pro-aborts who did.
And the dignity of the human being - and the respect due to her or him - begins when that new life begins.
To repeat for the 10,000th time -- there is no subhumanity, there are not two classes of human beings.
"So how are these forced pregnancy geniuses going to confer upon zygotes/embryos legal personhood when they lack almost all the traits one would use to establish the identity of that status in a court of law? No name, no date of birth, no social security number. Not even a realization by the woman that they exist prior to 6 weeks in most cases'
First off, no one is being "forced" to get pregnant. Women know that intercourse carries a risk of pregnancy and they CHOOSE to accept that risk. Women also know that birth control is not 100% effective, yet they CHOOSE to accept that risk as well. If women really want to be treated with respect as equals, they need to start taking responsibility for the reproductive choices they already made.
2) You are arguing that the fetus is subhuman. Who does that associate you with? The same people who defined Native Americans as subhuman savages to justify their genocide, the same people who defined Africans as subhuman apes to justify Slavery, the same people who defined Jews as subhuman parasites to justify the Holocaust.
Maybe you don't own a mirror but I can assure you it's not a good look.
I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on this, especially if you are someone who believes that conception is when protections to life and bodily autonomy begin?
I am in that camp and I agree that many people probably have not thought this through. I am consistent in my personal life but I know that my position is not politically tenable so “grapple” is a good description. The closest I can get is that personhood after implantation is at least close enough to morally acceptable and I would then hope and pray that a culture respecting fetal life would continue to develop so that fewer people would choose those abortifacients for pregnancy avoidance.
"I wonder if the guys who keep making this argument have ever loved and cared for a woman who went through a pregnancy. You sound like adolescents or just clods who don't deserve a woman."
You're the one who just engaged an ad hominem attack we would expect to find on Democrat Underground.
But since women are ruled by emotion and prone to irrational tantrums, it would likewise be a "denial of nature" to hold them to the same standard of civility we apply to men. You are therefore excused
Greg the Class Traitor at 11:39 AM
What part of the Texas "heartbeat" law do you not get?
That law will be changed soon.
"What part of the Texas "heartbeat" law do you not get?"
Fetal heartbeats are detected at approx 6 weeks.
First responders check casualties for a heartbeat to determine if a human is alive. They will be amused that are now delusional radicals
So I guess we’re going to say that rapists pay?
Most of us rational people just expect the mother to get her support from the same place most single mothers do today....the government.
[F]or anti-abortion advocates, simply returning the regulation of abortion to the states was never enough.
Just nonsensical stuff here--the POINT of returning regulation of abortion to the states was that people working at the state level would then be able to make/change/influence those regulations. The statement is trying to imply that abortion opponents were being dishonest and relies on the premise that abortion opponents ever claimed "well we want to return the regulation to the states but we won't want to make any actual changes to those regulations" which is obvious nonsense.
Ann Althouse said...If you have sex, you are inviting into your life the potential new person and if that person arrives, that person has priority. Stick to your template! You were so sure. You got what you wanted.
Yes, of course. Those were the terms--that's completely acceptable. All these "oh well now men will have to take responsibility, how about that?!" threats are funny; to the most-committed anti-abortion activists (many of whom are strongly religious) this isn't a threat at all!
I have always been 100% for making men finacially responsible for the babies they sire. Mothers need to name the dad, or they lose their access to govt family aid.
Do you believe that legal status through an already established name, social security number and date of birth is the difference between having the right to life and not?
If there were a “right to life” that overrides a right to be secure in one’s person then the state could force you to donate blood, bone marrow, tissue, a kidney, etc. to keep potential organ donor recipients alive. Do you believe that it does? Or that only fetuses have a right that all other Americans lack and that those who don’t receive a needed organ have no “right to life?”
First off, no one is being "forced" to get pregnant.
Wow, ok. Since I guess rape no longer occurs we can stop prosecuting for it and just let rapists impregnate whomever they want at will. Including 10-year old girls in Ohio whose bodies are even more likely to not endure a pregnancy. The pro-forced birthers really are pro-rape. Rapists have a right to procreate, 10-year olds don’t have a right to forego a pregnancy. What a world.
My own comment at 2:00 PM
That law will be changed soon.
A main purpose of Texas's Heartbeat law was to motivate the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Now that that purpose has been accomplished, the Texas law can and will be changed.
Wow, ok. Since I guess rape no longer occurs we can stop prosecuting for it and just let rapists impregnate whomever they want at will. Including 10-year old girls in Ohio whose bodies are even more likely to not endure a pregnancy. The pro-forced birthers really are pro-rape. Rapists have a right to procreate, 10-year olds don’t have a right to forego a pregnancy. What a world.
God ! You are trolling all over ! The 10 year old story has been well discussed although you seem to be ignoring it. The child was probably in a home with multiple illegal male aliens and a cooperating mother.
Rapes should be reported and prosecuted. There should be no need for abortion promoters to claim publicity for a possible hoax. Few people advocate for an abortion ban after rape. There was an interesting story I saw about a woman who was raped and impregnated but declined abortion. The woman was reunited with her daughter who thanked her for her life. The incident was interracial, also.
If there were a “right to life” that overrides a right to be secure in one’s person then the state could force you to donate blood, bone marrow, tissue, a kidney, etc. to keep potential organ donor recipients alive. Do you believe that it does?
You might want to familiarize yourself with the concept of positive rights vs negative rights. There’s a reason we aren’t compelled to act to save lives while we are prohibited from taking lives.
And that’s over and above the obvious argument that the pregnant woman in almost all cases chose to engage in sexual intercourse. She (and the rest of us) had no such choice that led to a particular responsibility supporting a terminally ill patient needing an organ transplant.
"Do you presume that only men make these arguments? Have you ever had these discussions with prolife women? Do you think a woman can be both prolife and feminist, or are they just women who’ve been brainwashed by the male clods in their lives?"
I don't think we are talking about the same argument. Reread my comment you think you are critiquing.
"Very annoying to get those posting errors. More annoying when the post actually goes through rather than being rejected, but blogger doesn't bother to tell you that. Sorry about the multiple postings and deletions."
I understand the problem and why duplicates happen. I weed them out myself when I see them. I don't know why Blogger does that. Does it to me too if it's any consolation.
I’ve reread and see that you referred to “The arguments for equality that deny nature”
But which arguments do that? I firmly agree that nature places a greater burden on women than men with regard to pregnancy. I Don’t think men who argue that the cost to men is significant are denying that either, do you?
But more to my point, it isn’t necessary to allow killing to remedy the biologically determined inequality of pregnancy, not when there are so many ways that women can avoid pregnancy. I don’t understand your extended timeline argument- is it basically that a woman should get two chances at registering the “no” choice while men have only one opportunity to say no? Why shouldn’t we expect both men and women to make responsible choices at the outset?
And along those lines you mentioned vasectomy for men. Why is sterilization not a similar option tgat would allow women to avoid pregnancy?
Few people advocate for an abortion ban after rape.
Interesting opinion. It might even be true.
Here’s a fact: 8 states have total bans on abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest. They are: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, South Dakota, Texas and WIsconsin. More are now free to join them.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html
I respect the women and obstetricians in those states enough to give more weight to their lived reality than to what some random guy on the internet says about what “few people” would do to them. Maybe they can get an abortion and upon prosecution tell a court of law that the internet says differently!
Residency status has nothing to do with whether anyone should have to endure the atrocity of being forced to carry a rapist’s fetus to term. Unless someone’s values are so skewed as to care more about that than about forced birth for rape victims.
There’s a reason we aren’t compelled to act to save lives while we are prohibited from taking lives.
Is that what the Irish authorities told Savita Halappanavar?
Women don’t abort to “take a life.” They abort because they have a right not to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. Many of them also recognize that they are likely to be physiologically, mentally, economically and socially more capable of offering a baby they have willingly a better chance at life than one they were forced to have under horrible conditions.
Our statistics on infant and maternal mortality bear witness to the lie that the forced birth faction only cares about “life” anyway - whether in the abstract or concrete. This is true at both the national and state level - though the stats on this in the forced birth states are often the worst.
And that’s over and above the obvious argument that the pregnant woman in almost all cases chose to engage in sexual intercourse.
As humans are wont and often wired to do. Doesn’t mean you have a right to force them to give birth as a form of punishment for a birth control measure that wasn’t 100% effective (and none of them are) or your personal disapproval of sex for any other reason than procreation (and most sexual activity is not for that reason).
I was talking only about the argument that if a woman can choose to abort the man should have a right to avoid paying child support.
Sorry if that was clear but I was react to other commenters who were making an argument I’ve answered on this blog multiple times.
I mean sorry if that wasn’t clear
Me: no one is being "forced" to get pregnant
Althouse: "Wow. I guess rape never - "
Wow. What a dishonest line of attack. The full quote below makes it obvious I'm talking about women who are willing particants:
First off, no one is being "forced" to get pregnant. Women know that intercourse carries a risk of pregnancy and they CHOOSE to accept that risk. Women also know that birth control is not 100% effective, yet they CHOOSE to accept that risk as well. If women really want to be treated with respect as equals, they need to start taking responsibility for the reproductive choices they already made.
And not the 1% of pregnancies due to rape and incest. But you chose to dishonestly distort my words.
Very well, I am now allowed to misquote you and attack you out of context until you apologize.
So I guess we’re going to say that rapists pay?
There's at least one case where a boy was raped by a woman and the boy was forced to pay child support when he turned 18.
So I guess we’re going to say that rapists pay?
There's at least one case where a boy was raped by a woman and the boy was forced to pay child support when he turned 18.
Me: No one is being forced to get pregnant
Althouse: "Wow, ok. Since I guess rape no longer occurs - "
Wow, ok. It's obvious (from the part you cut off) that I'm talking about women who were willing to have sex:
"First off, no one is being "forced" to get pregnant. Women know that intercourse carries a risk of pregnancy and they CHOOSE to accept that risk. Women also know that birth control is not 100% effective, yet they CHOOSE to accept that risk as well. If women really want to be treated with respect as equals, they need to start taking responsibility for the reproductive choices they already made."
But you instead chose to clip it out of context to take a cheap shot. This is the dishonest tactic that made Maureen Dowd infamous as a hack.
If you have intellectual integrity yuy will apologize
Weird, your software said there was an error sending my remark at 9:14. I had to repost it from memory. Keep the one after, the one comparing you to Maureen Dowd
I almost apologized for the duplicate. What was I thinking, you threw an elbow with your dishonest distortion, so civility is suspended till you apologize.
Ok thank you for the explanation. I do see why those things are paired though, don’t you? In fact it seems to me you are now making a similar argument in reverse…if women can not always choose to abort, then the man should not be able to avoid paying support.
Of all four permutations, the idea you are criticizing from those commenters that both women and men should have the option of avoiding responsibility for a child they’d conceived, is the most odious. But I think a lot of the guys who were saying it were really just trying to make a point about the disparity that existed under Roe and they were angry because you weigh the woman’s burden so much heavier as though the the man’s is inconsequential. Maybe I’m giving too much credit to some of those guys but that was my take on it.
Is that what the Irish authorities told Savita Halappanavar
Well, clearly and tragically they didn’t tell her anything since she is deceased but they told her widowed husband that the hospital was negligent, having overlooked several signs of sepsis that should have led them to legally induce the passage of their dead or dying fetus.
Have you seen "Love With The Proper Stranger"? Made several years pro-Roe.
"The only "safe" way to protect life here is to assess that life begins at conception."
Correct. Beyond A Reasonable Doubt seems to be the legal standard. We dont condemn criminals to the electric chair without it. We err on the side of caution when taking a human life.
Ann Althouse said...
"Because if women have "a right to choose", then so do men."
Your right to choose is limited by your own physical body,
All the money I make comes from my "own physical body".
If I have to pay child support, then that money isn't available for me to spend on my "own physical body".
So, in other words, no.
No deal
no dice
If I am bound to duties and responsibilities to that baby I didn't want, then so is every woman who gets pregnant form consensual sex.
My money is my time. Is my life. If the baby has a moral right to demand that from me, then said baby has an equal moral right to demand that mommy not kill him / her.
Either the choice to engage in sex imposes moral duties on both participants, or on neither. If the woman gets the throw off those responsibilities with an abortion, then a man is entitled to throw them off with a statement "I don't want that baby, not my problem, not my responsibility."
But the woman's time line and the man's are different by nature.
No shit. You mean there are good practical reasons why women might want to approach sex differently than mn do? it's not just stupid fudidudies forcing their outdated moral code on people?
What a thought
I respect the women and obstetricians in those states enough to give more weight to their lived reality than to what some random guy on the internet says about what “few people” would do to them. Maybe they can get an abortion and upon prosecution tell a court of law that the internet says differently!
Says the "random guy on the internet."
No. The cases where a man with a vasectomy impregnated a women are very rare, but they exist. On about the order of me accidentally shooting you with a gun I "know" isn't loaded.
Anybody who did vasectomies, and I didn't, required that the man have a sperm count post op before having sex with no birth control. "Very rare" does not cover it when the vasectomy is properly done with proper postop care.
Nature and her Choice place a greater responsibility on women. Society and his Choice place a greater responsibility on men. Fortunately, most women and men rise to the greatest challenge they will ever love.
I see all the same arguments. Not a thing has changed.
Except
Now the back and forth will take place for real. With a vote every two years, instead of 5 unelected people.
This development has the left scared witless. The very notion, the people will have some say about the rules they live under goes against all they know.
More than half of eligible voters are women, so women will make the decision. Yet another thing the left hates.
hpudding said...
I respect the women and obstetricians in those states enough to give more weight to their lived reality than to what some random guy on the internet says about what “few people” would do to them
Well, then, apparently you're a lying sack of shit
Because the well established truth, demonstrated over the last ~50 years, is that in the US ANY subjective criteria for an exception to an abortion law immediately becomes a complete overturning of that law.
If you have a 6+ week starting point for your abortion ban, then you don't need a rape exception. Because if you don't know that you were "raped" until more than 6 weeks after it happened, it wasn't rape.
In the Ohio / Indiana case, the mother knew her daughter was being raped, she was just ok with it. The only reason the daughter's rapist was arrested was because of the public attention brought about by the complaints about the abortion law.
The thing I find the most disgusting about most abortion supporters is their complete unwillingness to argue in good faith.
The cries about "threats to our democracy" / "death of our democracy" combined with screaming about how dare those Justices return the subject of abortion to the electoral process, and constant lying about what your proposals will do, really is a nice demonstration of your complete worthlessness as a human being
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