Stirring up a little trouble...
Jul. 28th, 2005 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tylikSo one idea I've been kicking about on and off for the last several years is how to work some of the kinks out of the legal system with regard to sex and procreation. I'm only talking about the legal kinks, mind, not the enforcement ones -- the current system in many ways seems on paper to favor mothers, but then the enforcement is pretty awful, which negates a lot of it. So a lot of women who really deserve it don't get child support, and custody and such like is a hellacious mess.
And on the flip side, and more what I'm interested in addressing at the moment, there seems to be a built in assumption that any man who has agreed to have sex with a woman has agreed to have a child by that woman. Now, there is no way that I'm going to argue for forced abortions. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just as interested in protecting a woman's right to not have an abortion as to have an abortion. (This is where the biological difference really does matter. Fatherhood and motherhood are not symmetrical propositions. The fetus is in her body. And either carrying it, or not carrying it, is an awfully big deal, simply on a physical level.) And I'm pretty dubious about any policy that allows a man to opt out of being a father once the child is conceived. Already the greatest burden of childrearing falls on women, and I am not in favor of increasing it. In fact, I think better enforcement of things like child support would be a very good thing. But I also think there are inherent inequities in the system.
Simply put, I don't think that it's appropriate that a woman can lie to a man about the status of her fertility, and how she feels about bearing or not bearing a child, and then if she does get pregnant, become the only voice in deciding not only if this child will be born, but whether he will support it. And this happens. (Some of you know I have a stepdaughter, yes?) The impression I get is that it's not even that unusual, and in many cases considered to be socially acceptable.
The problem is, here, of course, that it's pretty hard to prove that someone was intentionally undermining their birth control method of choice. Aside from that, accidents do happen, and for the time being, at least, I think we have to accept that we will not be able to tell the difference between an accident and an intentional but not agreed upon pregnancy. As I said before, I don't think it makes sense to allow men to opt out of supporting a child that has already been conceived. And I don't believe, even in cases of egregious deception, in forced abortions.
So how about contracts between both parties prior to sex? Ir would be pretty easy to work these into standard forms -- these are the methods of birth control that we are agreeing to use (again, this isn't really the point of it), and this is how we propose to deal with any accidental pregnancies resulting from this relationship. Because of the biological asymmetry, I think it makes sense for the woman to be able to change her mind once she is pregnant -- but if she said she would abort, and chooses not to, responsibility for supporting the child no longer rests with the man. OTOH, if they have both agreed that accidental children will be kept, and yet to try and use birth control anyway, well, no out for him, and if he's worried about whether she's really using her birth control, perhaps he needs to get his own.
And if no contract is signed, our current laws hold sway.
Frankly, I doubt this would be a particularly popular option. I don't think most people are honest and straightforward enough in their sexual relationships to sign a legal document before engaging in potentially procreative sex. And I suspect any woman who wants to find a man to have unprotected (either epidemiologically or legally) sex with her will always find will partners, though one might have to wonder about their quality. This isn't really designed to protect people from themselves, just to give reasonably intelligent people a way to protect themselves.
Thoughts?
And on the flip side, and more what I'm interested in addressing at the moment, there seems to be a built in assumption that any man who has agreed to have sex with a woman has agreed to have a child by that woman. Now, there is no way that I'm going to argue for forced abortions. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just as interested in protecting a woman's right to not have an abortion as to have an abortion. (This is where the biological difference really does matter. Fatherhood and motherhood are not symmetrical propositions. The fetus is in her body. And either carrying it, or not carrying it, is an awfully big deal, simply on a physical level.) And I'm pretty dubious about any policy that allows a man to opt out of being a father once the child is conceived. Already the greatest burden of childrearing falls on women, and I am not in favor of increasing it. In fact, I think better enforcement of things like child support would be a very good thing. But I also think there are inherent inequities in the system.
Simply put, I don't think that it's appropriate that a woman can lie to a man about the status of her fertility, and how she feels about bearing or not bearing a child, and then if she does get pregnant, become the only voice in deciding not only if this child will be born, but whether he will support it. And this happens. (Some of you know I have a stepdaughter, yes?) The impression I get is that it's not even that unusual, and in many cases considered to be socially acceptable.
The problem is, here, of course, that it's pretty hard to prove that someone was intentionally undermining their birth control method of choice. Aside from that, accidents do happen, and for the time being, at least, I think we have to accept that we will not be able to tell the difference between an accident and an intentional but not agreed upon pregnancy. As I said before, I don't think it makes sense to allow men to opt out of supporting a child that has already been conceived. And I don't believe, even in cases of egregious deception, in forced abortions.
So how about contracts between both parties prior to sex? Ir would be pretty easy to work these into standard forms -- these are the methods of birth control that we are agreeing to use (again, this isn't really the point of it), and this is how we propose to deal with any accidental pregnancies resulting from this relationship. Because of the biological asymmetry, I think it makes sense for the woman to be able to change her mind once she is pregnant -- but if she said she would abort, and chooses not to, responsibility for supporting the child no longer rests with the man. OTOH, if they have both agreed that accidental children will be kept, and yet to try and use birth control anyway, well, no out for him, and if he's worried about whether she's really using her birth control, perhaps he needs to get his own.
And if no contract is signed, our current laws hold sway.
Frankly, I doubt this would be a particularly popular option. I don't think most people are honest and straightforward enough in their sexual relationships to sign a legal document before engaging in potentially procreative sex. And I suspect any woman who wants to find a man to have unprotected (either epidemiologically or legally) sex with her will always find will partners, though one might have to wonder about their quality. This isn't really designed to protect people from themselves, just to give reasonably intelligent people a way to protect themselves.
Thoughts?
