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I think it's fair - to an extent - to expect people to be responsible when having sex.

But that being said, for my 2 cents, I don't think people are properly educated on sex. And therefore, I also don't buy people who would say "that's too bad" to the people having ignorant sex. I'd say it's too bad for the people who are withholding information because of religion or general prudeness. The society we live in not only demonizes far too much of sex and sexuality, but they also mock it and try to make everything about it silly and embarrassing.

Of course, Candydog, I have 1 problem with your post in particular. You just, if I'm not mistaken, kinda said if the father wants to have the baby, this is a consequence of the mother's. So, she has to deal with having to have the baby when she doesn't want to... but the father doesn't have to deal with wanting it and not being able to have it? That's grossly uneven and unfair. And this is still keeping in mind the Consequence theory.

I think, in a perfect world, the mother and father could agree on whether to have it or not and the reason why. But, regardless of the pregnancy's details, the needs and wants of the woman should likely come before the man's. Just remember we are talking about a serious, grueling, and life-changing pregnancy. Which is not to be confused with a moral lesson. I mean, when you put it that way- you're theoretically neglecting the child. Where does he or she factor in? As a moral consequence?? They must exist to prove a point? Harsh.

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I only agree with this till when you said a father isn't a father until it's born. People ask "who's the father" of pregnancies all the time. And once the fetus becomes an unborn child, then indeed that child then has a mother and father, that have no right to abort it.


That doesn't make sense. At some point the fetus can be seen to be a lving unborn human being. At three months, a fetus is already either a boy or a girl, sucking it's thumb. It shouldn't be able to be declared inhuman and killed then, as it is clearly a living human being, doing the activities of a baby, just unborn.


But after only a few months, two really, the baby has its own body and its own health, and so why is it okay for us to make choices on life for that living being? It, or actually he or she, since at two months it is a he or a she, has every right to live.

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No, it really doesn't. The baby is, to put it rather bluntly, a parasite. It relies totally on the mother to house & feed it until it's capable of surviving outside the womb, which is pretty damn late into the pregnancy anyway. Why should a woman be forced to go through the physical changes and difficulties that pregnancy causes if she doesn't want to, just because someone else might get offended? I love kids and fully plan to have my own someday, but I also demand that I have autonomy over when that happens.

Again I say: it's the WOMAN who has the rights here. The woman has the greatest stake in what is going on, because it is HER body, HER health on the line. How dare anyone think they should have a say in what another person does with their body?

There are plenty of women who don't want children, and that's a perfectly acceptable choice--so should they be forced to abstain, or undergo surgery, just to prevent the off chance that another form of contraceptive might fail & then they'll be forced to suffer through 9 months of unwanted pregnancy because they can't abort the fetus? That's almost an entire year of your life. And what about all the emotional upheval? I can't imagine what it would be like to have something growing inside of me that I absolutely did not want & could have prevented/removed, save the opinions/entitlement issues of STRANGERS. Just thinking about it fills me with rage.

And what about after this unwanted child is born? It gets shuffled into the adoption/foster care system. Not knocking it, since I know a family that adopted and there isn't a more loved and cared for baby around, but the guilt that some women experience after giving a child up is agonizing. And what if the child grows up & decides to seek out the mother that gave them up? Even more emotional turmoil, that could have been avoided.

Don't want an abortion? Don't have one. But don't you DARE say I can't if I want to.

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You're wrong in all possible ways. Legally, a father doesn't become a father until the child is born and he formally recognized the child as his own. Second, we're talking about what you call "an unborn child" and this implies right there is no child yet. Without a child, there can be no father. Lastly, the mother has every right to abort the "unborn child". Maybe you should Google 'Roe v. Wade 1973' for a little insight.


First of all, at three months, it's not the way you describe it. Secondly, adding shamelessly emotionally manipulative descriptions ('sucking its thumb') is not going to make me change my mind on the facts. Lastly, considering nothing has been born yet, it can't be "killed" either. And we had already established that the term "killing" doesn't hold up legally either. And that makes what I said right: if you can't abort a fetus because it "could become" a human, then a woman can't have her period because her eggs could turn into a human someday, too. I know it's hard to be consistent, especially for you, but I insist on it.


No, it hasn't. It's a part of the mother. And you, especially because you're a MAN, have nothing to say about what a woman has to do with her body. Now, when you have gone through pregnency, have given birth and have raised a child, I will be happy to hear your opinion. Untill then, you'll have to accept that you can't possibly know what impact it has on a woman and you have no right to decide for her what to do with her body. It's her body, and THAT'S why it's 100% perfectly OKAY for HER and HER ALONE to decide what to do with it. And I'm very, very, very happy that people like you have absolutely no say over it. Because the notion that you would want to give people the power to decide over other people's bodies scares the crap out of me.

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But after two months, the fetus really does have it's own body, it's own breathing living body. So then it's no longer the choice of a woman over her body, but a woman choosing to kill another's body. Sure, that body cannot survive completely on its own, but it is still its own body. When you have siamese twins, they are connected to and depend on each other, but they still have their own bodies and one of them can't decide to kill the other.

And no one is telling you you can't abort ever, just that you can't abort after a few months. We are saying you can't abort a living human. That's the right thing to do.

You are using legal terms and definitions for things. Just because the law says it doesn't mean it's true and it especially doesn't mean it's agreed upon by anyone. The father of an unborn child can be declared that as soon as their is an unborn child in the mother.

I was not using any unusual words, at two months the fetus has either its own girl or boy body and it sucks its thumb, it is the plain truth. Since a woman's eggs from her period aren't that, it is nowhere near the same thing. Something does not have to be born to be alive either. Something is alive when it can breath and suck its thumb, think and feel pain, such as at two months.

If a baby sucks it's thumb, it is most likely a choice in the matter. If something can choose what to do, it's a human being, it's got a soul, all that. And that's only at two months. If you want science, then here it is: the Association for Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology and Health states that by eight weeks, two months, a fetus' movements show evidence of being voluntary rather than reflexive.

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I still absolutely believe that if the father wants the child it is unfair for the mother to abort it. The whole "sex is just for fun" thing reeks of our generation's idea that they can run around doing whatever they want and never have to deal with the consequences. If you have sex then you are taking a risk, if you are not prepared to deal with the consequences then you have no business having sex.

Sky diving is fun, but you still have to sign a form that says you understand you could DIE.

If at least one parent wants the unborn child then why shouldn't it survive?

As for babies not having fathers until they're born, that's a ridiculous notion based on a technicality. You ask any woman expecting a baby who the father is, I can guarantee she will not say "Oh it doesn't have one yet because it hasn't been born."

Duster, it's "the right thing to do" to YOU. I agree with Goliath, you're being emotionally manipulative---which is something I notice in EVERY so-called "pro-life" ad campaign. You really think the majority of women who are planning to get an abortion need someone standing there shaming them for exercising their right to control their own body, on top of whatever else is going through their minds? It's disgusting.

Oh, and yeah, I understand that some women would have an abortion and not feel bad about it. Again, is shame a requirement to control your own health?



And this statement reeks of prejudice/stereotyping. I am so tired of people looking down on me and those even younger (I'm 23) because they think they're older and wiser. What "generation?" Every "generation" has smart people and stupid people. As modern humans, sex IS for fun--we're not animals who only do it to propogate the species, and we don't need to have 12 kids just to make sure at least a few survive.

I'd laugh at the idea of having people sign a freakin' waiver before allowing them to have sex, just to make sure everybody understands the risks, but that reeks of some kind of '1984' style Big Brother-future and is honestly terrifying.

It's pretty much entirely on the woman's shoulders to go through nine months of morning sickness, swollen ankles and doctor's visits, NOT THE MAN. Sucks, but that's nature. I don't care if a man says "but I want it! What about ME!" because it's MY body at stake. Men can either find a woman who WANTS kids or adopt.

I really don't even want to touch this babydaddy nonsense, because it's basically the same argument. Some men don't want kids and are little more than sperm donors. Some guys love em & make great dads. It doesn't MATTER, because without the woman's consent to go through nine months of pregnancy, he's not the father of anyone.

But then, this whole issue is a sort of neverending argument. There's always going to be someone standing there telling you what you ought to be thinking/doing/saying, based on what THEY want--trying to control you. My only concern is making sure those people don't get to be more than a scowling face in the background of the bigger picture of my life.

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You are so right. It's not about protecting unborn babies; it's about controlling other people. About controlling women. It's not "pro-life", it's "anti-woman".


That's why they invented contraceptives. If the contraceptives didn't work, that's not the fault of the person who was responsible enough to use them. So why should that person have to pay for it with having an unwanted baby? And what love can a child expect that was never welcome to begin with? Your reasoning is: if you don't want a child, then never have sex. That's what's being taught in some American schools. It's called "abstinance only" and it's very dangerous. It increases the risk of teenagers catching STD's and increase the risk of teenage pregnancies (like Bristol Palin, who's now hypocritically championing "abstinance only"). Sex is just for fun; what's wrong with that? If you don't want children, like me, should you never have sex? Why do you believe sex shouldn't be for fun? Is it religious reasons? And if so, why should other people have to suffer because of your delusions (as I call religion)?


Because, like I said, until the baby is born, there is no "father". And of course, because it's not the (future) father's body. Because there's only one person who has to go through carrying the baby and go through giving birth. And because it's not the man, he has nada say in it. Luckily.


I don't give a -bleep- what people will usually say. What I said is true. Otherwise, feel free to disprove me. And let me counter your example: if an unborn fetus 'counts' as a child, why don't people say: "we have three children" instead of "we have two children and one on the way"? How come, if the unborn fetus is a child, the census doesn't count it, and why don't you receive child support for it? (Admittedly, I borrowed this from Carlin, but against your example, it still holds up.)

You don't have anything to say about (another) woman's body and there is not one single reason why you should. So this whole discussion is pointless.

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I have no intentions whatsoever of "controlling" anyone, nor do I "look down on" anyone else's argument. In fact my posts have been far more polite than most in this thread so far and I haven't spoken to anyone in a patronising way OR been aggressive in my responses as others have to me.

I am not pro-life. I am not in any way religious. If a father is absent or does not want a baby, and the baby is not wanted by the mother nor is she able to provide for it, then I guess an abortion would be for the best. But I just simply cannot see how if a life that two people created has a chance for life with just one of it's parents it shouldn't born.

And how come pro-choice doesn't work both ways? If a father doesn't want a baby but the mother does, he can still be made to pay child support. How is that fair? We can't force motherhood on anyone but we can force fatherhood?

Because, like I said, and this is very logical: the father =/= the person who has to carry the baby inside him. Not the same person. That's why, period. Why is that so hard to understand?

And your "this sex-is-for-fun attitude of this generation" speech certainly had a far different ring to it than what you posted above. Maybe other people were 'condescending' to you (in your words) because you were condescending toward all people who don't have sex to procreate?


Yep, I actually agree there.

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Oh don't you worry, my sex-is-just-for-fun "speech" as you called it certainly still stands. People should be prepared to deal with the consequences. I simply meant that if there is no way possible for this child to have a life then an abortion would be for the best. I do not believe that sex is "just for fun". It can be for fun, but it will always be a reproductive process, until such a time that a 100% safe form of contraception is developed.

In fact if a father has sex and gets a woman pregnant, the reason that he is told he must pay child support is that he had sex knowing that no form of contraception is 100% safe and therefore must deal with the consequences.

I believe that if women are to continue to have the right to abort a pregnancy, men should have the right to refuse fatherhood. I'm glad to see that you agree with me on that. (Or at least that's the impression I got, I didn't say it directly in my post so may have misunderstood what you said you agreed with)

Well saying that this generation is stupid & careless because they don't share your attitude about casual sex is a little patronizing, yeah. And I am always going to aggressively defend my rights, and the rights of all women, so I won't be apologizing for my tone.

As for 'polite': somehow I don't think my point would come across the same way if I said 'oh, well, it's okay if you believe in opressing women, I just don't agree.' It's not okay. Sorry it upsets you when someone says you're wrong.

But yes, the issue of men having to pay child support is really interesting to me, and admittedly something I don't think about much, even though it's important. I can imagine, were I a man, I'd be so afraid of a woman trying to trap me with an unwanted (from the male POV) pregnancy & then being tied to her forever via a child I never wanted.

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Well I'm sorry but in my opinion our attitude to sex nowadays is very stupid and careless. That's not being patronising, it's identifying an issue that many other people agree has become a problem. If people want to have casual sex that's fine. I would hope that they'd use contraception as many people would, but I don't think anyone would say "Oh but don't worry if it doesn't work, you can always abort."

And please don't say that it "upsets" me when someone says I'm wrong. That's patronising.

I am only doing the same as you, only I am trying to defend the rights of the father.

For those of you interested in the subject of child support I came across this article, it's an interesting read.

http://andtheylivedhappilyeverafter.com/74.htm

100% agreement.



I agree. But, sadly, that's just not the issue. You're talking about hypothetical fathers here. And he's every bit to blame for being - how you'd say - irresponsible for having the sex which got her pregnant. Since it's your example and your logic, I'm afraid it's just not up to him anymore. If she should have thought so much about letting him inside her, he should have thought about what might happen too. I don't understand how consequences work out in your argument. It does sound like both parties are made to be shamed in the act of conception but that afterward, whoever wants to keep the baby alive- that's the person whose feelings should be considered.

But I also don't agree that the carelessness people of the last 15 years or more have been exhibiting just comes from kids wanting to have sex and not thinking about precautions. I've complained a few times here about shows like Wild-On, those wretched Girls Gone Wild videos, etc- showing 20-something morons in mass groups getting "nekkid" and partying like drunken fools on the beach or grinding in clubs. They may be exploiting behavior certain people engage in but they also send a message that this is the way sex is everywhere. They glorify sex as impersonal and meaningless every bit as much as music videos do for showing people shaking their butts in tight clothes with no real humanity. I'd like to see those people fry long before the young people do who get these messages into their heads. I don't think you're being fair here.

Also: replace sex with substance abuse and I think you'll have your finger on the pulse of a much bigger problem these days.

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phan258, you say I'm being emotionally manipulative? Well, aside from the fact that the whole reason we live and do anything is for emotions, such as to feel love or happiness, I am providing facts on what the baby is. It has it's own body, it's own sex, and it's own voluntary choices and movements at two months. Science and psychology even seem to suggest it has thoughts. So you can abort it before two months, just not after.


No it's not true. In fact, according to your "counter" example, they are still saying they "have one", just adding the words "on the way" to it. The other examples you provided were only legal and statistical, not the human side. There's also the phrase "she's with child" for merely being pregnant.

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If you're going by the Biblical view of when the spirit forms, the Bible implies that it is always there. Not that that helps the issue or anything. Just saying...

I'm against abortion for the most part. I can certainly understand why some women would want one, but I think that abortion is killing a life. What does it matter if the life can't survive outside of the womb? What does that have to do with anything? That's just further proof that the fetus is being killed.

Well, anyway, to bring this discussion back where it needs to be: there's a big difference between being against abortion and believing that women who are pregnant cannot decide to / be allowed to have one. We cannot allow emotions to cloud the fact that the law is trying to take choices away from pregnant women. That is never okay. When that choice goes, the United States might as well announce that no one has any right to decide what anyone does to their body anymore.

Oh, and, I completely agree with the parasite theory. Especially in the case of an unwanted pregnancy. This life will never become a human without the mother's body, so she has the right to decide what she does with it. To a point, I think we might even be crossing a kind of border by insisting we can pass judgment. Would we want someone telling us we're wrong for what we choose for our own selves? Religion, for example. I've been trying very hard to only pass judgment on those would judge others. People have the right to believe what they want about something in general- like abortion is wrong. But leave the mother alone. Don't think for a second her body isn't her own. Which is naturally where the parasite thing comes in. I'm not a woman but I think if I were, I'd be the same kind of person. And I see pregnancy as an outright invasion. Yet, we do learn if we pay attention that conception can actually be a really tricky thing. When a couple wants it, they often find it extremely hard. It sort of just happens. And, with that in mind, how can anyone judge a person's careless attitude rather than their physical precautions? Again, I said people don't have the right education about sex. Who's to say the same doesn't apply about the people having it?

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Yes, I agree to a certain extent. Obviously, a man should only be able to refuse fatherhood when he can make a good case that he and the woman in question didn't plan to have the child. He shouldn't be able to plan to have a child, knock up the woman and then refuse to take care of it.



That proofs it's not "life" and thus it is not "killing". It's really as simple as that.



No, when they say "on the way", they're still saying they don't have an x-number of children yet; they say they only have so many children and an unborn. So that still proves my point. But remember we're working with candydog's logic here, so within that context my countering makes perfect sense, since it doesn't matter if those terms are legal or statistical. That's just a technicality that doesn't have any bearing on mt argument.

I do think the attitude toward sex in the US nowadays is very unhealthy. At the one hand, you have the excesses that Lazario has illustrated also to be seen in Dutch media, by the way), and on the other hand, you have a very oppressive culture in which sex is being treated as something dirty and shameful; in which there is no room to properly educate young people because puritanical religious people are afraid that it will lead to teen sex (which of course will happen anyway). This is the "abstinence only" approach I was talking about before. Part of this is also the horrible, unhealthy trend of purity rings, abstinence pledges and chastity proms.

I also think having children is way too glamorized. I hate the baby-worship that's going on. Like that woman I read about lately who had 20 children. Or what about the 'Octomom'? As if there aren't enough people already. 7 billion people is really much too much. Overpopulation is a serious problem. The last thing we need is more people. I'd recommend people adopt more.

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I'm not sure what you mean by that, could you please clarify?



I agree with you here, I certainly don't think that sex is dirty or shameful, but I do think our generation has become irresponsible about it. (I know phan258 will be getting ready to pounce on that but I'm entitled to my opinion and it's one that many people would agree with).

I also agree that there are far too many people on our planet and that people having too many children is becoming a problem, I heard the other day that the population of the world is expected to double by 2023, I didn't research it so I can't say for definite if it's true, but if it is it's scary. We simply won't have the food or resources to support the human race.

Nature however has ways of balancing things out. This may sound callous but it's basic biology: Say for example you take a basic food chain: The sparrow eats the ladybug, the ladybug eats the greenfly and the greenfly eats the cabbage. If the ladybug population explodes, then there will be more food for the sparrows and so the sparrow population will expand also. However, because there are more ladybugs, they will be eating more greenfly, meaning that the greenfly population will diminish. This will leave less food for the lady bugs causing their population to diminish also and the same in turn with the sparrows. Less greenfly however, will mean more cabbage, which will mean more food, which means the greenfly population will expand once more.

Do you see what I mean? It hasn't really got anything to do with abortion, but it's "food" for thought.....

I'm not "getting ready to pounce" on anything, thanks very much, and saying that I am implies I'm picking on you, which I really am not And just because "many people agree" doesn't make something right.

And I never implied you aren't allowed to have your own opinion, but I'm allowed to (strongly) disagree with your opinions.

Anyway, if you believe overpopulation is a problem, why wouldn't you be in favor of aborting unwanted pregnancies? The two issues seem pretty relevant to eachother to me.

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