Feminism

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The reason for not allowing the man to force an abortion onto a woman is that a fetus is considered to be a part of the woman's body, hence an abortion is a (pretty serious) interference with her physical integrity. I am not aware of any situation in which a decision regarding your body can be forced onto you in a horizontal relationship (short of parents-child, guardian-incapable etc.).
I agree. I do believe the final decision is ultimately woman's and there can be no other way to approach this.
That being said, I do not believe that a decision made by one person, where the second person has no say whatsoever, should be binding and lifechanging for that second person.

When a woman says "I don't want to burden myself with a child" we, as pro-choice guys, want to give her an option to bail out. No matter what her reasons are. She doesn't want it? She can get rid of it, no questions asked.
We don't want the patriarchy to go "No, you're having that child and you're raising it. And you have no say in it."

The same should be true for a man. You don't want it? No one should be able to force you to become a father. At least legally. Otherwise its just weaponizing tyrannical patriarchy to go after men.
 
The obligations towards the child do not stem from a consent or any subjective feeling towards the child, nor from any other act by the father. They stem from the existence of the child itself. The child has (its own) right to development, education, safe home and what not. The enjoyment of these is of course provided both by the state and by its parents. Depriving the child of (one of its) parents (at least legally) interferes with all of these. It is not the fault of the child that it has a bad parent, so at the very least the unwilling has to pariticipate financially. You are not forced to be a father because you made a choice or because **** happened, you are forced to be a father because it is good for the child.

Funnily, the same goes for the mother. Even if the mother puts the baby into a baby box (ie. a device literally made for throwing away unwanted babies) right after its birth, she is still legally obliged to provide for the child (it is generally not enforced, though) until the child is adopted.
 
The obligations towards the child do not stem from a consent or any subjective feeling towards the child, nor from any other act by the father. They stem from the existence of the child itself. The child has (its own) right to development, education, safe home and what not. The enjoyment of these is of course provided both by the state and by its parents. Depriving the child of (one of its) parents (at least legally) interferes with all of these. It is not the fault of the child that it has a bad parent, so at the very least the unwilling has to pariticipate financially. You are not forced to be a father because you made a choice or because **** happened, you are forced to be a father because it is good for the child.

Funnily, the same goes for the mother. Even if the mother puts the baby into a baby box (ie. a device literally made for throwing away unwanted babies) right after its birth, she is still legally obliged to provide for the child (it is generally not enforced, though) until the child is adopted.
It is not the child's fault if its mother doesn't want him. Yet we're willing to allow her terminate it. We don't care about the child and what's good for it. Because we believe in individual freedom and we do not believe in the state pressuring people into making life choices they are not prepared for.
There will never be true gender equality until men also have a choice.
 
Which is why I was hinting earlier that you should re-read. You work with an assumption that a fetus (an unborn child, to put it nicer), at a time when there still is a legal possibility of an interruption (which is definitely not the birth), is equal to a living born child. I don't. Which is why your posts are a little off.

If we're assuming the position that a) it's just a clump of cells and b) it's her body her choice, then there is no grounds for forcing the man to pay child support for a child he didn't want.
the general question of from what time does a fetus warrant being treated as a human being requiring strict protection (ie. the question that the ECtHR explicitly refused to adjudicate in its 2004 Vo v France due to political controvery of the question).
 
This matters little. You can not with a straight face champion woman's right to opt out of a responsibility while giving the man no choice.
As a woman needs to have a right to unilaterally decide to relieve herself of this unwanted burden while it is still a clump of cells, so a man has to be equally able to unilaterally disown this clump of cells if he so wishes.
 
Dude, don't be dismissive. Don't be scared of the actual discussion.
I get it. You seem to imply that it is "moral" to allow a woman a choice while the child is still in her womb and disallow a man a choice once the baby is out.
What's problematic here is that unlike women, there is no point after conception where men have any choice. This is pretty damning.

I'm not buying into your conservative "morals" arguments. It is not self-evident to me that the child's best interests, however important they may be, should allow the stateto trample individual rights and force parents into bearing, raising and providing for it. And it really doesn't when it comes to women. Even if the mom does not go the abortion route, she can just sign the kid off after birth to be adopted if she feels like it and forget about it. So many options here for girls. Almost insulting that you believe irresponsible and loose men do not deserve any sort of leeway here too.
 
Uh ok, how are your statements different from someone screeching at women to just "keep their legs closed" etc. "Just don't have sex lmao" is literally the hard core religious pro-lifer's ""advice"".

Surely not having sex as a man is not the equivalent of a woman having to ponder abortion. A man not having sex is the equivalent of a woman not having sex (and thus not having to ponder abortion; minus rape)

My point is that there is no equivalency. As a man the only part one has an active role in is having sex, we are not those whose body is being changed permanently by a pregnancy. Once the pregnancy has ended, the rights and responsibilities can and should be shared, but during the pregnancy clearly the man isn't really playing a role. And it's not like getting an abortion is a get out of jail free card. A woman also has to potentially deal with the consequences of having sex if she gets pregnant, whether that means becoming a mother or getting an abortion. You can drastically lower the chances of that happening by using birth control, but even that is not a guarantee. You roll the dice enough times, it's going to happen eventually.

??? There most definitely are laws that allow a mother all over the (developed) world to sue for paternity and the man is obliged to provide a DNA sample or face some form of legal consequences like perjury, contempt of court or something to that effect.

My bad, I had read somewhere that it was legal in the US to refuse a paternity test, but I went back and reread and they add that you can refuse, but will open yourself to further legal action (which in my book does not make it exactly legal so that was misleading from them I think, did not read carefully enough!). Still, if you are an only mother struggling to take care of your child you might not have the resources to push a lawsuit. And in some countries those take time. I just think that between the single mother and the father paying child support, the father is not the one picking up the short straw here.

To abort a prospective child just to spite the father takes a psycho, yes. But there are psychos among women. And while still a small minority in the grand scheme of things, there are also women who treat (early = pre-12 weeks) abortion as basically a form of contraception. I know several personally who have had double digits of those, both from my social circles and from my experience as an assistant DA (DAs oversee child and social services in CZ). Tbh knowing these women's life in general, one can't help but wonder if perhaps the children are better off not having been born to them.

Well, sounds like there's probably a lot that is not going great in those women's life. Even early abortion is not as much of a walk in the park as some people think (and at least according to Mayo Clinic you are not supposed to have medical abortion after the first 9, sometimes 7, weeks).


I'm left of Sanders when it comes to (American) health care. I'm not anti-abortionist and I share you sentiment that there's a lot of hypocrisy and patting one's back in the American pro-life movement.

Good to know that there is something that we agree on :lol:. Well, that and Dawn of Man being a good game at least. I do think that anyone who has experienced any other type of healthcare would agree that the US healthcare system is messed up. The Italian system is not perfect and you sometimes end up having to wait a lot for some procedures, but I'd rather deal with that than having to risk going bankrupt.

Dude, don't be dismissive. Don't be scared of the actual discussion.
I get it. You seem to imply that it is "moral" to allow a woman a choice while the child is still in her womb and disallow a man a choice once the baby is out.
What's problematic here is that unlike women, there is no point after conception where men have any choice. This is pretty damning.

I'm not buying into your conservative "morals" arguments. It is not self-evident to me that the child's best interests, however important they may be, should allow the stateto trample individual rights and force parents into bearing, raising and providing for it. And it really doesn't when it comes to women. Even if the mom does not go the abortion route, she can just sign the kid off after birth to be adopted if she feels like it and forget about it. So many options here for girls. Almost insulting that you believe irresponsible and loose men do not deserve any sort of leeway here too.

After child birth, the man and the woman have exactly the same responsibilities, as General Kenobi says. The only part where a man does not decide is choosing if the clump of cells will be allowed to become a full fledged child, if we want to continue putting it crudely. And the only reason why a woman gets a say in that is that it involves her body and affects her own well being. If instead of growing in a womb the fetus was put in a jar until it developed to completion (or if we were reptiles and laid fertilized eggs I guess) this wouldn't even be an issue people argue about.

I always end up saying the strangest things in this forum :lol:
 
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I have no stance in this debate, I just want to point out some misinformation going on:
A vasectomy is a reversible procedure
This can be misleading. Vasectomy is barely a reversible procedure and it should be considered permanent.
1. The reversal procedure can be prohibitively expensive.
2. The reversal procedure does not guarantee the return of fertility in men even if it is successful:
  • More than 50% of all men develop antisperm antibodies to their own sperm.
  • The amount of sperm produced will usually be lower than before the vasectomy and it may not be enough to cause pregnancy.
  • Scars may develop in the operated areas and thus require additional reversal procedures until it no longer occurs. This can happen in 5 to 35% of cases depending on the method used.
3. The reversal procedure is useless if more than 10 years have passed since the vasectomy occurred.
4. There are two methods for vasectomy reversal, one which is simple but limited by success rate and further complications; the other is considered the hardest operation in the field of urology and it doesn't come without complications as well.

So the reversal of vasectomy is a coin toss and shouldn't be considered reliable at all. Do not undergo vasectomy thinking it's an alternative to using a condom. It's not. It's something you do when you already have a family and children and you've been with the same partner for years.
 
After child birth, the man and the woman have exactly the same responsibilities, as General Kenobi says. The only part where a man does not decide is choosing if the clump of cells will be allowed to become a full fledged child, if we want to continue putting it crudely. And the only reason why a woman gets a say in that is that it involves her body and affects her own well being. If instead of growing in a womb the fetus was put in a jar until it developed to completion (or if we were reptiles and laid fertilized eggs I guess) this wouldn't even be an issue people argue about.

I always end up saying the strangest things in this forum :lol:
You still fail to address the main issue where a woman has a say whether she wants a child in her life at this point while the man does not.
 
Everything he said pretty much addressed that. Women are expected to bear both the physical burden of childbirth as well as child-rearing duties in most cases. It's not an equivalent situation. And yes, abstinence is generally the ideal option here, just somewhat of a far-fetched one unfortunately.
 
I don't get how that addresses what I'm saying, which is: if it's ok to say to men "if you don't want to risk having an unwanted child, don't have sex", why can't we ban abortion and say to women "if you don't want to risk having an unwanted child, don't have sex"?

You still fail to address the main issue where a woman has a say whether she wants a child in her life at this point while the man does not.

I am honestly not sure how to say it to make it more clear. I guess our perspectives on this are so different that communication is difficult.

A woman should have a say over what happens to her body. The man is not part of the process during pregnancy. He doesn't throw up in the morning, he doesn't have to do with all the other possible complications that change her in a permanent way and can in extreme cases potentially threaten her life (more rare today than it was in the past, but it still happens).


None of this impacts the man in any shape or form. Therefore, he doesn't really have any right over this part. Once the child is born he can either be a parent, or he can vanish from their lives and pay child support. This for the protection of the child, who is now a completely formed human being.

And this applies to both of them, once the child is born (and actually, more like once we get past 24 weeks, and even getting past 12 weeks makes abortion much more complicated for the woman).

If you think that that's not fair, well it's probably also not fair that the woman has to go through pregnancy and the man does not. I still think that women are getting the short straw on this one.
 
As for me, feminism is needed 100% But the problem is that you need to globally solve problems. Not to fight with men who sit in public transport with their legs wide apart, but with female circumcision.
 
I mean... Maybe men should not have sex if they don't want to deal with the possibility of becoming fathers? Or have a vasectomy?
 
Well, he got banned fast so it's highly likely that it was just a troll trying to be edgy.

As for me, feminism is needed 100% But the problem is that you need to globally solve problems. Not to fight with men who sit in public transport with their legs wide apart, but with female circumcision.
I hear you brother, and I agree, but I also have to say - there are things that can be fixed right here, right now, and then there are things that can be fixed OVER THERE, in some DISTANT FUTURE.

Getting women of Saudi-Arabia to be independent and wear miniskirts when they shake their butts in nightclubs is at least fifty years in the future. But before we get there, we can ask that dudes in London tube consider whether they need to spread quite as wide and maybe let others to have some space in the crowded hallways too. Nobody is attacking you Robin, the chicks are just asking for fair play in public transport.
 
Clearly, Jhess, you have never been to a Balkan public transportation medium. If you did, you'd know that while there are the so-called manspreaders, about 3 or even 5 times their number are women (usually around 40-50, sometimes more) that take one seat for them, the next for their bags and the space before those two aforementioned seats for other bags/public market wheelies (I'm sure it's not called that, but yeah) or holding it for a friend that may or may not come aboard in a future stop.
Depends on where you are and how you see it, in order for a problem to be a problem.

Personally, I'd choose Saudi Arabian twerkers over the bus ladies any time and day.
 
I agree that putting too much attention on seemingly frivolous issues like manspreading dilutes and even discredits feminist messaging.
Step outside your "i see patriarchy everywhere" bubble and prioritize, feminists. Fight for equality, not for "who is the most pure feminist" prize.
Interestingly enough, the same advice could be given to any hard left activists that waste time by annoying people with unsubstantial issues.
 
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