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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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Because there are differences between cis-men and cis-women, the responsibility differs - with women, the responsibility continues through the pregnancy with the option for termination, but the man, because he's not carrying the child, the responsibility begins the moment he chooses to have sex with a woman.

Also, a truly financially destitute man won't really be on the hook for more than a meager amount of child support.

  • -17

...But the man, because he's not carrying the child, the responsibility begins the moment he chooses to have sex with a woman.

...And ends the moment he makes it clear that he doesn't want to raise or support a child, and has offered compensation for the remaining medical risk inherint in terminating the pregnancy, minus that covered by the doctor's malpractice insurance. The fact that biological reality makes perfect symmetry impossible does not salvage even a fraction of the asymmetry you are endorsing. The woman still has all the choice, and there is no principled reason to finance her unilateral choices with 18 years of child support.

Also, a truly financially destitute man won't really be on the hook for more than a meager amount of child support.

What relevance does this have? Rich women are still allowed abortions. Whether the man can pay for a child's rearing has zero bearing on whether he should have to, any more than it does for whether women should have to carry a potential child they do not wish for. The established standard here is not hardship, but mere perception of inconvenience.

It seems to me that your arguments would work a whole lot better on a 90s-era Evangelical social conservative; maybe if that was the sort of person you could reason with, you should have made some effort to preserve their continued existence.

there is no principled reason to finance her unilateral choices with 18 years of child support.

If the choice is between the father financing her unilateral choices with 18 years of child support and me and you financing her unilateral choices... I say the father.

Legal paternity surrender would increase the number of abortions (great!), but also increase the cost to the taxpayer (bad!) There's no principled reason either that someone should be able to get an abortion or that someone should be free from financial obligations: the government should just do whatever makes for a better society.

If the choice is between the father financing her unilateral choices with 18 years of child support and me and you financing her unilateral choices... I say the father.

As long as truly not a single red cent comes out of my pocket to fund her reproductive choices, these terms are tolerable.

Aren’t you just saying choices have consequences but are willing to remediate those consequences for women?

No. I'm saying that it's perfectly fine for the government to ban abortion or not and to require financial support from parents or not, and it should do whatever it can in that space of policies to limit the consequences of unintended pregnancy from affecting me.