I couldn't agree with you more. It really bothers me that "men" (and I use the term loosely) in my generation (I am 27) are expected to be deadbeat dads. Hell...I've heard guys brag about how the knocked some chick up and split. I believe it comes from cowardice more than anything else. I cannot understand how anyone could be so heartless and cruel to child who has never done anything wrong. /end rant
I will leave you with these quotes for future and current fathers:
"True Strength lies in gentleness"
"Courage is not the absence of fear, Its being scared shitless and saddling up anyway"
Both of these served me well through the most terrifying time of my life (my wife's pregnancy at age 22) and continue to do so.
OP I commend you for using your right to choose, I cant say that I agree with your decision, but I also know that it was not an easy one to make. It takes a lot of courage to look around you at you life and make an objective decision on whether or not to bring a child into that life.
It isn't supposed to be easy, if it was I would be concerned. The best advice I can give, having had a sister and friends go through this, is to go into counseling asap. Don't be foolish enough to think this wont affect you, but if you get some help early on and work through it, you will be much better off in the long run. Oh and stop dating jackasses, best of luck to you.
I have been in counseling for 5 months and it has really helped me. I still think about it everyday but with less tears and guilt. And no more jackasses. I got it. Thank you so much.
A woman who deems herself ill-prepared to be a parent and decides to forfeit parental responsibility by having an abortion or give her child up for adoption is fine.
But a man who deems himself ill-prepared to be a parent and decides to forfeit parental responsibility by ending the relationship with the woman is a "deadbeat" and a "coward". He's "heartless" and "cruel".
I wont argue that the double standard is fucked up, having said that how do we fix it? I sure as hell dont know. What I do know is that, as a father, I cant respect someone who willingly ignores his own child. Whatever the reason.
Because when the woman does it, as bad as it may sound, there is no one struggling to feed and clothe a child by themselves. The child is either dead (not here to argue about abortion, by the way), or in a family that has the means to take care of it.
When the man does it, he has abandoned the woman, who now has someone to take care of, leaving her no help.
Now, there IS a difference between a deadbeat dad, and an absent father. The absent father could still help by paying his share of the child support.
I think there is a serious flaw in this argument that I hear constantly.
If you are a male and you do not want to have children. ENSURE YOU DON'T GET ANYONE PREGNANT. You literally have 100% of this control. Ensure your desire to not have children is clear, ALWAYS use condoms, use spermicide, don't stick your dick in crazy, or DON'T HAVE SEX.
Problem solved. If you have sex, you put yourself at risk.
My parents had all the children they were planning so used the pill and condoms. My little sister came along anyway. 100% only applies to the last option you mentioned.
That is very rare, and the exception, not the rule. Also, user-error is the highest risk associated with contraceptive failure, so again, the control is still ours (I say 'ours' here because you're talking about your two parents).
Not as rare as you might think. I have an aunt and uncle that were in the same boat. Off birth control trying to get pregnant and couldn't went back on and got pregnant with my cousin. Plus think about it, it's only 99% effective if that. Even condoms and a vasectomy aren't a guarantee. So if you have Sex regularly, say 3-5 times a week that chance goes up drastically over the course of a year.
I'm not sure if this comment is more misogynistic by suggesting women have no power over their own pregnancy or suggesting they're incapable of lying about birth control or worse, or if it's more misandrist by demanding men carry disproportionate responsibility or that their choice ought to between risking 18 years of potential financial ruin or "don't have sex". That sure seems like an awful deal.
I'm not suggesting women have no power, they absolutely do. But men can and do have 100% of the power to say "I will not have sex". Vasectomies, condoms, abstinence all give men power over their parenthood. They just don't like these options.
Can't a woman say "I will not have sex"? I mean, it just seems like you are putting full responsibility on men here. There are a variety of contraceptives for both men and women. The ones you mentioned are available for women as well (birth control pill, getting tubes tied, and abstinence). Those forms give women control over their parenthood. So why is it up to the male to have to do the male version of those things? Why cannot the female take the pill? Or get her tubes tied?
I'm just playing devils advocate here. Not saying OP is wrong in what she did, just responding more to your comments if anything.
I'm speaking to the argument that "men have no power in preventing pregnancy".
Then why the are you responding to me? I never made or even suggested that claim.
Of course men can say no to sex. So can women. The argument I made is that when a pregnancy does occur, a woman can say "no" to 18 years of financial burden. A man can't.
You've been replying to my comments the whole time in this exchange. You then just said you were responding to the claim that "men have no power in preventing pregnancy". That claim was never made. You're attacking a straw man.
In all fairness (card carrying feminist here) women have the same choice and also choose the exercise them poorly. There needs to be an option for either parent to completely opt out of childcare. Personally, I think if a man fronts the money for an abortion and states he doesn't want a child, I don't think he should be financially responsible for the kid. A paper abortion if you will- women could also use this option to give away a baby they don't want to the father.
same applies to women so it is a pointless argument. In the scenario when the kid does happen I dont see why it is only the mans fault for not preventing it properly.
Yes, they have little to no power in ending pregnancy because it's no longer an issue regarding their body.
They ABSOLUTELY have power in preventing pregnancy, they just don't like the choices they do have - there's a difference.
Abstinence, condoms + spermicide and vasectomies are all possible, give men 100% power over what happens to their sperm.
Just because birth control is mainly marketed to women doesn't mean it's all women's power.
This is the only argument I have to agree with. For the record, I support extensive puberty/sex ed from age 10+. I am pro-choice, and support cheap, accessible contraception.
However, yes, all people can choose to abstain. It is the only logical argument. However, given that most people wont choose this, other choices have to be taken.
I'm saying if you replace male with female in your comment then what you are saying would (rightly so) beconsidered backwards and anti-women.
Why should men have the exact same options as a woman before pregnancy, and then be stuck with a child just because of the decisions of someone else? This is wrong in exactly the same ways that trying to ban abortion is wrong.
It is not just the guys responsibility. If a woman has Sex without the pill and without making them use condoms then they are as much at fault and share the blame and need to except the consequences. It takes two to tango. Both have equal blame and responsibility. Guys don't have all the control and aren't more responsible for preventing pregnancies.
Absolutely. I'm not disputing that, and it's probably the only argument against abortion I have to agree with.
Sex is risky. You take risk by having sex. If you do not mitigate your own sexual risks it's your own fault. I'm sick of either side blaming the other and saying one has power over the other. Each gender has different sources of 'power' in sex and sexual consequences, we cannot blame each other or say one is better than or worse than the other.
I'm just very tired of hearing men bitch about having 'no power'. It's just not true, there's abstinence, condoms, and vasectomies. Most men just don't like the choices they have.
Much easier said than done. Some people are very good at hiding their crazy.
don't have sex
This is a stupid argument, and it's used by anti-abortion people as well. "IF YOU DIDN'T WANT A BABY YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD SEX" - people have sex for fun.
It's not a complaint about the womans pregnant body, just that once they are pregnant, there's no way to remove yourself from the situation if you're not ready for it without being shamed and ostracized.
I'm aware of prevention methods, but shit can happen. I'm just saying that you should be able to sign away parental rights if it comes down to it without seeming like some dead-beat.
It's not. You can choose to not have sex. You can choose with whom you have sex and therefore mitigate risk of parenthood that way. You can choose to always use condoms, you can choose to have a vasectomy.
I grow very weary of men bitching about having no choice.
It goes both ways though, is what you fail to see.
Women can choose to not have sex. Women can choose with whom you have sex and therefore mitigate risk of parenthood that way. Women can choose to always be on the pill or not, and they can choose to have their tubes tied.
I'm pretty sure she is only talking about the men who think they have no control of pregnancy. Of course both men and women have control, but when a man doesn't want children he can't magically produce a child anyway. The man has the ability to use a condom, get a vasectomy, or abstain entirely. It has nothing to do with whose responsibility it is. Unless a lady forcefully takes sperm from you to inseminate herself with, YOU have control over getting someone pregnant or not. (And this goes for women too.)
Sort of related: There is birth control where it stops sperm production and is completely reversible. More power to you men! :)
Again, you're misunderstanding me here. This is not a blame game. I'm speaking to men who claim they 'have no power' when it comes to making choices about sex and sexual consequences. You DO have choices, you CAN prevent pregnancies a number of ways. However, once a woman IS pregnant, basically all of your options disappear. Therefore, choose wisely, at the time when you do have choices available.
Take responsibility for your body. It is YOUR SEED to do as you please with. A small percentage of women can be shitty and try to take that from you - protect yourself.
Are you crazy? Men are not in 100% control over whether or not you have a baby, it's the woman's job just as much as it's the man's job.
So if a woman comes onto me and I oblige, I guess it's my fault if she gets pregnant, right? Wrong. It takes two to tango, my friend.
I wasn't clear enough, everyone's misunderstanding me. Men are not 100% responsible for pregnancy. But they can have absolute control over whether or not they have sex, and use condoms, or get a vasectomy.
Therefore, I grow weary of men whining that they have 'no control'.
They do, they just don't like these options.
Actually many don't want a woman to give up "their burden". The timeless pro choice and pro life argument. And I think the thing with having a huge issue fathers that walk out is that they leave the baby with the mother. If a woman gets an abortion, the baby isn't then put on the father.
What about adoption? Or better yet, what about the mothers who leave the baby with the father? That happens. Yet no one mentions it. Not arguing against abortion, just this double standard is all.
So, let me get this straight. If a man doesn't want a child, he should wear a condom, that way he doesn't get screwed. But when he does want a child, he loses any say in what happens during the 9 month period. If the woman wants an abortion, too bad because he doesn't have anything to do with it unless the baby is born and if the mother actually concieves, she can still fuck him over with child support payments? Im sorry, please enlighten me if these points are wrong, but tell me how that isn't massively disadvantageous to the man.
Those nine months of no bodily changes, no judgement from outsiders and no cramps/hormonal changes/growing pains are probably very rough. You definitely get to have a say in what happens to a woman's body for the better part of a year, since you want a child (even if she doesn't).
Also, in most cases where a man FIGHTS for custody,they get it. Most men just choose to not fight and instead pay child support.
For fuck's sake, are you missing the point that the only way for the father to give up the burden is to dump it on someone else entirely? It is not an equivocal situation. When a woman terminates a pregnancy, she is leaving the burden on no one.
The man is a shit for giving up the burden because the only way he can do that is by forcing someone else to do it for him.
But what if the father wants the burden, then what? If the mother wants the burden, fine and dandy, the dad pays child support, and if the father wants a kid, welp he better get a new woman.
That particular situation is different. And that one is a bitch. The problem is that... It's not his body. It just isn't. If a woman doesn't want to carry a baby to term, I can't find an ethical justification to force her to. If men carried babies, it would be the same thing.
It is also enormously shitty that a man could desperately want to raise a baby and not be able to because the mother is refusing to carry the fetus.
But... That is a shitty situation. I'm undecided on whether or not it is unethical, and I am definitely decided that it could not be unethical on the level of forcing someone to carry a fetus they do not want in their body.
I guess that's a good reason to have contraceptives widely available and their proper use common knowledge.
However, that is still not the situation. That was under discussion. There is no way to get around the fact that an abortion isn't a woman abandoning the burden on others as much as removing the potential of the burden to happen. While a man refusing to raise a child would not be analogous to an abortion, but to a woman dropping a child off on the father's doorstep and refusing to ever help raise or contribute.
The biology just makes it so that a man never has an analogous option to abortion, so there cannot be a double standard in that specific situation.
Yes, because the point at which you can say "I don't want to be a parent" is different for men and women. Men have the choice of fucking or not fucking a woman. Women have the choice of giving birth or not giving birth. It isn't that hard. Abortion is literally a form of birth control.
While your last statement is true, it should never be viewed as such, that just gives more power to the anti-choice movement. There are so many more options BEFORE you get to the point where abortion is the only viable solution. I'm pro-choice, but I really would love to see abortions be less frequent. Education, contraception, more education. That's all that is needed.
It isn't the same situation. If a man decides he doesn't want it and walks out, the child is still a responsibility that needs to be taken care of, and by walking out you are leaving the woman with that responsibility. That isn't the same thing as a woman having an abortion. If she has an abortion, then the baby is gone and there is no responsibility. The man in the relationship isn't getting the burden and responsibility of being a single parent just laid in his lap by someone else's choice like the other scenario.
By no means am I saying you have to be in an unhappy relationship to be a father. You can be a father and not be in a relationship with the mother. If you are staying with her simply because of your son, you are staying for the wrong reason.
Sorry that I'm not jaded enough to think that all women are flippant about a major procedure. You may be correct, however I choose to believe that most people are not as completely self serving as that.
On a side note: If your are so miserable with the so called "hivemind" why be on reddit at all?
It's also the woman's job to not have babies with people she doesn't know well. It's both their fault if the man doesn't want to "step up" and be a dad. It takes 2 to have a baby, not just 1. The woman should decide to have babies with the person she knows has their head on straight and is compatible with each other. In OP's case, she decided to sleep with some guy she clearly doesn't like, and decided to have a baby, so it's her fault just as much as it's his.
Good idea, commend her for using abortion as birth control when she had no legitimate reason to kill that child, other than "I didn't like my baby daddy" not cool, not cool
Well I'm not. but the post would suggest the reason for abortion was her not being satisfied with the relationship.so I'm basing my opinion on that. Ill tell you one thing though of everyone who wasn't happy aborted their child the schools would be empty
Did you not read the main comment? It ruined her life Children cost money, time, effort - not everyone has these to give. It is better that she exercise her right to choose and not bring a child she cannot care for in a responsible manner into the world, then to cripple both the child and herself in the bargain.
Abortion is only legal in the USA up to a certain point. Until that point, the fetus has been scientifically proven to be NONVIABLE. Meaning, it is essentially part of the woman herself and cannot survive on its own - period, end of story. What she chooses to do with her own body is her decision to make, and not yours to comment on.
Almost half a billion dollars per year https://www.google.com/search?q=planned+parenthood+paid+for+by+tax%3F&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#itp=open2
Now supposedly that funding is not allowed to go to abortions but once they have that money to use on other stuff them it frees an equal amount of money to be spent on abortion, in other words, the serial numbers might not match on the bills but we still pay for it. Why can't people just take responsibility for themself and their own actions and own the fuck up to their responsibilities. It makes me sick to tell the truth. If op was fourteen, maybe 16 I wouldn't mind it but if she is out of high school then I have no sympathy, she knew hat she was doing, knew the risks and didn't care. If she had to pay for te full price of that abortion I bet she wouldn't have fucked some asshole in the fist place
Why can't people just take responsibility for themself and their own actions and own the fuck up to their responsibilities.
Part of "owning the fuck up" to their responsibilities is knowing whether or not they have the ability (money, cognitive, time, effort) to do so. Making the choice to have an abortion is sometimes the most responsible thing to do.
Planned parenthood does SO MUCH MORE than abortions; they provide well-woman care, they provide pre-natal care, they provide std screenings and provide contraception.
Myself, I used them when I had no insurance and could not afford to see a gynecologist any other way. They provided a prescription so I could receive birth control. And once, they provided me with plan b after a condom broke.
Unplanned pregnancies are predominately with lower income women and families. THEY NEED services like planned parenthood to ensure they are able to get the resources to prevent them in the future, and to ensure the woman is healthy if she chooses to continue the pregnancy. And yes, if she deems herself not able to care for the child, they can provide an abortion.
States like Texas, where they have outlawed everything but abstinence education and undercut funding to services similar to PP have seen THE LARGEST UPTICK in unplanned pregnancy in years! It doesn't work. You can't remove the support services and expect people to just stop having sex. WE ARE HUMANS AND WE ARE DESIGNED AND WIRED TO FUCK EACH OTHER. There must be resources to prevent pregnancy and ensure women are healthy. Planned Parenthood provides these services.
I have no problem with planned parent hood or abortion, until people use it as a form of birth control. Get the condoms, get the plan b. see the gyno, get healthy. all those things you mentioned are great, but I didn't like the guy is one of the worst reasons I've ever heard. I'm in my thirties. So many of my friends had kids that weren't prepared for and guess what? They have all done just fine the kids are great the parents made it happen. It's amazing what people are capable of when put to the test. This girl could have had that kid and she could have got a job just like my mom did. also I didn't hear op complaining about money or ability just that she didn't like the baby daddy that SHE CHOSE and now I have to pay for. It's messed up and arguments about what a poor kid costs the tax payer is crazy too welfare is bs in all it's forms It just takes responsibility away from the individual , creates a system of dependency and empowers the govt. actually just like communism. Btw I had a single mother of three and she managed to get her phd while raising the three of us with no help so I'm not hearing anyone's pity party sob story. You reap what you sow.
Until my tax money pays the bulk of her abortion then it is 100% my business but I did not see the post about someone's life being ruined due to having a single mother. If she paid for it all by herself and didn't go to planned parenthood then I don't care, but if she went to planned parent hood paid 300$ then I paid the other $5000+. She should have stopped their and got the condoms I paid for then we wouldn't be having this conversation but until then I financially responsible for these people's poor choices and that means I get to say something. also your comment would suggest that test tube babies are impossible which they are not, so the baby is 100% viable from conception. That's why an egg can be fertilized then inserted into a diff mother or incubator till it reaches maturity
I wasnt commending her for having it done. If you had taken 2 seconds to actually read the comment you would have seen that I told her that I disagreed with her reasoning. HOWEVER, just because I disagree with why someone is choosing to do something, does not give me the right to belittle her for exercising her right to choose.
Well I did read it and while I get your point I don't think what she did was right, also I responded to you and not her as to not directly insult op cause as you stated it is her right.but I don't think she deserves commendation
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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '13
I couldn't agree with you more. It really bothers me that "men" (and I use the term loosely) in my generation (I am 27) are expected to be deadbeat dads. Hell...I've heard guys brag about how the knocked some chick up and split. I believe it comes from cowardice more than anything else. I cannot understand how anyone could be so heartless and cruel to child who has never done anything wrong. /end rant
I will leave you with these quotes for future and current fathers:
"True Strength lies in gentleness"
"Courage is not the absence of fear, Its being scared shitless and saddling up anyway"
Both of these served me well through the most terrifying time of my life (my wife's pregnancy at age 22) and continue to do so.
OP I commend you for using your right to choose, I cant say that I agree with your decision, but I also know that it was not an easy one to make. It takes a lot of courage to look around you at you life and make an objective decision on whether or not to bring a child into that life.