She's Just a Girl Who Thinks That I Am the One

New at Reason: If you've got the wrong name and fit a general description, you may already be a deadbeat dad! Actually, you can even forget about the description part—California and other states incorrectly name thousands of men as fathers, taking their wages and ruining their reputations. Matt Welch reports on the plight of the Default Dads.

Comments

[dhex]

argument # 4 gazillion for vasectomies. fuck all ya want - someone else will make more!

i'm surprised no one's gotten together a class action suit of 25 or 30 obviously innocent cases and tried to get themselves a piece of california's pie. it wouldn't be a bad idea, since this isn't exactly an issue in the public mind.

[Jason Ligon]

"i'm surprised no one's gotten together a class action suit of 25 or 30 obviously innocent cases and tried to get themselves a piece of california's pie."

They'd probably just get a share of the debt ...

[Shannon Love]

This is an example of the Tyranny of the Greater Good. Specific individuals must bear the cost of injustice while the rest of us get the presumed benefits.

My political awakening was driven in part by the owner of small business I worked for in college. He had an employee that had a government lien on his wages due to unpaid child support. My employer was required to deduct the money from his paycheck and send it the government. In order to do that, he had to create a new type of account with his accountant. It cost $20 a month to do this. My employer asked, "Hey, I'm all for making people fill their obligations but why do I have to pay for it? Why can't I get reimbursed for providing this service to the greater society?"

Its easy to pass laws when the cost in money and freedom will be borne by others.

[Jim Walsh]

Of course, we all know how the gender feminists will respond:

"Oh, puh-leeeeze..."

Can't argue with that...

[thoreau]

The article said that most of the guys found under these programs have very low incomes.

I'd be curious to know if the falsely accused guys have higher incomes than the typical guys handled by these programs.

[Swamp Justice]

If you were to falsely accuse someone, wouldn't you want to accuse someone who makes lots of money? Or maybe those people can afford lawyers and paternity tests (and birth control).

[thoreau]

It might not make sense to accuse somebody with a really high income, since he can fight it with good lawyers. But it would make sense to accuse somebody who makes a little more than the below-minimum wage the average "deadbeat Dad" makes according to the article.

I'm curious to know if the data supports this hypothesis.

[JimInNoVA]

Anyone think I can hit Martha Stewart with a bogus maternity suit?

[Tommy_Grand]

Good article, Mr. Welch.

[Rebekah]

Until men know how to lobby like women, they are never going to have any rights when it comes to the family. But here is an idea that I'll throw out to you men and you can mull it over.

Why is it that you support a woman's right to choose an abortion and yet are willing to forego any rights that you have when it comes to parenting? My point is this, if a woman chooses to abort a fetus, any man wishing to support or raise that child, usually free of child support, is in no position to force her to bear the child due to privacy concerns. However, once a woman chooses to have a child rather than abort, the father is NEVER off the hook, whether he wanted to be a parent or not. Think about it. The government forces men to pay child support for children that many of them often do not want. You can argue that its good public policy all you want, but it seems to me that we are dealing with a civil liberty issue here, the right to choose to be a parent. If we are going to give women the right to abort their fetuses, give women the right to abandon their children at so called safe houses (apparently cause they couldn't afford to abort or its against their religion etc.), then I fail to see why men are continually being forced to pay child support. Let's face it, it's far easier to receive an order to pay child support, but try to get visitation and it's like pulling teeth.

Don't get me wrong, I support having people own up to their responsibilities, but please...men obviously have no rights when it comes to parenting but women possess all of them.

Doesn't that bother any of you guys out there at all?

[Hilly]

Hell yeah, it bothers me.

Can we men find a forum to air our complaints without accusations of being the next Dave Sim?

That's the question we *should* be asking.

PS: Google "Dave Sim" and select your link of choice.

[Mo]

Rebekah,
I would probably venture to guess that about 90% of the people reading this agree. I think men need to "be a man" and support their child, but women can get off the hook and that is what bothers me. I can't order someone to keep the baby, even if I'm willing to be the sole caregiver, but I can be ordered to pay for a baby I don't want. I have a friend that had to fight hard to get custody, even though he was the superior candidate and was actually close to both pairs of grandparents. I can't imagine what it would be like for a more borderline case where the stepmother wasn't a lawyer.

[Equality 7-2521]

Rebekah,

It bothers a lot of guys. The problem is that it doesn't bother the Alan Alda types and it doesn't appear to bother any women, save you and Cathy Young.

This is another case where democracy leads to 51 percent stealing from 49 percent.

[Aliandra]

Rebekah and Hilly - Technically, I agree. it's a civil rights thing . Practically, I hope it doesn't happen because it's the taxpayers that are going to get stuck with the bill if the guy opts out.

[thoreau]

Rebekah-

While I agree that there are plenty of exceptions, overall my understanding is the two biggest problems are:

1) A lot of guys aren't taking responsibility for their kids.
2) The gov't institutions charged with "fixing" this problem often place more emphasis on finding somebody, anybody, and extracting cash, and less emphasis on making sure he's the actual father.

Speaking as a male who endured 2 vicious custody battles (my father could afford to keep the fights going while he waited for my mother's bank account to empty out on legal bills, at which point he said "Oops, just kidding, I don't really want custody anyway"), I may be biased here. But I don't really see many fathers getting screwed (with all due exceptions noted). What I see is a system prone to manipulation by irresponsible people of either gender, not a system stacked against men.

I really have no sympathy for an actual biological father who finds himself paying child support for a kid he didn't want. When you have sex, you do so with the full knowledge that a kid could result and he will be your responsibility. (Of course, I have tremendous sympathy for a guy who has to provide for a kid that isn't even his.) And although I sympathize with the notion "It's his kid too, why should she abort it without his consent?", in the end the alternatives are worse (leaving aside the issues of it being her body, what if an asshole vetoes the abortion but then backs down from his responsibilities?).

And I don't mind giving girls the option to leave a baby with the cops/hospital/whatever, no questions asked. I would, however, support some mechanism (if it can be sensibly implemented, always a big "If" with legislation) to give the biological father the automatic right to claim such kids. The problem, of course, is that we have to go from "no questions asked" to "one question asked" and then there are implementation issues that get all messy, but such is legislation.

[Eric]

Rebekah,
I don't see the civil liberty issue, to be honest. If a guy doesn't want to be a father, then he shouldn't engage in behavior that could make him one. Ditto for women.

Let the abuse begin.

[TWC]

Thoureau wants to know if this happens to higher income people? Yes it does. It happens across the board.

Two years ago one of my associates rec'd notice from San Bernardino County DA that he owed over 100k in back child support and he was ordered to immediately begin paying 2300.00 per month in current child support.

Trouble was they weren't his kids and worse, the children in question were in FULL custody of their natural father in Las Vegas. The social worker never asked or checked or reviewed she simply took the fraud queen at her word and started the paperwork rolling. After numerous calls to the DA he finally hired a lawyer (my guy was told he would have to pay for DNA testing to prove his innocence and that test was about $1,000.00)

Cost to get out of jail free? $2,500.00 to legal man and a lot of hassle.

Interestingly the chick was not prosecuted nor was the social worker censured.

The connection? My guy briefly dated the woman 15 years ago before she was ever married and according to her, his name just popped up when the social worker asked who the father was.

[thoreau]

TWC-

I wonder if your friend is part of a trend. If the data showed that the average man falsely accused was wealthier than the average man hit up for payment, that would be revealing.

The biggest problem I see with such a study is determining who is falsely accused. You can't go by the official records. Not only are they apparently inaccurate (and apparently unlikely to admit that an accusation was false), the men who do manage to clear their names are likely to have higher incomes because they have more resources to do so. So there could be innocent guys who lacked the resources to get their names cleared, and the complexities of the system would skew the results of the study toward falsely accused men with high incomes.

You certainly couldn't rely on self-reporting by the alleged fathers, all of whom have a vested interest in claiming their innocence. DNA testing would be tough for a study because (1) it's expensive and (2) it would require the consent of mothers who might not want the results revealed. And while an alleged father might be able to argue that he has the legal right to force a DNA test, what grounds would a researcher have to get a court order for a DNA test if the mother is unwilling?

Sadly, I wonder if my hypotheses is untestable.

[Hello]

Newsflash: whenever you are sued and don't file an answer within the statutory period (30 days is pretty common), a default judgment is entered against you. It isn't confined to this type of suit. What else would you expect the court to do? Otherwise you could just not respond and avoid liability. This guy was just dumb, plain and simple.

[Hello]

Oh yeah, it is fairly easy to reopen a default judgment.

[bigbigslacker]

Its fairly easy to buy a new Mercedes after yours was stolen. Its also fairly easy to call the police to report your house has been robbed.

Hello, I suspect you are not an unbiased observer in these matters...

Am I right?

[Hello]

I can't say that I'm biased at all. I'm male if thats what you meant. All this guy had to do was write out an answer, asked for summary judgment and send it to the courthouse. He almost certainly would have gotten it and at the least he wouldn't have had a default judgment against him.

[Equality 7-2521]

Eric and Thoreau,

So you are recommending that a man who does not want to spend eighteen years paying for an unwanted child should stop engaging in sexual intercourse? I don't want to stoop to accusing you of having a below average sex drive, but I don't think that is a realistic option for most men. It's like saying people who get food poisoning knew what they were getting into when they decided to eat.

[Eric]

Equality,
I would suggest exactly that, unless the man is willing to become a father. Being able to control ourselves is one of the (few) human traits that sets apart from animals.

Failing that, at least practice safe sex, so the odds of becoming a father are drastically diminished.

But please, guys shouldn't get a girl pregnant and then complain they're not ready, willing, or able to be a father, or that someone is forcing them to be a father. They assumed that risk when they had sex.

[Mo]

Equality, Eric, thoreau, etc...
I'm sympathetic to both side. It's a damn shame when men skip out on their responsibility to the child that they deserve half the "blame" for. At the same time, men do not have the same options available that women have whether it's abortion or adoption. The biological reality says that there will never be true equality. The question is, how do you get close to this ideal?

[Equality 7-2521]

Eric,

Your point about safe sex is a good one, but remember that condoms are notoriously fallible. The idea that men should stop having sex is completely unrealistic. We are not as far from the animals as you might think.

[Eric]

Mo, if I knew the answer to that, I'd patent and sell it. I do have some ideas, but I doubt they'd go over well in this forum.

Equality, you're right about condoms, which is why I said the risks are drastically diminished rather than removed completely. Thinking more about my post, I think I need to revise my comments a bit. It's not so much about men not having sex, it's who they're having sex with. This probably isn't much of an issue between married couples, know what I mean?

[quiet one]

Actually, I think the lesson to be learned is to lie about your name, move around regularly with no forwarding address, and maybe change your looks on a regular basis. Then someone else will get netted for your loose behavior.

The sad part about people like this Sheila character is not so much that she's wrong about parenting being more than genes, its that she thinks that fathers are nothing more than paychecks. I'd like to hear her views on giving men equal time with their kids (at least the ones they pay for, even if they didn't father them). I'd give odds that she fights those laws just as hard as the paternity reform ones.

[bigbigslacker]

No, Hello, I was (wrongly I think)suggesting that perhaps you are a person who makes a living straightening out, or causing, people's legal troubles.

(not that there's anything wrong with that...)

[what the -?]

About the picture accompanying the article online - could someone identify the doll next to the Barbie for me? I swear, it looks like a hunky Jesus in tight blue jeans.

[Will_M]

When this article came out a couple of weeks ago, I had this thought:

It is acceptable for a slave to kill his master. If I was in this situation (I have a vasectomy, but it only prevents real fatherhood, not the fake kind), I would seriously consider killing the child. I believe that that would be the right thing to do, as that child would be my slave master.

[what the -?]

What the-? A very disturbing thought, I'd say.

[Heather]

Seems to me what we really need is the aggressive prosecution of women who perjure themselves when identifying their kids' fathers. Because lying bitches do not good mothers make. Send a few of them to jail and I think we'd see more truthful answers albeit more paternity testing.

[Heather]

Seems to me what we really need is the aggressive prosecution of women who perjure themselves when identifying their kids' fathers. Because lying bitches do not good mothers make. Send a few of them to jail and I think we'd see more truthful answers albeit more paternity testing.

[jon]

Here's two solutions to two problems:

1. All paternity must be proven. Even if the couple is married. Even if undisputed. If a child is born, that child and parents have a right to know.

2. Abortion is a right with responsibilities. Any woman who becomes pregnant must take steps to notify the father. Once done, any father may put up money to pay for an abortion. If unfound before birth, the cost to not pay child support is the cost of an abortion. The mother does not have to get an abortion if she wants the child, but she does not have any right to any additional money from that father. If she doesn't want the child and the father won't put up abortion money, she can then sue for child support. If he wants the child and she doesn't, then it's up to her to abort.

And the government will intrude on private lives, but at least it will do so under rules where the truth matters.

[hey]

as the article states, you are given very little time, and unlike the normal world, the default judgements are next to impossible to lift, as they are in the "best interests of the child"

so despite the fact that it is objectively wrong, its kept in the interests of finality

also, note how they don't necessarily have to serve you (unlike other court cases). they just have to "try"

then you default (but are unserved) and then they really do try to find you, to get the cash

i'd love this if anyone could use these tactics... sue a large company, use a wrong address.. get a default judgement (hey wins $500M as respondent did not respond) and then give the collection agency the real address... tell the corp that "in the interests of finality" they must pay me the money!!!

family law is not law, there is no due process... it is purely tyranny

[MALAK]

To anybody who still thinks that men do not get screwed by divorce: Try getting visitation rights enforced. If a father is an hour late with the money he's dead. But good luck if you want to get the courts to enforce your rights as a father to be involved with your kid(s).

[hello]

"No, Hello, I was (wrongly I think)suggesting that perhaps you are a person who makes a living straightening out, or causing, people's legal troubles.

(not that there's anything wrong with that...)"
Ah, you mean you thought I was a lawyer. You're right. But not in this area. To Hey, substitute service is common in many areas. If it's true that they aren't even making a good faith attempt to find the guys though, there could be a due process problem. But leaving at last known address, this happens all the time for small matters.

[Karl]

There have been a couple of people (Erik and Thoreau)
who have made the comments that basically amount to..
Aww hell, I'll just quote it: "They assumed that
risk when they had sex." (Erick) and "When you have
sex, you do so with the full knowledge that a kid
could result and he will be your responsibility." (Thoreau).
Not trying to start a flame war on a touchy subject,
but do you (or why don't you as the case may be)
extend the same criteria to women vis abortion.
I may be assuming something about your respective
views, here, but I'd suspect not - correct me if
I'm wrong. I've always wondered about this issue,
being marginally pro choice. If the moment of conception
entails 18 years of responsibility for the man, why
would it not also for a women? Can't the argument
that sex implies consent to the responsibility of having
a child be applied to provide support to anti-abortion
laws? If not, why does it not work the other way, for a man,
a sort of financial abortion? Or is this
an arena in which we are prepared to accept a different
standard between the sexes before the law?
Karl

[Don]

"The one that bears the young gets to decide if the womb is going to be empty or full. The other one does not."

Only if you assume abortion is an option. Chimps with wombs don't make that decision.

The fact is, the system is biased--extermely biased--towards women. The can choose abortions, they get priority in custody cases, etc. Given that women have the chices up front, they should bear the brunt of the responsibility.

[Phil]

If the moment of conception
entails 18 years of responsibility for the man, why
would it not also for a women? Can't the argument
that sex implies consent to the responsibility of having
a child be applied to provide support to anti-abortion
laws? If not, why does it not work the other way, for a man,
a sort of financial abortion?

Blame your DNA. When women become parthenogenetic, or men develop wombs, this will cease to be an issue. In the meantime, nature divided the mammals into two genders, one of which bears the young, and one of which provides the other half of the chromosomes. The one that bears the young gets to decide if the womb is going to be empty or full. The other one does not.

It really isn't that hard to decide: If you don't want children, don't go shooting your DNA at people.

Finally, anyone who would refuse to support, or to enable support for (via, say, giving it up for adoption rather than abandoning it), a child he or she parented, is scum of the earth. That goes for men and women both.

[Eric]

Don,
Yes, women have the options, but that does not magically remove the responsibility of all men to control their actions and accept the consequences for decisions they've made.

[Jennifer]

Eric-

When I said women, not children, were responsible for this mess, and you mentioned that men are guilty, too--I'm not talking about actual Deadbeat Dads, I'm talking about the non-dads who are forced to pay anyway. Actually, I was countering Will's comment that he'd kill the kid, just as a slave would kill his master.

[dhex]

if anything, having the court system so skewed towards women makes it even more important for men to get a handle on their business or face the wrath of such lopsided unfairosity.

[Eric]

Jennifer,
Just for clarification, by non-dads do you mean innocent men who are falsely accused?

[Karl]

Phil spaketh thusly:

"It really isn't that hard to decide: If you don't want children, don't go shooting your DNA at people."

What if I substitute "don't go letting people shoot their DNA at you."? I don't see how this situation is not symmetric. I have the choice whether or not to 'shoot my DNA at people'; I've never had an experience where the shootee did not have a rather active part in the shooting. I still don't understand the difference in position wrt to the shooter and shootee. One's descision entails immediate responsibility, the others does not. If we chalk it up to innate differences in the sexes, fine (That seems to be what you're doing) - I'm not one to argue that are no inate differences. But people who are strongly pro-choice seem mostly inclined to be pro-hunttheassholedownandmilkhimdry and also are predisposed to wanting to minimize differences among the sexes. I'm not sure what the solution is or even whether it should be social or legal, but you surely can't have it both ways.
-Karl

[thoreau]

Karl-

We can debate all day and all night if abortion should be legal. You're coming tantalizingly close to that issue, so let's just slowly back away from the can of worms. N-I-C-E A-N-D S-L-O-W-L-Y N-O-W....

Point is, if you wind up doing something that results in a baby being born, you have a responsibility for that baby. By sticking to "a baby being born" rather than conceived, we can avoid the can of worms. There's no getting around it.

You can complain that women have a chance to decide whether the baby will in fact be born. And the pro-choicers can say (with considerable justification) "Well, she's carrying the baby for 9 months, of course she gets more say in it." And pro-lifers will complain. But, at the end of the day, if that baby is born, however it got there, whatever the decision-making flowchart may have looked like, the fact is that the father was a big part of the reason why that baby was born, and he has some duties. Deal with it.

As to the notion expressed by some here "Why should I have to assume the risk of fatherhood just because I want to get laid?" Um, that's sort of what sex was designed for. We've come up with devices to significantly reduce the odds of procreation as a result of sex, but nothing can change the fact that sex organs are designed to produce offspring, and there's always a chance that the organs will work as intended when you use them. It's just a fact of biology. It would be nice to be able to completely undo a billion years worth of evolution and painlessly retrofit those organs to be solely for the purpose of pleasure, but so far the only known way to guarantee those organs will work solely for pleasure is to go through surgery.

Sucks to be a biological organism, doesn't it? We have to live by these silly biological constraints, and take responsibility for any offspring we might produce. The horror!

[Matt Welch]

Thanks for the nice words, Tommy Grand & others. A few points:

* No one currently studies the number of falsely accused fathers, so comparing their income levels is a non-starter so far.

* As an FYI, the only two people who have argued along "hey, he just screwed up!" lines were lawyers. I'm just saying!

* As a response to that argument, there are several multiplier effects that make the 30-day default deadline that more grave: the lack of proof-of-service requirement, the absurdly low threshold for sending a summons to a candidate father, the lack of penalties on either women or government for naming the wrong guy, the incentive systems that lead to such things as Tony Pierce's case -- where the summons itself was grossly misleading, and the county employees (I think) deliberately misled him about what he should do. Then there are the on-average higher-than-bearable support levels levied against default dads, the various penalties (loss of passport rights, inability to renew licenses), and so on. Finally, it is nothing remotely like "easy" to get a default overturned, or even set aside. You need a lawyer, which means you need to be able to afford a lawyer, and the average default dad is quite poor.

* Thanks for the response (especially the Las Vegas horror story), and I'll be writing more on the subject in the future.

[Tommy_Grand]

Thoreau is being stupid. No one denies that both parents must accept some measure of responsibility. No one denies that both parents have assumed some risk. No one is arguing for risk-free sex. The only issue is: the relative degree of control versus relative degree of responsibility. No one can intelligently dispute that women have more control over pregnancy. Of course they do. It is a biological fact. Since abortion is legal (thank God) women have the power to choose TWICE - but men only get to choose once. This fact is beyond dispute. Given that women have greater control + more choice over whether or not the child is born, is it fair for men to be equally responsible?

Thoreau's argument seems to be: "Maybe it's not fair, but that's life. Stop complaining and deal with it."

That argument always proves too much. Apply it to any injustice and you get a bad result.

[Aliandra]

Tommy Grand:

You said 'is it fair for men to be equally respoonsible since they have less choice and less control".

I can argue that it is women that must endure the discomforts of pregnancy and the physical hazards of giving birth, where as men don't. I think that throws the fairness question into a different light.

[Tommy_Grand]

"it is women that must endure the discomforts of pregnancy and the physical hazards of giving birth, where as men don't. I think that throws the fairness question into a different light."

That is a good argument, Aliandra. But it is a different argument from the one I attacked. You don't deny that women have greater control. You don?t deny that men have less ability to choose. As I read it, you argue that biological mothers should enjoy greater rights over the child because, by virtue of biology, women undertake greater health risks and endure far greater physical discomfort than men. I completely agree. In fact, I believe that the physically and emotional nexus between a mother and her newborn child exceeds the connection between that child and its father by several orders of magnitude. It makes no sense (to me) to argue that the father's rights (at that stage) should equal the mother's.

Some fathers make every effort to assist with the pregnancy. Some fathers are entirely absent. But no father can match the birth mother's level of investment and sacrifice.

[Rich]

Thoreau,
I know you're a physics guy but this but nothing can change the fact that sex organs are designed to produce offspring is just scientifically sloppy. Setting aside the use of the word "designed" in this context (a most grave error in itself, though I believe you were simply using it for short-hand), the fact is that sex organs did not evolve for the purpose of producing offspring.

The real reasons sex organs evolved to their current state are complex and for the most part the specifics are not known and will likely never be known with any certainty. That is not to say there aren't good theories (as in theories which explain the phenomena better than others). One thing we can be reasonably sure of is that organisms which possess sexual organs are reasonably good reproducers.

The distinction between "Evolving for some purpose" and "Evolving and fulfulling some purpose" is a distinction which makes a difference. It is also a distinction widely acknowledged by biologists to be valuable in understanding evolution.

[brian]

Aliandra
I'll take three months of discomfort and a couple days of pain over 18 years hard labor anyday.

[thoreau]

Rich-

You're just nitpicking. We all know what sex organs do. We all know that the animals that passed on their genes were the ones that were most efficient at producing offspring that could survive. Just like we all know that hearts pump blood, lungs procure oxygen, and gastrointestinal tracts absorb nutrients from food. We all know this.

And we all know that sex organs produce offspring. Just as we all know why sex is pleasurable: The animals that have more sex produce more offspring, so naturally the ones that passed on their genes are the ones that were eager to have sex. Duh!

And OK, the word "designed" was not a good choice. But we all know what sex organs do, and we all know what happens when we use them. And we all know that if we use them, there's a good chance that a baby might result, and the people responsible for creating that baby are responsible for its care.

Where did I go wrong?

Tommy Grand-

It's one thing to say "That's life, deal!" when talking about a human-created injustice. But it's another thing to apply that same argument to a basic biological phenomenon like, say, babies being created when a male and female engaged in sexual intercourse. If you don't want to risk having to be responsible for a kid that you might accidentally produce, then don't have sex. Or get a vasectomy. Or learn to live with the (small but real) risk that a condom will malfunction.

You are an adult, I assume? If so, then accept responsibility.

[Tommy_Grand]

"It's one thing to say "That's life, deal!" when talking about a human-created injustice."

We are talking about human-created injustice. The problem is not the fact of paternity (a natural, scientific truth - testable by DNA matching). The problem is an (arguably) unjust child support collection process: a creation of law. There is no natural or scientific principle that dictates the proportionate level of responsibility among parents. Lots of species divide it differently. Lots of human societies divide it differently. The question: what is the fairest division?

"If you don't want to risk having to be responsible for a kid that you might accidentally produce, then don't have sex."

Again - no one is denying that both parents bear some responsibility. The only issue is the relative degree of responsibility between the two responsible parties. What is the ideal division?

[thoreau]

Well, considering that the man is only asked to write a check for a portion of the child's care while the woman is also expected to provide for a portion of the cost plus actually spend time providing care, I'd say that men have it pretty easy.

[Rich]

Yeah, nitpicking is probably a pretty fair assessment. But, as a physicist, I imagine you would understand exactly how fruitful picking nits can be. 😉

Imagine for a moment that I said, "The copenhagen interpretation requires the presence of a conscious observer for the collapse of the waveform". Well, this is, if I actually do understand the little of physics that I think I understand, drastically flat-out wrong in some respects (ie. "designed") and more subtly wrong in other respects (ie. "evolved for..."). I imagine you would pick a few nits - at least I would hope for you to do so.

The big mistake I refer to is, of course, that this is a flat-out misstatement of what the copenhagen interpretation holds especially with regards to a conscious observer. The more subtle mistake being defining the problem in terms of the collapse of the waveform when that phenomena (or appearance of phenomena?!?) is actually part of the interpretation itself. If I'm wrong - please pick the nits.

[thoreau]

Picking nits is important when talking about the quantum theory of measurement. It isn't all that important when talking about a result of quantum mechanics like, say, the ionization energy of a hydrogen atom being 13.6 electron-volts.

Likewise, picking nits is important when talking about a very fundamental understanding of selection processes. It isn't as important when saying that sex organs produce offspring, so people having sex shouldn't be surprised if they sometimes produce offspring.

[Rich]

So, you're saying I've picked the wrong forum for my nitpicking. This is not a matter worth debate so, let's just agree to disagree.

All Hail Eris!

[Jennifer]

Don't know if anyone remembers mine and Eric's mini-conversation a few posts back, but yes, I was talking about non-fathers forced to pay child support anyway.

Now, if I can butt in to the conversation 'twixt Thoreau, Tommy and Rich--Thoreau is right in saying that people have to accept the fact that biology is inherently unfair. It's not fair that women have to deal with pregnancy and men don't, it's not fair that women get to choose whether or not to have a baby while men have less control.

Also:
It's not fair that I, as a woman, will live seven years longer than you men, which means that, all other things being equal, I'll collect more pension benefits than you ever will. Deal with it.

It's not fair that my pale-skinned self has to spend a small fortune on sunblock every summer, while my non-Caucasian friends can spend that money on fun stuff. Deal with it.

It's not fair that I can be sexually aroused and keep this a secret, while horny men pitch embarrassing tents for all the world to see. Deal with it.

It is unfair that all humans, even those of us who don't want to reproduce, have to deal with this pesky libido of ours. Deal with it.

It's not fair that if I wanted a baby, all I'd have to do is find some horny sperm donor, while a man who wants a baby has to find a woman willing to bear one. Deal with it.

Fight the good fight--try to end this insane business of non-fathers having their lives ruined by false paternity allegations. But accept the fact that in the Brave New World of women having control over their own bodies, there will be baby-making inequalities between the sexes.

[Eric Hanneken]

If you don't want to risk having to be responsible for a kid that you might accidentally produce, then don't have sex. Or get a vasectomy. Or learn to live with the (small but real) risk that a condom will malfunction.

Thoreau,

Change "vasectomy" to "hysterectomy," and you have just argued against the right to have an abortion. Is that what you want to do?

[thoreau]

I was very scrupulous to say "you take the risk that a kid might be born" in most posts to avoid abortion. I specifically avoided the subject of conceiving kids, and stuck to kids that are born.

I will not comment on abortion except to say that it doesn't matter for this issue.

Supposedly libertarians are big on personal responsibility. So it's funny to come to a thread where all the guys are whining "Why do we have to be responsible for kids that might be born because we had sex? Women can have abortions but not us! It isn't fair!"

What exactly do the guys here want? You're all making me ashamed of having a Y chromosome and the balls to prove it.

[What the -?]

i really don't understand the trepidation of bringing abortion into this equation. In my view, it is unavoidable if we are going to discuss reproduction and the rights and responsibilites attached thereto.

[Eric Hanneken]

Thoreau,

I think your position on abortion is relevant, because the best argument for having a right to abort is that it allows a woman to opt out of the costs of raising a child, even when she chose to have sex and knew that a baby might result.

If you accept this, then why do you believe the choice to have sex should obligate a man to bear the costs of child-rearing? Don't men have a right to self-ownership, too?

[Karl]

I'm backing away from this subject slowly, as suggested, with one exception. Thoreau keeps stating that because we are biological organisms, we therefore have to deal with the fact that we have responsibility for our offspring. That is simply false. In a biological, purely scientific sense, the ability to create offspring in no way entails having to take responsibility for the child. That's a purely societal, legal construct. Of course those constructs evolved because it's the most successful avenue to maintaining the species. But the question of the balance between male/female responsibility for children certainly is not as simple as "we're biological creatures, therefore you have responsibility. Deal with it."
I mean in the statement "We have to live by these silly biological constraints, and take responsibility for any offspring we might produce. The Horror!" there is no connection between the first clause (biological constraints) and the second (responsibility). Yet your argument rests on the two being connected - in fact biologically speaking, the male is ideally suited to avoid responsibility. Perhaps I misunderstand your reasoning.

BTW, you're much more effective as a writer when you're not trying to be clever with the sarcasm. In small doses, it can be effective, but you've been overusing it of late - it just comes off as annoying and makes it easier to dismiss what you say. Not that you'd care...

-Karl

[Eric Hanneken]

Jennifer wrote,

. . . it's not fair that women get to choose whether or not to have a baby while men have less control.

Why isn't that fair? A woman's uterus belongs to her, not her sex partner, and she's the one who has to put up with the discomforts of pregnancy and birth. Shouldn't she be the one with the right to decide whether she goes through with it or not?

Similarly, a man's wealth belongs to him, not his sex partner. Shouldn't he be the one with the right to decide whether he spends it or not? That seems fair to me.

[Jennifer]

Karl--

Am I misunderstanding you, or are you suggesting that the way to solve this problem is to reescind the laws stating that parents must care for their offspring? Or is it just fathers?

[thoreau]

Karl-

I'll give you a serious reply.

I agree that my statement about "living by these biological constraints...take responsibility for our offspring" is a non-sequitur taken alone. But it was the sarcastic summation of a longer post. I linked the two ideas in the main body of the post by arguing that it's just a fact of biology that sex can lead to babies, and the only way to eliminate the possibility of kids resulting from sex is to take drastic measures (vasectomy), so it's ridiculous when people in this thread say "What, so I have to abstain from sex if I'm not ready for the possibility of kids and I don't want a vasectomy?"

I actually do care when people say that my sarcasm undermines my points. I'm here to debate, and I do try to take feedback.

When I resort to sarcasm at the end of a post (as opposed to in the body, where it's part of my style), it's usually because I'm frustrated by the task of trying to anticipate and head off all objections. I've posted enough that I can predict a lot of likely objections, and if I think some of the likely (but inevitable) objections are ridiculous I'll try to pre-empt them with an equally ridiculous sarcasm. Of course, acts of frustrated pre-emption are rarely as effective as the originator hopes. (Are you listening, Mr. President? 😉

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

[Eric Hanneken]

. . . are you suggesting that the way to solve this problem is to reescind the laws stating that parents must care for their offspring?

Jennifer,

I think you're responding to me, so I'll answer: No, I'm not suggesting that. But I am suggesting that between conception and the third trimester (or birth, or some point before then), both sex partners should have an equal right to bail out of the obligation of raising a child. For women, this means a right to abort. For men, this simply means a right to disown a financial responsibility, which also should mean abdicating any right to be involved in their child's life, if the woman goes ahead with birth anyway.

[Aliandra]

Equality:

Whilst it is true that birth control does not always work, you're getting a deaf ear here if you think that it isn't realistic for men to practice some self control. Either get a vasectomy or don't screw until you're ready to accept the potential consequences of your actions. That's the hallmark of adulthood. Yes, this goes for women as well.

[Eric]

Karl,
You're very close to the ideas I referred to earlier that wouldn't be very popular in this forum. But what the hey, here goes.

We now have a situation in which two people have acted irresponably by producing a child for which they are either unable or unwilling to care for. One party (the woman) has a method in which to evade the consequences of that irresponsible behavior (abortion). The other party (the man) has no method to evade the consequences, and instead has to live with whatever the woman decides.

As I said before, I have no sympathy for the man in this situation. If he doesn't want a kid he should keep it in his pants. But the solution is not to enable the man to evade the consequences, either.

To me (and here comes the unpopular part) a solution would be to make the woman and man both fully responsible for their actions - which means making abortion illegal. At least, on this particular issue, both men and women are treated equally under the law.

But I also say laws can only do so much. The solution, ultimately, is up to each individual. Don't be foolish about engaging in behavior that could produce a kid.

Jennifer,
"it's the women, not the kids, who are responsible for these men's misery."

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. It takes two to make a baby - the man is every bit as responsible as the woman.

[Equality 7-2521]

Aliandra,

Practice some self control? I hate to keep saying the same thing over, but this is simply not an option for men.

And it does not go for women as well. Women have better birth control options, they have the right to abortion. They can screw all they want without any chance of having to support someone else's kid.

[what the -?]

Equality, despite what some radical feminists might think, men aren't animals lacking self-control. Abstinence IS an option - it may not be one that you or I are fond of, but that does not preclude us from exercising that option. It may be that you hark back to an earlier time in man's evolution, but please don't presume that you are speaking for other men when you give us the "we can't help it" line.

[Eric Hanneken]

The one that bears the young gets to decide if the womb is going to be empty or full. The other one does not.

Fair enough. But shouldn't the one who owns the wallet get to decide if it is empty or full?

[Equality 7-2521]

what the,

OK, I will not presume to speak for all men. But then you should do the same.

So, hypothetically, let's say that I am a guy who does not want to have kids until I am financially secure enough to care for them. And I figure I will be there sometime during my late thirties. You are saying that I should abstain from sex for my first twenty years as an adult?

For me, the best analogy for sex is food. I can exercise self control at the buffet line. I can even skip a meal or two. But abstaining from eating is not a long term option.

[thoreau]

Equality-

Buy some condoms, and only sleep with women who can show you their birth control pills (not a perfect measure, I know, they might not be taking them, but between the condoms and the probability of the pills you're in good statistical shape). Better yet, put some sperm on ice and then get a vasectomy.

Point is, if you get a woman pregnant, when that child is born there will be a baby in this world that you are directly responsible for. Deal with it. Be a man. A responsible man. That baby didn't sprout in a cabbage patch, it came into being because of an action you undertook. Nothing in this world can change that.

[dhex]

sterilization isn't necessarily an option for people under 30, especially women. a friend of mine has been trying to get sterilized since she was 21 and is unable to find a doctor willing to do the procecure (fear of lawsuits and a general human bias against those of us who aren't interested in breeding). it's probably somewhat easier for a man to get a vasectomy, both surgically and in finding someone to do the procedure.

as for self-control, of course self-control is possible. duh. it's just terribly unpopular.

condom efficacy is extremely high, especially compared to the other non-chemical methods. again, this assumes that people are using them correctly and they're not expired. caution, yet another unpopular mode of behavior.

we have also seen a surge in the popularity of hetero sodomy. an excellent birth control method assuming other forms are already being followed. can't be too careful.

eventually, a male birth control drug will be developed and we can enter an entirely new age of heterosexual sweatiness - sadly, probably to be followed with a renaissance of nasty diseases.

all of which beats living under some religious nitwit's idea of healthy sexuality (a burlap bag and some birch branches?)

[Jennifer]

Will-
Your master/slave analogy doesn't quite work; it's the women, not the kids, who are responsible for these men's misery. Maybe the master/slave analogy might be this: women are the white slaveowners, men are the black slaves, and the child is the belief that blacks must be enslaved because they're so inferior.

One way to solve this problem and many others, I think, would be to rescind that asinine law saying citizens can't sue their government for screwing up. Many years ago when I lived in Virginia, a Virginia Beach traffic light fell off of its pole and smashed into some guy's car, totalling it. The city refused to pay for the damages and neither he nor his insurance company could sue, because of the aforementioned law.

Maybe these government child-support officials would take a little more care to do their jobs right, if they knew they would suffer penalties if they screwed up.

[Tommy_Grand]

An idea:

Rewrite the law such that:

To accuse someone of paternity, one must (in addition to filing all paperwork) post a bond roughly equal to the cost of a DNA test. Once paternity is established, the bond is immediately refunded with no deductions, fees, etc.

After someone is served with notice that he/she is alleged to be a parent; he/she has 30 days to: (1) accept responsibility in writing/person; (2) appear for a DNA test; or (3) appear in person to request a 30 day extension for good cause.

A. If you choose the DNA test, and you are determined to be the parent, you are responsible for all costs of testing plus a $500 fee.

B. If you take the DNA test, and you are not the parent, your accuser forfeits the bond and owes a $500 fee to the state.

C. If you took the extension, and you are eventually determined to be the parent, you pay an additional $500.

(500 is just an arbitrary amount, of course)