A Man's Right to Choose - New York Times
while this didn't make me choke on my coffee, this last bit made me sort of gassy with exasperation (i'll bold the most gas-inducing parts):
"Why couldn't I make the same claim - that I am going to keep the baby regardless of whether she wants it or not?
Well, you might argue that all the man provides is his seed in a moment of pleasure. The real work consists of carrying a child for nine months, with the attendant morning sickness, leg cramps, biological risks and so on.
But how many times have we heard that fatherhood is not about a moment, it is about being there for the lifetime of a child? If we extend that logic, those 40 weeks of pregnancy - as intense as they may be - are merely a small fraction of a lifetime commitment to that child.
The bottom line is that if we want to make fathers relevant, they need rights, too. If a father is willing to legally commit to raising a child with no help from the mother he should be able to obtain an injunction against the abortion of the fetus he helped create.
Putting this into effect would be problematic, of course. But while such issues may be complicated, so is family life."
so, basically, let's just have men force women to give birth. yeah, i'm all for that.
while dalton's argument is fairly even in tone, it won't prevent me from calling him a complete tool.
his toolship: dalton, i'd really like to know how you (and other men) are going to justify forcing a woman to give birth against her will. i'd really like to see how your willingness to perform your fatherly duties outside of a woman's body justifies taking ownership of her body for 9 months against her will.
at the end of his 'waah waah' essay dalton tries to slide in an obligatory 'please ignore the fact i'm talking out my ass' by saying 'of course' his modest proposal would be hard to implement. but he doesn't say the reason why his idea won't work: hey, there's a woman attached to the other end of that fetus!
wouldn't everything be so much easier if we forgot there was a woman attached?
here's a tip from me to dalton: until we find a way for me to hatch a human embryo so a guy can sit on it like a penguin, you can kiss your dream good bye.
(tool! tool!)
6 comments:
Thank you! Well said, Ding.
You are on a bloggin' roll this week. Sure, there are no comments, but you're writing good stuff. Keep on keepin' on!
If men can have rights to a fetus within a woman's body, perhaps a wife can share ownership of the genetic material within her husband's testicles. Men would have to get their wives' consent for use of their sperm.
You think guys will go for it?
thank you, my orange friend! i appreciate the nod.
and jp, excellent point. dalton doesn't lay claim to his ex-girlfriend's eggs, however. it's the fertilized egg he wants.
truly, if men care so much about this, then i think we're spending far too much on this stupid war and need to find a way to give men what they really, apparently, want: reproductive capabilities.
that would solve a lot - including this nonsense about the government telling people what to do with the effluvia of their bodies.
Hey, he can have my baby as soon as he figures out how to carry it inside his body.
exactly. imagine what a world this would be if there was equal opportunity for either sex to get pregnant. think of the mutual paranoia, the double caution, the two-fold responsibility if everyone was suddenly going to be popping out fetuses.
this world would be transformed. (and there would be birth control, emergency and otherwise, for everyone.) alas, i dream.
ampersand at alas, a blog posted adive to give to white folks when they're accused of being racist:
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/12/02/how-not-to-be-insane-when-accused-of-racism/
i thought it was rather useful.
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