Here is a topic the MRA will run with...

The problem is they will run with it and throw so much misogynistic B.S. into the argument that it will ruin it for those people who want to have a reasonable debate about it.

So, the question is, should a woman who only had oral sex with a man and kept the semen be able to
file a child support claim against a man?

O_o Gotta say, I'm with him on this one. The courts make a pretty good description: "Irons “deceitfully engaged in sexual acts, which no reasonable person would expect could result in pregnancy, to use plaintiff’s sperm in an unorthodox, unanticipated manner yielding extreme consequences.”"

I mean, just doing it is bad enough, but if he never knows I suppose it wouldn't hurt him. But then slapping him with a paternity suit as well? Wow.

Yeah I would think that the answer would be "no"... >_>

I actually thought you were going to link to this:

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1032084--woman-injured-having-sex-on-business-trip-wants-workers-compensation?bn=1

Which I'm sure will also make the MRM rounds soon xD

I remember this coming up in a class my boyfriend took in law school.

If I recall correctly, the judge ruled that the semen had been a gift, and therefore the man was not responsible for what the woman did with it after he 'gave' it to her.

And before the MRAs start crying about PiV-delivered semen also being gift, keep in mind that the woman has no conscious control over what happens in her genitalia post-orgasm. But taking semen from a bj and then using it to artificially inseminate oneself requires quite a few deliberate actions.

What a shitty story - and the woman's attorney is a scumbag for trying to make it about the feelings of the child.

I absolutely support the guy's right to claim for emotional distress. If I found an ex-lover had pulled something like that on me I'd find it hard to trust anyone ever again.

I think it should go deeper than that him being able to sue for emotional distress. I do not believe that he should be required to pay child support. His semen was a conditional gift with two options, spit or swallow. It was not semen that was intended for use to create a child.

I fully support the notion that if a man participates consensual vaginal sex, regardless of how many contraceptive and/or prophylactic barriers are used, that the man should be legally considered to have consented to be responsible for any child that results.

However, if the man does not consent to vaginal sex or if the man participates in other activities that will never create a child without extraordinary measures, that the man should not be required to pay.

And yes, I know that the courts take the stance of strict paternity and that if you are the biological father that you owe. But there are many laws without exceptions that need exceptions to handle the oddball cases such as this.

Well, it's worth noting that lack of consent/rape is not a defense for a female parent against child support either in most jurisdictions.

Personally, I would rather have a robust welfare system to ensure the needs of all children rather than a child support system, but as we have the latter, we do have to consider the needs of the child in support. Should a child have to starve, be homeless, etc. because one parent is a rapist, dishonest, etc? That is far from an ideal solution either. My little sister was born due to birth control sabatoge (by my father), that doesn't mean that she has any less need of support than anyone else. The child here is an innocent party as well.

It also seems like child support and ability to sue for emotional distress are seperate legal issues (went to read the original article, yeah, that is the case here). The issue at hand is the dismissal of the fraud and theft (conversion?) claims in his civil suit. I agree that this does not look like fraud (using the typical legal definition of that term), the conversion issue is could be more complicated, I suppose. I fail to see why private individuals should be allowed to use others biological material without consent (consensual PiV could be considered implied consent or implicit assumption of risk in regards to pregnancy). I would be interested if someone had a link to the full opinion, because I wonder if this jurisdiction is one that sets up pretty lax ownership rules of our of out of body biological tissues. Some states have laws regarding tissues as property designed to heavily favor hospitals and research institutions that make it damn near impossible for people to recover damages for theft or misuse of biological tissue. That could be the reason for a far more narrow definition of theft/conversion in a biological materials case.

A woman is free to abort if she is chooses and as such avoid any parental obligations.

A woman would also be free to give the child up for adoption if she is personally against abortion.

I do agree with you that a robust child welfare system, similar to how we make sure that children have healthcare under CHIP programs, would be much more beneficial. But then that would automatically allow any scumbag to just automatically be a deadbeat dad.

I have not seen the full ruling. I will have to look it up later.

"A woman is free to abort if she is chooses and as such avoid any parental obligations" Abortions are not free or easily obtained in many parts of the world. There have been sucessful terrorist attacks within my lifetime against clinics and staff in the city where I currently live. Abortion is also an out of pocket in cost. Depending on whether the pregnancy is detected after the second trimester starts, you are talking about having to pay possibly thousands of dollars, having a medical procedure, and facing harassment and possible terrorism, even discounting the emotional impact.

"A woman would also be free to give the child up for adoption if she is personally against abortion" Not without fighting a giant legal battle with the person who raped/coerced her. So, we are talking taking all of the physical and social risks of pregnancy followed by a potentially tens of thousands of dollar legal battle.

You are seriously trivializing a whole lot of heavy shit.

"But then that would automatically allow any scumbag to just automatically be a deadbeat dad. "

Yes, exactly. That's most of the point. Dads that wouldn't pay anyway wouldn't matter; dads that would pay but don't want to wouldn't need to.

Why would "deadbeat dads" matter if child support isn't necessary anymore?

Darksidecat: Where did I say that abortions did not cost anything? I think you are reading something into what I said that was not there.

I am free to go to the movie theater if I want. That doesn't mean that I will get in at no cost.

Yes, there are horrible cases in this country about lack of access to abortions, religious zealots terrorizing those seeking to obtain the legal procedure, and other barriers that the zealots try to errect to prevent a woman from having personal autonomy.

Women still do have more abilities than men do when it comes to preventing parental responsibilities. This is not a criticism or complaint. It is just a natural byproduct of the biology. Men consent to becoming a parent at the moment of sex (and apparently in this case oral sex). Women can prevent themselves from being a parent afterwards because nature deemed them the ones to gestate.

And that was my point. I was addressing your comment that a woman who is raped is not able to use the rape to avoid support payments. While that may be true, she also has more options available to a man as a part of her biological differences.

I do not, and would not, trivialize the issues pertaining to reproductive rights in this country.

Blackhumor: There would still be men who felt it was their obligation to provide for their children above and beyond the minimum that would be provided for by government.

Yeah, by DSC's fucking IDIOT not-logic, in cases in which the identity of the father is unknown, we should just grab the woman's most recent boyfriend and say "Hey, we know this has nothing to do with you, but it's for the child. You're a parent now."

I vehemently disagree with this assessment.

Uh, and where did you get that from anything that DSC just wrote? Are we reading the same thread?

@MRAL What are you talking about? o_O

MRA Lieutenant wrote:Yeah, by DSC's fucking IDIOT not-logic, in cases in which the identity of the father is unknown, we should just grab the woman's most recent boyfriend and say "Hey, we know this has nothing to do with you, but it's for the child. You're a parent now."

I vehemently disagree with this assessment.

I am with the others, I do not see such an assessment.

@lj, it is still a non-objection. First of all, neither of the things mentioned actual pertain to a defense in support cases, which was the orginal issue. Secondly, the plaintiff here does have all of the options a woman does when a child is born. Fighting a huge legal battle to strip legal custody from the other parent and then giving the child up for adoption, if that counts as an option, it is available to both. Thirdly, it is not an option if de facto a person can't utilize it. You are only free to go to a movie theater because you have the ability to pay the cost. If you did not, you are de facto not free to do it. Just as I am de facto not free to buy a mansion. The right to do something one cannot do is pretty fucking moot. (I am reminded of a quote by A.J. Liebeling "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one"). This is the "let them eat cake" of legal rights.

@MRAL

Well I disagree with the law that would prevent rape from being a defense in support cases. A person who does not consent to PiV sex should not be held financially responsible for the support of the child if they choose not to be involved.

The man did not have the (legal) ability to terminate the pregnancy after it happened. So no, he does not have all the options that a woman would have after becoming pregnant. Again, I am not complaining about that biological fact. But it is still a fact. Of course, the man in this case was reasonable to assume that no pregnancy would occur.

You have a different definition of freedom than I do.

This does not solve cases of rape... but I always thought a good way to deal w/ the paper abortion thing is that before sex, the man can get the woman to sign something that says in the event that she gets pregnant and keeps the child, he has nothing financially/parentally/etc to do w/ the child. That way everybody knows what they're going into w/ eyes wide open and if the woman doesn't want to, she doesn't have to sleep w/ him. xD It also solves the big MRA fear of entrapment and lying about BC and w/e else... and nobody can be accused of "running off" b/c he alrdy made his intentions clear.

I can only imagine that. It is in the middle of a passionate moment. Clothes start to come off, an condom is grabbed, then the man claps his hands to activate his clapper so he can have enough light for both parties to sign a legal document. Talk about a mood killer.

That's also been the argument against asking for clear consent too... and for using contraceptives. xD

You can always ask a person BEFORE you have your passionate moment. "It'd be a mood killer" doesn't change that this is a fair way to handle the issue, and that way nobody is surprised or accused of springing things on nebody else :]

Yes, this is why you negotiate everything beforehand. If you can't talk to a person about sex and how you want to handle any issues...why are you having sex with hir? I wouldn't sleep with someone I couldn't talk to, but that's just me and I honestly think it's more sensible to not sleep with people you cannot communicate with.

If I'm remembering right, the few times that that kind of negotiation has been attempted "I, the undersigned, super pinky-swear not to ask for child support if I get pregnant and decide to raise the kiddo" and has been shot down in court. Because the courts generally don't care if you talked about what would happen and you agreed, or if you just lost your job, etc. etc. They care about forcing payment so that the 'social safety net' doesn't involve paying for those kids. All the flowery language about "shouldering responsibility" and whether they get visitation from the court proceedings is a distant secondary. Which is why when fathers or other family members pursue mothers for child support you get rulings like being raped doesn't matter - if you have any money at all, it is going to support that child.

I have to agree that the issue of men being financially responsible for children they did not want has a lot more to do with a society that is structured to abhor taking care of even tiny children and would prefer to punish women through making them sue for child support rather than simply providing for those children.
Sure, there are going to be some ridiculous situations and one parent suing the other for asinine amounts ("Darling needs a sweet 16 car, I'm suing for extra child support!") but the vast majority of the time? If we had adequate social support to allow relative comfort for everyone? Bet we'd see a significant drop in the number of court cases for child support.

I think there's probably also a stigma against using the social safety net. Getting government welfare is seen by many as something shameful, or a sign of failure. So a custodial parent might find it easier on their pride to sue for support, even though it requires far more time and energy, than apply for aid programs.

Thank the Republicans for turning 'welfare' into a dirty word on that one.

There's also that accusation to women using it that they had children JUST to do it :\ Like you hear it a lot from conservatives (actually I've heard it even from my own mother -_-). For ex, during the 90s when Mike Harris and his "common sense revolution" took power in Ontario, he scapegoated all sorts of ppl (to get into power and also to explain the debt) like teachers, homeless people, "squeegee kids", and another group was mothers on welfare, which he categorized as ppl who had kids just to get more support payments... and I still hear that stereotype a lot, that no mother who gets welfare deserves it b/c they don't care about their kids, and use the money to buy drugs, and etc -_-

@Victoria, the US government actually forces primary caretakers to file for child support before getting welfare in most cases. It is not optional.

This thread is actually making me question my beliefs about child support. On the one hand, an unwanted kid eats exactly the same amount. On the other hand... if you weren't trying to make a kid, and your partner was, should you be liable for that?

I think a lot of the answer is "use condoms," but those break, some people lie about being on other birth control, and apparently some people outright steal sperm. And even if someone had no good reason not to use a condom but they didn't--does this put them on the hook if their partner could have an abortion but doesn't want to?

I'm uncomfortable with every answer. "Consent to sex includes consent to the consequences" doesn't cover when those consequences are someone else's unilateral decision. "It's all on the parent who wanted it" isn't fair to the kid if that parent is poor.

I guess I'll opt for "we should support single parents more as a society" (which we should anyway), just because I have no other good answer.

@Ami: I did not know that!

@Pervocracy: For me, it comes down to what's in the best interests of the child. There is a tiny human being, with a long list of needs to be met. I think the other parent should be on the hook first; government second.

On reconsideration, I think this is really an abortion issue. If the only reason women chose not to abort was that they wanted the child, then the child could be considered their responsibility. (Assuming the father was absent or wanted her to abort. If he encourages her to keep the pregnancy, then even if he later changes his mind, he's still responsible.)

But abortion isn't as simple as "want a baby? (y/n)" for many people. There's a lot of emotional, social, access-related, and sometimes medical stuff going on that means women carry pregnancies to term for reasons other than "I am actively deciding to be a mother" all the time.

That puts me right back into "oh god I don't know" territory.

@Pervocracy: A bit of good news is that HHS has now said that all birth control needs to be covered by a woman's insurance - no co-pays, nothing. Free. And not just the Pill - IUDs, Depo-Provera, etc., will all have to be covered by insurance by 2013.

So that will help reduce the number of accidental pregnancies quite dramatically. I don't know if abortion is covered under this, it probably isn't, but it will at least help a lot of women!

re: HHS decision It will be just in time for my next Implanon, with any luck! This last one cost me >$500, which was about the a 1/3 of the overall cost. Worth it for three years of pretty damn effective birth control but ow.

Yah, Holly Pervocracy, I have similar discomforts about the idea that sexual contact definitely always equals consent to at the least financially supporting a child, if not also emotionally. Personally, I have known a few women baffled by the fact that the unintended pregnancy didn't immediately cause the father to love the resulting child. "I just don't understand, even though he never wanted to be a father, he isn't acting like a father." I don't know what to say. I really don't think anyone can be forced to be a parent, even if they are by blood, and no amount of well wishing or shaming or anything will change that. Kind of the same thing with mothers, and why I don't understand the opposition to "every child a wanted child." Although I understand the idea that parents should provide child support, in practice... eehhhh.