Well...it has been a while....
Over on this thread,
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=130633
there is a discussion related to whether the circumstances of men's parental rights, and obligations, are fair, or not.
In post #33 on that thread, I wrote:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by host
You're assuming so many things in your support of an option for a male to "have his say"...
Substitute the word "state" for father, read the NY Times article I linked to at the bottom of post #4.
The first thing in the court proceeding is the judge appointed a "guardian" to "represent" the fetus....
This is a thread, whether by intent or design, about publicly exposing matters extremely sensitive and private, for a woman who becomes an object of a man resorting to some legal mechanism that does not currently exist, courts say it is settledl law, to seek redress in court to "preserve a pregnancy", with the goal of directing the authority of the state to force a full term pregnancy and birth.
Let's look on how it can "be done right".
Requirements would include a viable, timely, notification "process". Any woman who becomes pregnant would be required to notify any man who she has reason to believe has a probable paternity interest, in a timely way, via a "proof of notification" mechanism, acceptable as timely and verifiable in a resulting criminal or civil proceeding.
In the case where several individuals could possibly have a paternity interest, notification to multiple individuals would be neccessary.
To respond to issues of health risks associated with pregnancy, and to the possibility of changing fortunes of someone with a paternity interest involved in contesting termination of a pregnancy, posting a bond, early in the court proceeding, to fund medical expenses and protect against resulting disability or other temporary or permanent debilitating effects of the contested pregnancy, including birth defects, as well as to partially or fully fund reasonable child support for the ensuing 18 years.
Doesn't even the discussion, in recent posts, of commitment to provide financial support, and pay for lost wages and medical expenses, confine this "male right", to males of some significant financial means?
Do we really want to go there? A procedure to force an unwilling woman to endure a pregancy to full term and delivery at the insistance of a man who can afford financially, to qualify to do that?
Don't wealthy males have enough "rights", at the expense of the rest of us, already? For women living in poverty in rural areas, and in all of South Dakota, aren't "forced pregnancies", already the norm?
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...and I got the same response as I got to the questions about procedure and implementation, as I got so long ago, on this thread?
Isn't the best way, "to be fair", to require that all women of childbearing age have weekly or bi-monthly "pregnancy screenings", with results officially certified and "on file", available to inspection, for the sake of "fairness", whether abortions in a given jurisdiction are legally permitted, or not?
If they are legally performed, the purpose of the mandatory, regular pregnancy screenings would be to satisfy the "fairness" requirement in maintianing male parental rights. All a potential father would need to keep tabs on the results of his sexual couplings, would be the full names, and maybe a pregnancy screening client reference number, of his recent partners.
Under such a mandate, a woman would be much less likely to be pregnant without her partner having an opportunity to attempt to prohibit her from terminating her pregnancy without him having his say, and hopefully a court hearing where he could attempt to convince an impartial magistrate of his fitness and financial soundness, so an intervention could be accomplished to maintain the pregnancy to allow him to become a father.
If, in a given jurisdiction, abortion was prohibited by law, this same mandatory, frequent pregnancy screening would serve to "lock down", women of considerable financial means to leave an abortion restricted jursidiction, to bring fairness to an abortion prohibition that would much more likely make legal, clinical abortion only beyond the reach of women of limited financial means. The frequent screenings would require any woman who tested pregnant, and then subsequently tested negative, to explain to enforcement authorities, how the pregnancy ended. All women would then be legally accountable.
It seems fair to me, but kind of restrictive for advocates of abortion restriction who otherwise strongly favor less government intervention and regulation, not more....
....or is all of it, either not thought completely through, or just absolutely fucking absurd, because we are in the US of A, and it is 2008?