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Comment by ben1 | Hacker News Reader

> Now men or women can decide when they want a child and on what terms

Women currently have much more choice which gives them an unfair advantage. If a woman becomes pregnant by accident then she can abort or not abort without the man having any say in it. So if you make the argument that it's her body and the man shouldn't have a say (which is fine, I agree), then at the very least the man should have the equal option of "financial abortion" so that he has the same after-the-fact choice to not have a child that he didn't plan on having. It is best for society when children grow up with parents who both wanted them.

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> Women currently have much more choice which gives them an unfair advantage.

Men are free to choose to abstain from PIV intercourse, get vasectomies, or wear condoms, depending on their level of risk acceptance. They can also choose to have sex only when they are on the same page as their partner about what to do in the case of unplanned pregnancy. This requires a pre-coital conversation, and the acceptance that one party may change their mind.

> at the very least the man should have the equal option of "financial abortion"

No. Child support or co-parenting is not a punishment for the father, it is support for a child that exists. Also, men do not have to carry a pregnancy and go through childbirth and any resulting complications, and breastfeeding (if chosen). Let's accept that biology makes this situation unequal and not try to equalize it.

> It is best for society when children grow up with parents who both wanted them.

Possibly/probably. But growing up with two parents who both wanted a child is not the case for many existing people. Let's focus on managing the reality and making sure children grow up with the support of both parents when possible, and not focus on trying to do mental gymnastics to force the idea that any potential consequences of sex should not fall on men.

You didn't even try to understand the viewpoint of men objectively here. You are telling men that they should be choosing to abstain from PIV intercourse, get invasive surgery or wear condoms which can all fail anyway which destroys your point anyway, but even if it didnt then a woman has to do none of these things and she still gets a choice of whether she wants to become a parent or not. Always. A man needs this choice too or it is not fair.

> Child support or co-parenting is not a punishment for the father

The millions of unwilling fathers who have to pay massive amounts of money would violently disagree with that statement. How can you even make such a statement without the alarm bells going off in your head? Just put yourself into their position, you didn't want a child, you still don't want one but now you have to pay money into it. It takes some breathtaking mental gymnastics on your part to shoehorn your ideological beliefs (fatherhood = never bad) into this objectively bad situation that has no equivalent for women. I suspect you are fighting an ideological battle here, trying to convince everyone and maybe most of all yourself that fatherhood must never be seen as negative when reality just disagrees with you.

> men do not have to carry a pregnancy and go through childbirth and any resulting complications, and breastfeeding

Neither do women, they have the right to an abortion. Again, this just shows that you didn't even attempt to understand what my point was.

> Let's accept that biology makes this situation unequal and not try to equalize it.

Absolutely not, what kind of cruel joke is this? We see an obvious discrepancy with a very fair solution for both sides and you say no. One is inclined to think that there is a profit motive behind this for you if you are arguing like this.

> Let's focus on managing the reality and making sure children grow up with the support of both parents when possible

aka. forcing men into parenthood and an 18 year long huge financial burden against their will, not to mention the emotional burden.

> mental gymnastics to force the idea that any potential consequences of sex should not fall on men

Again: Women do not have to face these potential consequences of sex, so why should men?

Isn't it funny, you say we have to accept these biological differences but only if men suffer for it. What about the biological reality that the baby is 50% the father's so why should the woman not have to accept this biological reality and be forced to ask the father for permission if she wants to abort it? But no, of course not. Equality is only something good if it's in favor of women and bad for men. Did I get that right? I think I did even if you deny it.

I'm going to very quickly bottom line this: Women have the right to refuse motherhood whether they abstain from sex or not, men do not have it. This has to be fixed, whether you personally like it when men suffer or not.

Support to a child does not go away just because a child has one parent or no parents. Demanding that the payment be done by an unwilling parent rather than society has everything to do with our cultural views. If we truly saw this as the child rights to get support then it should not matter who is paying the bill. The mother, the father, or the government.

Parenthood should be built on consent by both the mother and the father. Biology dictate that women should have the finally decision if she wants to have an abortion, but there is nothing biological to the fact that women have the exclusive right to declare in legal document who will fathering the child. That is just law, which can be changed and rewritten in any form depending on cultural values.

When someone contribution to child raising is money and nothing else, that someone is still better off then their partner.

The impact on livestyle, socializing or ability to he part of society, hobby options, career options, free time or regular fun, possible achievements etc etc is quite large for the other partner.

Regardless of gender.

That's not how it works. We're so used to the status quo that most of us don't see what is going on. I'll try, but distancing yourself from that will be hard:

Suppose it was a car, not a kid. The woman gets the car. The man pays for repairs, fuel, oil changes, and so on. He is not better off.

Normally in law, if you take something away from a person, you'll have to pay restitution. You pay damages of some sort. You have caused a loss, and so you must pay. The fact that the loss is human is not terribly special in our law: people are frequently ordered to pay compensation for wrongful death.

Normal fathers are in deep agony over the loss of their children. These fathers are often driven to suicide. The mothers frequently train the children to dislike their fathers, completely breaking the relationship.

So if the mother gets the child, logically she should pay damages to compensate the father for his loss.

Actually, the employed women are the ones who divorce more. Unemployed women divorce less. Female employment affect primary divorces in unhappy marriages - in happy marriages it does not affect divorce. Women do pay for their portion of costs after divorce.

And of course, child is not about your needs. Funny how you don't count work in child-raising at all into expenses - the times when you have to go from work sooner daily (meaning forget about projecting passionate programmer image), the part where you are not free to do what you wish in the evenings, the part where you deal with school and what not.

For you it is all about money and parents own needs. Plenty of fathers do the above work tho, including divorced ones. Universally, they don't see the child as possession the way you talk about them.

Yes, women are on average happier after divorce and men are less happy (but have it easier to find new partner). I don't know about mothers who frequently train the children to dislike fathers, it does happen occasionally just like father who is not willing to take time away to spend it with child. However, I could see how the child that is treated as a possession by father would come to resent that.

Say what? How does my 4th paragraph mean I think "it is all about money and parents own needs"?

The man is suffering. Just as if his child had been wrongfully killed, we can't fix things with money but that is normally how our law would work. It's the best we can do for the loser.

Flipping things around from our legal norm, as is done with children, is simply pouring salt into his wounds.

If child-raising is such work and annoyance (your 2nd paragraph), then let the other parent (father normally) have the kid. Oh, but giving up that sweet child support money... it sounds like you are the one for whom "it is all about money and parents own needs".

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