Comment by solatic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by solatic | Hacker News Reader

> "One law we definitely need is to make sure people can't become genetic parents without their knowledge or consent," says Greely.

Exactly when and how is consent given?

Going down this ethical train of thought, one could argue that sexual intercourse only implies consent for sexual intercourse, not consent for reproduction. If the requirement for consent implies a requirement for a written contract, then consent for sexual intercourse does not imply consent for reproduction. If the requirement for consent merely implies a requirement for a lack of coercion and allowing people to continue on with what they have found along the path of life, then surely one should be allowed to make do with the barber's garbage.

Eventually, the discussion should stop revolving around consent and start revolving around commitment. Women should have a right to expect men to decide whether or not to make a commitment by a certain deadline, and should have the power of the courts to hold men to that commitment, should it be made. And nobody should presume that celebrities are making a commitment (of any kind) to anyone who decides that a celebrity's trash is their treasure.

> Going down this ethical train of thought, one could argue that sexual intercourse only implies consent for sexual intercourse, not consent for reproduction.

Then you may wish to have family law changed in (e.g.) the province of Ontario:

> 7 (1) The person whose sperm resulted in the conception of a child conceived through sexual intercourse is, and shall be recognized in law to be, a parent of the child. 2016, c. 23, s. 1 (1).

* https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90c12#BK9

Pregnancy is an easily foreseen consequence of having sex, and so being held (civilly) liable for actions is perfectly reasonable. Or, as old meme/trope goes: f*ck around and find out.

* https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/personal-injury/personal-...

* https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/foreseeability

> could argue that sexual intercourse only implies consent for sexual intercourse, not consent for reproduction

You might also enjoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_abortion - I stumbled upon this last night and thought about it for a while.

Sex is not separate from reproduction. If you are a man and have sex with a woman then you're consenting to be a father.

Most western countries recognize verbal and other non-written contracts. The clearest example I can see here is the UK's law about weather the genetic father is the legal father. If the child was conceived through sexual intercourse then the genetic father is always the legal father.

Sex has been separated from reproduction, at least in the few species we know of that partake in it for pleasure only. Humans engage in a variety of sexual activities that ostensibly cannot result in a pregnancy.

You talk about verbal contracts, how is that different from misrepresenting yourself if you said you were on the pill or you had a vasectomy? The verbal contract of consent can be delivered or revoked during this stage as well.

> Sex has been separated from reproduction, at least in the few species we know of that partake in it for pleasure only.

That's like saying that eating has been separated from sustenance (or nutrition) because people (just happen to) eat Twinkies for pleasure.

People doing something for reasons that just happen to not to be the primary purpose does remove the purpose of an action.

I would argue that sex is different because, looking at the animal kingdom, the result is rarely a benefit to the individual. It’s resource intensive and in some cases (with insects specifically) the ushering in of a new generation results in the death of the parent. Reproduction is absolutely essential to the survival of the species but often a bad deal for the organisms involved. It’s a bodily function that many resources are dedicated to but is the least essential for for the survival of the individual.

Part of what enables pleasure-sex in humans is the fact that penetration does not trigger ovulation and that happens on its own schedule so evolution selected for mating strategies that would lead to frequent and short encounters. Additionally, the way we began to walk upright had the effect of moving human female genitalia more to the front which enabled her to be more selective about her partners. With the parental instinct being shared among both males and females combined with the fact both parties also are able to derive a great deal of pleasure from the experience, both sexes end up being more closely aligned with the goals of a sexual encounter vs those of our most recent, more ape-like ancestors.

To bring it back around, I understand what you are trying to say here, but disagree with your conclusion. Evolution selected modern humans to engage in sexual encounters that will not always result in a pregnancy, unlike eating which your body will always attempt to process the same as the last thing you are.

This is confusing the practical realities of today with ideal law. The burden of carrying or terminating a pregnancy, bodily and fiscally rests solely on the woman in any scenario.

The law can't meaningfully distinguish, or even collect solid evidence, of "consent for reproduction" nor can it handle third party equipment failure (or reasonably prove it was not due to misuse either way).

If a man has sex with a woman and she gets pregnant, every bodily consequence falls on her, and some magic "I didn't consent to reproduce" law would have the practical effect of legally compelling a woman's decisions about her body to her own detriment.

All of which is a long winded way of saying: having sex is not consenting to be a father, but it is consenting to having to deal with the possible consequences. Invent a world where men can disable sperm production entirely, and you'd be able to write very different laws.

Are we pretending things like vasectomies aren’t a thing? The success rate is generally in the upper-90% so sure it could fail but for the vast majority of people, that is equivalent to “disabling sperm production entirely”

The laws also, as have been mentioned already elsewhere in this post, do include such a consent clause. So it’s not really theory either.

Are you ignoring my distinction between hypothetically perfect laws and the laws as written?

And also being just downright stupid about what a vasectomy is and it's reversibility (hint: no medical professional will perform a vasectomy if you are getting one under the impression that it is reliably reversible, particularly after decades).

You never said it had to be reversible, so maybe next time outline your goal posts a bit better if you don’t want people to blow right through them.

It’s almost as if all you said was:

> Invent a world where men can disable sperm production entirely, and you'd be able to write very different laws.

And you clearly can’t bother looking at the existing comments when you have so much snark to share so let me help you out with real, actual laws that exist. There is no difference between an ideal world and real laws when the laws actually exist.

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90c12#BK9

> There is no difference between an ideal world and real laws when the laws actually exist.

If you're not capable of understanding what a hypothetical is then there's really no further discussion to be had here.

Hypotheticals get thrown out the window when an actual law exists. I agree there's no further discussion to be had but not for the reasons you think.

That's still not how hypotheticals work, nor does it have any bearing on the original argument I was making.

You've managed to not read my original post, and have been doubling down by pretending that "well what about vasectomies" was a core problem or even oversight.

What hypothetical? The one where men can turn off reproduction? Congrats, that already exists. The one where laws are made around the ability to do so? Congratu-fucking-lations. It exists.

There is no hypothetical when the things being discussed already exist. That's not how hypotherticals work.

Next time, don't have a shit argument that can be broken down in a heartbeat and then whine about your precious hypotheticals not being respected.

> This is relatively new; previously Visa/MC prevented their merchants from doing this but it changed recently.

Not that it is the biggest point in this chain of people arguing badly past each other, but you have confused “hypothetical” (which assumes a condition independent of what is true in reality) vs. “counterfactual” (which assumes a condition contrary to what is true in reality).

Gotta love replying to a day old thread you had nothing to do with with both a quote that doesn’t come from the thread and a definition that isn’t accepted by most major dictionaries.

That’s like peak “I know what I’m talking about” material.

> If you are a man and have sex with a woman then you're consenting to be a father.

That sounds primitive and regressive. "If you're a women who has sex, you're consenting to be a mother".

If you consent to the sex, you consent to the aftermath of the sex too. Which in straight intercourse could result in pregnancy.

That’s the point, not whatever you were trying to read out of it.

If you're a woman, you're consenting to the possibility of becoming pregnant. If you're a man, you're consenting to the possibility that the woman man become pregnant and may choose to keep the baby.

That's the legal standard, yes. I think the stark inconsistency between how the sexes are treated here, with one being given far more power to decide outcomes for everyone, strikes many people as wrong. In a world where 'equality' is one of the highest values, it's hard to square that.

Equity is the real thing we should be striving for, not equality. There is a massive difference between the two, and it's very telling that even then, you chose to put quotes around equality.

Maybe when you're asking yourself why the woman has the ultimate choice, you remember that you're not the one carrying the baby to term.

I disagree. I think equity is impossible and more of a political device than an actual thought out goal. Equality is actually legally enforceable and achievable.

Certainly, the fact that the woman carries the baby is an argument in favor of her having decision of whether to abort it or not.

(Not a perfect argument, since it is of course his child as well and killing it would seem to involve both of them.)

It's harder to argue that she should also be the one to decide who is forced to work to pay for the baby's upbringing for 18 years. There is no situation where the woman can be so forced; she would give it up for adoption instead, which is the female version of 'paper abortion'.

This is where the idea of paper abortion for men comes from.

The same argument is often used against abortion (of children not conceived by rape). After all, who are you to decide to end a life you've willingly conceived?

There are even rare cases where women went digging through the trash of famous people they've had sex with to impregnate themselves. There are also plenty of stories of women sabotaging birth control to "baby trap" a man.

With our current laws, in many places, the male is forced to pay child support in this case (a failed attempt made the news recently: https://www.jacarandafm.com/news/entertainment/model-wants-s..., with more details here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_theft) or have other responsibilities not because of birth control being unreliable, but because of the malicious intent of others.

"If the baby is yours it's your problem" is too simplistic and causes legal issues in cases like these.

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