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Comment by codersfocus | Hacker News Reader

> the realization that ... it is not fair to the child if the parent does not make providing the best possible environment for that child a central focus of their life

Unwise of you to state "realization of" to a statement that is not broadly agreed upon. I bet you also believe "you didn't choose to be born"?

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What's not to agree with "I didn't choose to be born"? Is there a child who asked to be born? Is there a child who consciously decided to be, or not to be, born? There's no "believing" here; it's just a biological fact: people don't get born because they want to. I really don't get what you're trying to say.

It is interesting, even, "you were the one who chose me before birth" in new-age spiritual belief terms was used as posthoc rationalization for things that were committed against me growing up by a parent, that I still deal with now. Unarguable because it's just my belief, see. I have trained myself to see people espousing it as a red flag.

It has to do with you disassociating yourself from your biological being.

When the sperm and egg fused, thus you began, and you very much wanted to be alive: it is literally programmed into your genetic makeup. It was you who decided to divide and divide continually at that point.

My point is that when you use the word "I" you seem to imply only the little bit of yourself which exists in your prefrontal cortex is you, and the rest is !you.

If you regret being alive, that is different from claiming you didn't want to be alive at one point. Wasn't it you who suckled on milk? Who cried for care and love?

On that basis, I assume you're vegan? Animals actively try to avoid getting killed.

Do you also think rape victims "enjoyed it" if they climax?

> When the sperm and egg fused, thus you began,

I'm sorry, I don't talk to people who think a single cell is a person. I'm too old now to waste time pointing out fanaticism and trying to correct it in random Internet encounters. Good day to you.

If you think providing for a child is not appropriate as a central focus of a parent's life, please take that into consideration before doing anything which might involve a child.

While politics are something I prefer not to discuss, I hope that every woman who has ever found herself in need of a tampon, and every person with a concern for how laws requiring that society investigate every reported miscarriage as a potential crime shows up to vote in the next election, and that that coalition then puts in place a legal framework which makes giving birth a free and uncoerced choice.

Unfortunately that doesn't really help with the right for straight men to not be fathers. Obviously it's a difficult topic considering once the deed is done, it's done. But it does take two to tango.

One word: vasectomy. Freeze some sperm if you think you might want it later.

I won't need any later; I'm gay. But yes, men do need more birth control options to both share in the responsibility for it as well as to empower them to proactively make a decision before it can be taken away from them.

Or, one can make a conscious decision to only be sexually intimate with a person with whom one has a sufficient emotional connection that raising a child together is a reasonable premise.

Isn't that a one-sided requirement, though?

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