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It's a... difficult area, for sure. The scenario where some guy and some girl have a one night stand and then nine months later he's on the hook for a whole tonne of money is a Very Bad scenario, because obviously there's no promise of support inherent in that, and I'm not gonna pretend that scenario has never happened, and in cases where it has it's difficult to suggest that more nuance shouldn't have been taken. I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that "paper abortion" is a workable concept in the general case, though. If a couple is a couple and they break up eight months into the pregnancy, then suddenly you have one person who is about to lose their financial support _and_ their ability to financially provide for themselves, but "Child Support" as a concept isn't there for the parent, but the child. The main difference between actual abortion in this case and paper abortion is that paper abortion still involves a child, and you can't get away from that. That child needs supporting, and permitting the "provider" member of a traditional "provider/childbearer" childbearing couple to vanish late in the process totally screws over the child, and that's what child support laws are there to avoid. There's definitely cases where this goes wrong, but I don't think I've seen much evidence that those are anything but a tiny minority. >Just a side note, but I don't think there is a legal system that I know which would force the other woman to pay child-support against her will. I think that's probably true, unfortunately, and I think that's very silly and needs fixing. A two-woman pair is effectively identical to a man-woman pair (save obviously for usually requiring artificial insemination). >The only promise of support should come from society at large to give every child the same possibility in life regardless of how much money their parent or parents has. This, though, I can agree with wholeheartedly. I would be 100% behind abolishing child support as the current concept in order to replace it with a general child support system not dependant on the financial situation of either parent - kind of like UBI but for the child. We don't have that yet, though, so we're just kind of working with what we have, and what we have is a very imperfect system that prioritises the child above the parents, because the child has no choices in anything and is in need of far more protection. |
Since a woman is not allowed to wait eight months and then decide to have an abortion there is a argument to make that men should have to follow the same time limit. This is not about giving men more rights then women, but rather equal reproductive rights.
> I would be 100% behind abolishing child support as the current concept in order to replace it with a general child support system not dependant on the financial situation of either parent - kind of like UBI but for the child.
Here in Sweden I would claim that we have such support system already but the political climate is as hostile to giving men reproductive right as it is in countries without it. Every child is guarantied housing, food, school and about 125$ per month as a form of UBI until the age of 18 that by law must exclusively go to support the individual childs needs for everyday items like clothing. There is also an addition to the UBI per child if a family has multiple children.
> a very imperfect system that prioritises the child above the parents, because the child has no choices in anything and is in need of far more protection
The concept that children is at risk or worse when they only have a single parent is not very consistent in political discussions. In the last years the support grown very large that single women should be allowed to start a family through artificial insemination (paid by the government), and I have not seen any political opposition that talks about the child must have two parents. The outcome for the child is identical to that of paper abortion, but politically it is very different.