True. I suppose I was looking at that from the wrong angle.
Overall I would say that in the sense you're talking about (which primarily seems to be financial responsibility), it's not equal (i.e. the woman has more control), and I personally don't think that it should be. Before having sex, both partners have equal control over whether or not it results in a child. If the guy makes the wrong decisions* at that point, then he has to live with him. Maybe it's not fair that the woman can later make a decision not to live with the consequences, but then she has different consequences to live with. For couples that want a child, it's not fair that a woman has to bear the burden of childbirth in general, either. Granted, that's a biological thing, and not something that technology and social norms can yet address.
If a woman decides to terminate her pregnancy, it generally has much higher and longer-lasting emotional costs than it does for the man (in this case assuming that neither want the responsibility of a child). How would you put a value on that in this comparison? The woman has to choose between financial responsibility and emotional trauma (combined in many cases with a surgical procedure) -- she pays a cost either way. The man, under your system, pays no cost if he decides, "I don't want to be responsible for this child."
I'm starting to go on a mental exercise on how it might change the landscape of this issue if cheap and effective artificial gestation were the norm in society, just to take the issue of pregnancy out of it. To take it to its core: two people make a decision which results in X. With both of their consent, and only with both of their consent, X will not occur. But if one of the two people wants X, then what is the responsibility of the other person? They still performed the actions resulting in X -- had they not, then X would not have had a possibility of occurring. You know, in the BDSM world, perhaps this somewhat equates to withdrawing consent after the fact. "I gave informed consent at the time, but now I've decided that I don't like the consequences."
* This is talking about the usual case of not using protection, not cases of properly used protection failing.
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Date: 2010-08-31 05:21 pm (UTC)Overall I would say that in the sense you're talking about (which primarily seems to be financial responsibility), it's not equal (i.e. the woman has more control), and I personally don't think that it should be. Before having sex, both partners have equal control over whether or not it results in a child. If the guy makes the wrong decisions* at that point, then he has to live with him. Maybe it's not fair that the woman can later make a decision not to live with the consequences, but then she has different consequences to live with. For couples that want a child, it's not fair that a woman has to bear the burden of childbirth in general, either. Granted, that's a biological thing, and not something that technology and social norms can yet address.
If a woman decides to terminate her pregnancy, it generally has much higher and longer-lasting emotional costs than it does for the man (in this case assuming that neither want the responsibility of a child). How would you put a value on that in this comparison? The woman has to choose between financial responsibility and emotional trauma (combined in many cases with a surgical procedure) -- she pays a cost either way. The man, under your system, pays no cost if he decides, "I don't want to be responsible for this child."
I'm starting to go on a mental exercise on how it might change the landscape of this issue if cheap and effective artificial gestation were the norm in society, just to take the issue of pregnancy out of it. To take it to its core: two people make a decision which results in X. With both of their consent, and only with both of their consent, X will not occur. But if one of the two people wants X, then what is the responsibility of the other person? They still performed the actions resulting in X -- had they not, then X would not have had a possibility of occurring. You know, in the BDSM world, perhaps this somewhat equates to withdrawing consent after the fact. "I gave informed consent at the time, but now I've decided that I don't like the consequences."
* This is talking about the usual case of not using protection, not cases of properly used protection failing.