Day 31, Abortion and fairness

[sparr]

When it comes time to have a baby, there is a lot of decision making and immediate and future responsibility involved. My views on this issue are controversial, and something that came up in conversation recently so I thought they would be worth putting down in writing.

First, let's assume that the burden of raising the child is going to be shared, either in a household, or via child support. In the real world there are single mothers, and single fathers, and the burden is rarely split evenly in terms of effort or money, but I think that all of those scenarios represent failures of the system beyond the scope of this point (or intentional decisions, also beyond said scope).

Jane and John decide to hook up. They are both involved in the decision to have sex. Both have the option to back out, or even pull out, unusual positions notwithstanding. A child is conceived.

Fast forward 9 months, for the sake of my preferred narrative order here. The child is born, and both parents share the responsibility for the child's welfare. Either parent could opt to run off, leaving the other single. Either or both parents can hire a nanny, or make schooling decisions, or get the kid a crazy haircut, or send him to boarding school, etc. Judicial bias[1] notwithstanding, both parents have equal responsibilities and rights after birth.

So far, by way of this explanation as opposed to chronologically, everything is equitable and fair. Both parties have had the same amount of decision-making power, and the same amount of responsibility. Now, let's go back to those all-important 9 months...

Jane is the first to find out she is pregnant. She has the option to tell John about the baby or not. She has control over whether she takes the morning-after pill (or the new week-after pill). During the next 9 months, Jane shares her body, gives up many sorts of freedoms, and might regret it. John isn't necessarily involved in any of those negative consequences[2]. During the first trimester or two (or none), depending on who you ask, Jane has the option of having an abortion. In a few jurisdictions, she doesn't, and in a few she needs John's permission, but by and large this is Jane's decision.

So, to sum up, Jane's unique consequences are up to 9 months[3] of pregnancy (loss of mobility, freedom, potential medical complications, etc). Her unique benefits are greater access to information, and unilateral control of the abortion decision. John gets to skip the former and has almost no control over the latter.

Do you think this is fair? Does up to 9 months of discomfort earn Jane the right to further commit 18 years worth of John's support/income/etc outside of his control?

I find this to be a very un-equitable situation. By almost any scheme I can come up with[4], the value proposition for the two parties is significantly out of balance. Jane has far more power over the outcome of the situation than John for not nearly as much more investment.

I am not sure what a fair solution would be. My initial thought is that John should have the right to abdicate his financial responsibility by requesting that Jane get an abortion. This resolves the issue of who has control over the outcome, as both parties have the option to back out at all the same times. However, this would leave Jane at a disadvantage, as she is still the only one who has to carry the baby to term.

I look forward to the discussion that I hope to spark with this post. Especially if any particularly insightful ideas come up, as this is a point on which I am unhappy with my own solution and hope to find a better one[5].

[1] Most judges favor the mother. I choose not to argue that point, since at worst it's moot, at best it makes my later point stronger.

[2] I know some harried fathers-to-be who would disagree

[3] "Up to" because she can opt to give up. "9 months" because "40 weeks" is a much less common search term.

[4] There are many ways you could compare 18 years of John's sweat to 9 months use of Jane's body. Normal compensation rates for surrogate mothers come to mind as a plausible basis for such a comparison.

[5] Contrary to the belief of some, my opinions are not set in stone. I consider my value system to be one of the most internally consistent that I have encountered, but it still has gaps in it that I cannot reconcile. If you can rationally validate your position, and it is more consistent than mine, then mine will have to be adjusted.

PS: This is the last day of the August challenge, which I failed miserably. I shall continue writing when I can, and hope you continue reading!

Comments

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

1. Accepted
2. Accepted, included originally under "medical complications"
3. This goes to my point, Jane is giving up something worth ~$60k in return for control of significantly more of John's money over the course of 18 years.
4. My issue is that at the moment of conception, John is making a greater overall commitment than the woman. How to equitably balance that is where I am stuck.
5. More data is needed, but this definitely weighs in favor of Jane.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

4. I don't see it that way; if the parents each give an equal percentage of their income to raise a child, then yes, he's likely to give more actual cold hard cash than she is; but he's still likely to retain more (an average male salary in the US is almost $41k, women avg as mentioned 31k). So if they both give the same percentage, and yes he'll give more, but on average, still keep more. If they both give the same *amount*, then he'll be giving a lower percentage.

Additionally, a study at Cornell shows that women with children are offered jobs less often, and are hired at lower rates than men and women without children. A study at Harvard showed that men *with* children are offered better wages than men without (neither of these are fair, but they have been proven). So in addition to the risks of pregnancy, the commitment to 2 years of pregnancy issues, and, if she nurses, about 3-4 years of that, a woman who has children actually gives up potential income by doing so over the 18 or so years of child raising (women who do not have children are within 5% of male salaries; so the average income of a childfree woman is likely about $39k; while it's really freaking sloppy statistics, a woman who has a child is on average giving up $8k a year *before* even paying anything for the child's needs, on average).

So a woman has a lot more to think about when making the decision to have a child, as it's going to cost her potential income, actual income, and then the physical issues. On the other hand, since a man *increases* his earning potential by spawning, he gets an extra advantage there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disparity_in_the_United_States

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Sorry to be unclear on #4. I don't mean that the man will actually pay more than the woman, although as you point out that is the case as well. What I am getting at is that the woman has the option to commit to 18 years of both parties paying for the child while the man doesn't have that option. It's the value of that decision that is at issue here.

[miketodd13.livejournal.com]

Sparr, there's something you didn't consider in the numbers. Okay, let's say $60k for surrogate motherhood. But past the point of birth, go on the assumption that the father is spending no time with the child (as if it didn't exist), and paying child support to offset that. How much would it cost him to get a nanny that performed all of those services, to where parenthood would be a completely hands-off matter for him? So you could think of it like this: he's paying the mother child support to do that for him, and at most child support rates versus live-in nanny rates, he's getting a very good deal.

That said: thespian, the statistics you give are questionable (as statistics tend to be), and also seem to be correlational from what I see. One of my nitpicks with statistics in general is that correlation does not prove causation*. In other words, "Fathers have a higher average income than non-fathers" is absolutely not equivalent to "if a non-father becomes a father, he will get more income." Also, according to the Wikipedia article, there have been other studies that have shown fatherhood to have no effect on wages one way or the other.

* The classic example here: body weight is extremely highly correlated with intelligence (the more someone weighs, the more intelligent they are likely to be). This is a for-real, true fact. That does not mean that if you were to over-eat and gain weight that you would become more intelligent though. It's obvious why all of this is, if you think about it for a moment. Babies aren't that smart, and don't weigh that much. Toddlers have a bit more reasoning ability, and weigh more. Teenagers, all the way to adults.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

He is getting a good deal compared to a nanny. He is not getting a good deal compared to being able to say, 3 months in, "I don't want this responsibility any more".

[miketodd13.livejournal.com]

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.