That just seems grossly and patently unfair. If you wanted to be a single mother, why should he be forced, under threat of prison, to pay for your choice?

Having been pregnant, I don’t think I do.

I knew that there are men out there who think that they should be able to have sex without any consequence to themselves. But I was surprised to see the level of resentment that existed over women being able to choose abortion - while men could not.

It also seems to me that there is probably a large number of people who are in denial about the failure rate of birth control (not that that was the issue here). I commend those men who take matters into their own hands by getting vasectomies when they realize that they do not want any (more) children.

I expect there must be a lot of men who want sex with no consequences for a number of years - who want “consequences” - children IOW - later on.

I hate to admit it - but I like the situation that women have better. But as Nick says, it’s not like you can just assume that you can get pregnant whenever you want. And I’ve known a lot of women who waited too long.

I believe he softened the message a little. ;)

In a different forum we were debating abortion (and this post to some degree), and one of things debated was the whole concept of getting permission from your parents/husband to get an abortion.
One guy said that maybe if it was a vasectomy that you needed a permission for, then men might be more understanding why it’s wrong.

WTF? She’d come by to have my mom or dad sign it, but since they weren’t in, I did the honors. I wish I knew then what I know now.

As an aside, a good friend of mine is considering getting snipped because he doesn’t want children and his girlfriend does. I support his choice 100%, because I support choice, but I made it clear to him that I do not support hiding this choice from his girlfriend.

Ugh. I realize for most people it’s a struggle. I feel almost guilty how easy with how it was easy for us to say no to children outright. What’s funny is people expect us to hate children, but both of us like children fine, in fact, we like them more now that we’ve wiped that out of our futures.

Unfortunately, his desperately-poor wife turned out to have estranged parents who were willing to let bygones be bygones, take care of us, AND had high-ranking connections in the military, which meant that his paycheck got garnisheed for child support regardless of his being in ‘Nam, so it didn’t work out all that well for him, running out on her.

–This also sounds a lot like, as it happens, one Richard Santorum, who doesn’t think that we should be paying for poor women to have babies (so much for his prolifeness) but does think that $160,000 per year is too little to raise six kids on…so he just has to beg money from his own parents’ pensions AND steal from the state.

But if I were raped and impregnated, he’d expect me nevertheless to go through with it as God’s will, at circa $20k per year with no benefits…and if I made my mother’s choice, to do so with no help whatsoever from his rich-man’s society.

When people have no representation in their government… what was that again about the course of human events?

When my husband went in, the doctor wanted him to bring a permission slip from me.

Really. What did he need you to do, Nick, beat him over the head with one of your ovaries while shouting “I’m going to use this to make a baby!”?

Some people are REALLY clueless/in denial. Makes communication all the more important, I guess.

Women who don’t want to get pregnant generally make decisions on contraception and take the necessary steps to use it, either by swallowing the pill or insisting on the condom. (Amongst other methods, of course, but those are the dominant ones.) I’ve had two major relationships in my life and frankly I doubt either man could tell you where I kept my pills or what hour I took them. I could have gone off them without them knowing, definitely. But when my second boyfriend got snipped, all of a sudden I think he realized how privileged he was. I remember him telling another friend that I had been taking on the responsibility long enough. But I doubt it will ever be equal–women simply have more at stake. I joked with him that I was going to drive him to the doctor and take him home and make sure I saw the incision with my own eyes. One of my coworkers’ friend had a baby because he husband lied to her and told her that he had gotten snipped.

I told him I wasn’t on birth control and hoped to get pregnant. This was apparently not enough for him, I should also have told him the date of my last menstrual period before we had sex. Make of that what you will.

There are few things that are more aggravating than the treatment of mothers who are abandoned by men and Government policies that seem to be deliberately punitive. Some of my work is with women in addiction, or family of the men I work with; where some of what we do is advocate and help educate women to rights that they are unaware of as well as sustenance, employment, housing, regaining parental rights etc. Sadly many of the women I deal with have been abused or have been in no mental place (because of drug abuse) to make informed choices regarding their partners. I do not believe in the “good” vs. “bad” people myth. (All people have equal worth in my faith, because of who’s they are.)

I do speak to many folks both men and women that indicate that they didn’t pay attention to the signals or have the presence to ask the hard questions before getting carried away by emotion. Many assume that the person they are with naturally feel the same as they do with out investigating further. One of the things we emphasize is to take it easy and not let that compulsion to act get the best of our folks, as this is a behavior that creates problems and needs to be checked. I am not basing my comments on stats, but the experience of an admittedly non-mainstream population. (Those in addiction.)

As far as Blessings are concerned, there are so many we do not notice, in our community most of us begin or end our communications with this type of reminder, it is rooted in the greetings and benedictions in letters long ago. Blessings.

I wish you all the best.

Amanda -
It has been my experience that despite my husband shouldering his responsibility to and for our boys (more than average I may add) - it has been my career that has ended up in the toilet, my compensation that has been penalized, and it my body (duh!) that has taken the toll. My heart brakes for most women - I have a huge and wonderful support network (including a father who brought his grandsons to my work so they could nurse.) My choices would be very different, sadly, if I hadn’t had the amount of “village support” I did.

Peace,
Marka

It’s patronizing clap-trap like this that lead me to question your regard for single mothers. You seem to make the assumption that those of us who are unmarried don’t have these conversations, or use birth control—something not borne out by any statistics, btw. But, it is a frequent stereotype trotted out to separate the “good women” from the “bad”. And the real kicker is the “blessings”, which reminds me of nothing more than Dana Carvey’s Church Lady and her Superiority Dance.

I can’t imagine, at least anymore, hitting the sheets with a man that I wasn’t like-minded with on these issues. Not that I blame women who do, of course. But I’ve been lucky enough to learn that truly responsible men open dialogue up with women on these issues. In fact, truly responsible men, knowing that women are encouraged to silence ourselves on these subjects, open up the subject knowing that the woman he is with may be afraid to do so. (In a not condescending way, of course.)

My boyfriend handled the whole thing swimmingly, I think, when he got a vasectomy. He brought it up to me, even though his mind was already made up, because it was important to get my input one way or another. He presented it in terms of his own choice, own responsibility–”I don’t want children. I’m glad you don’t. But if ever we were to break up, I don’t want them with anyone else, either.” He wanted it to be clear this was about his own choices and not an attempt to control me. I told him I was impressed by his willingness to take control of something most men his age leave to women and he was sort of confused by that. That he has responsibility to make his own choices was so certain to him, he didn’t get that other men feel differently.

But they do! How many men complain on my board about women “tricking” them into pregnancy? Now I can sympathize with the sturm und drang of broken condoms and missed pills, but a lot of these men didn’t wear a condom in the first place, expecting their partner to take it upon herself to demand one. And then they have the nerve to preach to me about responsibility.

I think women are more inclined to care because yes, it’s our bodies at stake. But men are mostly leaning on male privilege, not male biology, when they put all responsibility on women to ascertain their desires and act accordingly. Men have as much right as women to refrain from fucking if a condom isn’t in the works. We live in a culture where we can reasonably expect women to shoulder most responsibilty for these things and I think unfortunately a lot of men realize that is a woman comes up pregnant by accident, she’ll be blamed and they don’t think further than that.

Each true, and each an effective argument. But I don’t think Rock was arguing against abortion in general; it sounded to me like he meant that the couple should have had this talk before they stopped using birth control. Obviously, that’s what happened in this case, and I think Nick is absolutely right. But in other cases, where the pregnancy comes as a surprise, the man should at least have a say in the woman’s decision.

Doesn’t sharing such physical intimacy suggest the sharing of personal intention and intimacies of the heart when the stakes are potentially so high?

Sometimes, Rock, the rubber breaks. Sometimes the woman says no. Sometimes a woman is too old or unhealthy to take the risk. Sometimes the woman is not psychologically or economically able to raise a child. Sometimes a woman faces losing her job for getting pregnant. Sometimes shit happens.

And it’s the woman who has to deal with it, one way or another. Some people think that’s a woman’s burden for having a uterus. But if people were so all fired up about preventing things like abortions, then they would empower the woman so that she doesn’t get pregnant unwillingly or unexpectedly.

And yet the very same people who claim to be “pro-life” are also against birth control, sex education, emergency contraception — anything that empowers the woman.

Why is that? What’s the real agenda here?

You never know? No, actually some of us do know; we’re called “single mothers”. And this proposal that dK mentions is a perfect example of how the so-called pro-lifers think of us. Your post is another one.