Feminism: Allegations of Sexual Violations

[sperry]

I definitely understand the need to understand the ancestry of a child for genetic health reasons, but that can wait until after the child is born - no point in having an uncomfortable medical procedure done to find out before. There's nothing irresponsible or bad about not knowing the father of the baby in your belly, but it might be a little irresponsible to not care about finding out once the child is born...but on the other hand, parenting is an intensely personal thing, and if a woman decides it's best if the child doesn't have any connection to the father, that's her choice. She may know that all the possible father candidates are not father material and would not WANT to know that, or she may not want them having a permanent role in her life.

How on earth is it the woman's sole right to decide whether the child has any connection to the father or not?

[Xray the Enforcer]

If the child is the product of a rape, for example.

[Galactus]

If the child is the product of a rape, for example.

Even then, wouldn't it be the child's right (eventually) to know and how to deal with that?

[Crom Dubh]

In other situations too, it seems unethical to remove the potential for a father to spend time with a child. Not that someone is owed a relationship with their child simply because they fathered it (or birthed it, for that matter), but I don't think its fair to say its always the woman's choice on whether or not to tell someone they are a potential father. Certainly in some cases it is warranted (rape, an abusive father, or an obviously uninterested one, or one that is impossible/very difficult to determine/contact) but not in all, by any means.

[Castel]

Even then, wouldn't it be the child's right (eventually) to know and how to deal with that?

"Eventually" means after the vast majority of the time that the mother is the guardian has passed though right? EDIT: Thinking about it I don't even know when you could say that someone has to tell you about such a traumatic experience.

Still, the argument from personal autonomy or preference still grates. It's not like choosing who to sleep with.

[Galactus]

In other situations too, it seems unethical to remove the potential for a father to spend time with a child. Not that someone is owed a relationship with their child simply because they fathered it (or birthed it, for that matter), but I don't think its fair to say its always the woman's choice on whether or not to tell someone they are a potential father. Certainly in some cases it is warranted (rape, an abusive father, or an obviously uninterested one, or one that is impossible/very difficult to determine/contact) but not in all, by any means.

Pretty much, you're not owed a relationship with a child you fathered, the child you fathered is owed a relationship with you. (should it want it) The father is the debtor, not the creditor.

[Crom Dubh]

Pretty much, you're not owed a relationship with a child you fathered, the child you fathered is owed a relationship with you. (should it want it) The father is the debtor, not the creditor.

Agreed. Parenting in general follows that line of logic, I'd say.

[sperry]

Pretty much, you're not owed a relationship with a child you fathered, the child you fathered is owed a relationship with you. (should it want it) The father is the debtor, not the creditor.

Why not? I would say you are owed a say in the raising of a child you're the father of, unless it can be shown that there's a reason you shouldn't have one (you're abusive, you raped the mother, you're a drug addict/ mentally incapable of decisionmaking, etc.). But that should be affirmatively proven, not defaulted to.

[Taenqyrhae]

How on earth is it the woman's sole right to decide whether the child has any connection to the father or not?

Because impregnating someone should not give you the right to remain a part of that person's life for the next 18+ years. If a man wants to father a child, he can make arrangements with a woman to do so, provide support through the pregnancy, be recognized legally as the father, etc. The situation I was originally discussing was one where the woman did not know who impregnated her, implying that she had sex with multiple men within a menstrual cycle and did not take any steps to make sure that only one of them impregnated her. In this situation, she does not know who the father is, and while pregnant she does not care. Rights have to be enforceable by society, there has to be some consequence for being denied your rights. How can a man have the right to know if he is the father of a fetus in some woman's belly? You can't go to court and demand a pregnant woman get an amniocentesis just because you had sex with her, so the right is unenforceable, and therefore it is not a right. If a single mother of a child has a blood test on the child, there is doctor/patient privilege between the doctor and the child (and by extension it's legal guardian). A man does not have the right to privileged medical information for a child that might not even be theirs.

If a woman claims that a particular man is the father, that man has the right to determine if this is true. He can have a court request a blood test be done. If the woman refuses to have the child tested, she cannot be forced, but she can no longer legally claim that this man is the father since she denied his ability to confirm it.

Imagine if this was not the case. Let's say I'm upset that I didn't have a son and my wife is getting too old to have babies, so I look into alternatives. In this hypothetical scenario, I have the legal right to determine if sex I had with women resulted in my producing a son. Since this is my right, I should be able to give the court a list of women I've had sex with and check records to see if they had any children, and if there are any children that might possibly be mine, I can demand that she take that kid that I've had nothing to do with all these years to have a blood test, and then demand to be the father of this child. Giving men this right would be a huge infringement on the rights of women to live their own lives and raise their progeny as they choose.

[Crom Dubh]

Because impregnating someone should not give you the right to remain a part of that person's life for the next 18+ years. If a man wants to father a child, he can make arrangements with a woman to do so, provide support through the pregnancy, be recognized legally as the father, etc. The situation I was originally discussing was one where the woman did not know who impregnated her, implying that she had sex with multiple men within a menstrual cycle and did not take any steps to make sure that only one of them impregnated her. In this situation, she does not know who the father is, and while pregnant she does not care. Rights have to be enforceable by society, there has to be some consequence for being denied your rights. How can a man have the right to know if he is the father of a fetus in some woman's belly? You can't go to court and demand a pregnant woman get an amniocentesis just because you had sex with her, so the right is unenforceable, and therefore it is not a right. If a single mother of a child has a blood test on the child, there is doctor/patient privilege between the doctor and the child (and by extension it's legal guardian). A man does not have the right to privileged medical information for a child that might not even be theirs.

If a woman claims that a particular man is the father, that man has the right to determine if this is true. He can have a court request a blood test be done. If the woman refuses to have the child tested, she cannot be forced, but she can no longer legally claim that this man is the father since she denied his ability to confirm it.

Imagine if this was not the case. Let's say I'm upset that I didn't have a son and my wife is getting too old to have babies, so I look into alternatives. In this hypothetical scenario, I have the legal right to determine if sex I had with women resulted in my producing a son. Since this is my right, I should be able to give the court a list of women I've had sex with and check records to see if they had any children, and if there are any children that might possibly be mine, I can demand that she take that kid that I've had nothing to do with all these years to have a blood test, and then demand to be the father of this child. Giving men this right would be a huge infringement on the rights of women to live their own lives and raise their progeny as they choose.

Awful lot of assumptions there, including that women are always, or should always, be the primary care-givers for children, and that women have a right to their progeny in the sense that they "own" them in some sense. The woman doesn't "own" her progeny, in the same way the man doesn't own it. It's a thorny issue, I agree, since the woman definitely takes on a great deal more responsibility during the pregnancy, since she is literally inseparable from the child. However, that does not eliminate the fact that the child may indeed benefit from a relationship with its father, and I think its quite unethical to allow the woman to determine something of such major importance to the child. First of all, it seems to reinforce the somewhat harmful notion of women as the only suitable caretakers for children, which goes hand-in-hand with patriarchal assumptions about the role of women in society (mothers, caretakers, homemakers, etc). Second, it denies the child a relationship with its father: a relationship which can be, and often is, vital to a child's development (this is assuming a heteronormative relationship, of course. Since the post I'm addressing seems concerned only with such, so shall my response). You assume the influence of the father on the child is negligible at best, or negative at worst, to which I say that harmful parenting is by no means limited to men, and to assume a woman has specific right to raising her child simply because she birthed it assumes a great many things about the person in question which may, or may not, be true.

[MerenthaClone]

The mother knows she's the mother by virtue of, well, giving birth. She doesn't have any more of a right to raise the child than the father. All he's saying, as far as I can tell, is explaining why wanting to be involved in the child's life does not give you the right to.

[Crom Dubh]

The mother knows she's the mother by virtue of, well, giving birth. She doesn't have any more of a right to raise the child than the father. All he's saying, as far as I can tell, is explaining why wanting to be involved in the child's life does not give you the right to.

No one ever questioned whether the mother knows she is the mother or not. And from what I read, the argument was exactly that the mother has more right to raise a child compared to the father. Regarding "wanting to be involved with child vs. right to be involved with child", the same could be said of mothers as it could of fathers, so why stress the right of a mother to her progeny?

[Castel]

Because impregnating someone should not give you the right to remain a part of that person's life for the next 18+ years

This was my problem with the personal autonomy argument. There are things beyond just the mother.

The mother knows she's the mother by virtue of, well, giving birth. She doesn't have any more of a right to raise the child than the father. All he's saying, as far as I can tell, is explaining why wanting to be involved in the child's life does not give you the right to.

It seems to go far farther than that surely? The implication here seems to be that the inconvenience (which seems deliberately undefined- he/she didn't use the sorts of extreme cases that XRay used so I assume we're talking generally) gave one parent the right to unilaterally cut out another at will.

[Crom Dubh]

Castel articulated my objections in a far more legible manner.

[Taenqyrhae]

Awful lot of assumptions there, including that women are always, or should always, be the primary care-givers for children, and that women have a right to their progeny in the sense that they "own" them in some sense. The woman doesn't "own" her progeny, in the same way the man doesn't own it. It's a thorny issue, I agree, since the woman definitely takes on a great deal more responsibility during the pregnancy, since she is literally inseparable from the child. However, that does not eliminate the fact that the child may indeed benefit from a relationship with its father, and I think its quite unethical to allow the woman to determine something of such major importance to the child. First of all, it seems to reinforce the somewhat harmful notion of women as the only suitable caretakers for children, which goes hand-in-hand with patriarchal assumptions about the role of women in society (mothers, caretakers, homemakers, etc). Second, it denies the child a relationship with its father: a relationship which can be, and often is, vital to a child's development (this is assuming a heteronormative relationship, of course. Since the post I'm addressing seems concerned only with such, so shall my response). You assume the influence of the father on the child is negligible at best, or negative at worst, to which I say that harmful parenting is by no means limited to men, and to assume a woman has specific right to raising her child simply because she birthed it assumes a great many things about the person in question which may, or may not, be true.

I'm not saying that women own their children, I'm saying they have no obligation to tell men who have impregnated them that they are fathers. The alternative, as I pointed out, is pretty terrible for both women and children.

It's a fairly rare occurrence when a woman knows the father of her child and doesn't let him know, but in cases where that does happen, I don't believe she is under any legal obligation to undergo genetic testing and contact all the men she slept with.

[Taenqyrhae]

Basically, I believe a man who does not know he is a father has no parental obligations or rights. If he thinks it's unfair, he should ask why he doesn't know he's the father. He's obviously not primary mate material to the woman he happened to impregnate.

[Taenqyrhae]

Plus there is the invasion of privacy issue. If a man had parental rights to any child he fathered, he would be able to get to court and sue a woman he slept with to provide proof that the child was not his if she denied it. There would be situations where the test would be forced by the state and no proof of paternity found. All because she slept with the wrong guy.

Currently a woman can just claim to have slept with someone else if she really hates the idea of maintaining a relationship with the sperm provider, and there's no way it could be proven wrong. That's because you cannot legally force a person to name you as a father of their child against their will.

[Taenqyrhae]

Oh, then there's the situation when there is a marriage with one of the parties. Do you believe a married woman should have to prove the paternity of her children because some guy signed an affidavit saying he slept with her X years ago? And then what does that establish? Should the man who has been raising the child as his own all these years yield all parental rights to some guy who slept with his wife years ago?

[Glaurung]

Basically, I believe a man who does not know he is a father has no parental obligations or rights. If he thinks it's unfair, he should ask why he doesn't know he's the father. He's obviously not primary mate material to the woman he happened to impregnate.

I'm not sure how a man not knowing that he is a father makes him not primary mate material. Please explain..

Currently a woman can just claim to have slept with someone else if she really hates the idea of maintaining a relationship with the sperm provider, and there's no way it could be proven wrong. That's because you cannot legally force a person to name you as a father of their child against their will.

This doesn't really make sense either. This does imply ownership of the child by the mother and that the father has no rights. This gives a woman free reign to decide who she thinks the father SHOULD be. Withholding a child from its biological father simply because she doesn't want a relationship with him. There could be valid reasons, but often times there are no valid reasons other than somebody being vindictive over a bad breakup, or having found a wealthier partner.

Oh, then there's the situation when there is a marriage with one of the parties. Do you believe a married woman should have to prove the paternity of her children because some guy signed an affidavit saying he slept with her X years ago? And then what does that establish? Should the man who has been raising the child as his own all these years yield all parental rights to some guy who slept with his wife years ago?

This one strikes me hard because it happened to a very close friend of mine. He slept with a married woman long ago. He found out later from one of her close friends that he was actually the biological father, not the husband. She refused to let him be part of his daughter's life. He sued for a paternity test and it was positive, he is the father. Yet the state disallowed him any contact because the husband had raised the daughter as his and was named as the father based on the mother's decision. I saw what my friend went through...the depression, the anger, the sadness. I embraced him as he cried on my shoulder over and over and over again. It isn't right. He should have the chance to form a relationship with his daughter and the daughter should have the right to know.

[Glaurung]

It's a fairly rare occurrence when a woman knows the father of her child and doesn't let him know, but in cases where that does happen, I don't believe she is under any legal obligation to undergo genetic testing and contact all the men she slept with.

Also, I don't know how anybody can justify the woman not informing the father in the instance that she actually does know who the father is. If you know who the father is, you need to let him know. Cases of rape or abuse withstanding.