I seriously do not want to see more deadbeat dads (or moms, for that matter). I think forcing people to pay for an accidental and unwanted pregnancy for the rest of their working lives is sub-optimal though, and would like to see a better system. I don’t know if this better system exists. Better sex ed and access to healthcare would help both sexes in any case, without getting into more controversial points. That’s essentially where I’m coming from, and it’s certainly not that I think women have it great.
If anyone replies to me by name I’ll be happy to comment, but I think the thread will be fine without me!
That’s a fine analogy, but I’m not sure it fits with my discussion with Gulliver.
What I’m trying to do isn’t excuse the guy (at all!) but to understand how it fits with the logic of foetus as impersonal body-part. From they way Gulliver describes it it’s more like the man and woman build a car together and then it gets signed over to her and then she comes back later and tells him to pay the registration.
Well it makes it much easier when you do the talking for both of us.
But I don’t think “property rights” for the man are what I’m thinking of. In fact I think property rights is an adequate category. This thing must also (so, without challenging the idea that it is part of her body) have a life and identity of its own – otherwise what is going on is the woman is simply turning a part of her body into a person.
My question is – is this different from saying her body has created a person. Or is the thing already the beginning of a person which she allows to grow?
