Why, Onyx? Accidents do happen. No method of birth control works 100%. I've even heard of women who had their tubes tied still getting pregnant. If the woman is morally opposed to abortion, why should the guy be able to skate? For that matter, if a man does not want to be responsible for a possible pregnancy, then shouldn't HE take steps himself to ensure one doesn't happen? Men can use rubbers or get vasectomies, you know.

Sometimes employers fire employees that have garnishments just because they have them.:(

If the test proves it's not his kid, does he still have to pay for the test?

Yes, because it's already paid for. But he could in theory sue her for harassment and slander or something and try to get his money back that way. Probably wouldn't work.

Technically it's actually the dissenting party who has to pay--if a guy is insisting that a pregnant woman's baby is his in order to get visitation rights, and she is denying it, SHE'D have to pay for the test. But 99.9% of the time it's the woman pointing the finger at the guy.

I don't know about her response but here is what I find the central weakness of this statement.

In the instance of the State sterilizing profoundly retarded people, it isn't being done for the convenience of the state. It protects the retarded person from pregnancy, and from losing a child. Also it protects the retarded person's family from that burden as well.

Additionally it protects the State (in this context, it's citizens) from the burden of paying for all of this as well as the long term concern of caring for an additional unwanted, but preventable, birth.

Her pro-choice stance is predicated upon preventing late-term, convenience abortions. All she says is that if you're going to get an abortion is to get it early.

Now, all of that being said, we'll see what she says about my interpretation of her stance when she wakes up...

Originally posted by OnyxCougar She said 12 weeks not 12 minutes.

I did that once.

Now, before y'all get all up in arms, it was a screwed up circumstance. *leaving out a lot of details*My employer had been contacted and my pay had been garnished, which was fine with me, it saved me the resposibility of getting the money to them on time, it just came out of my check. It was fine until about two months into it when I got a $25 dollar check. I showed my boss the check and I told him, "See this?" He said, "Yeah, come back when you get it straightened out." They had also mandated that I be forcibly enrolled in the company's insurance program. Now, the rub of it is, is that she at the time (and maybe still is) she was married and living in England.

The question a non-custodial parent has to ask is,"I can work and not pay my bills or I can not and still not pay my bills. Which one is it?"

In the end I got it straightened out by, believe it or not, getting the state to intercede on my behalf with the state that had garnished my wages. They were limited to a total deduction of no more than half, or $250 a month, either of which I could afford and was still more than she was drawing in state assistance in Virgina.

As far as I know, he has to pay for the test beforehand.

Actually, that's a very good question. I don't think I've ever really considered it. Let me think about it and I'll get back to you.


Sidhe

Yup, that's what I mean. Like Onyx, I'm morally against abortion, and I wouldn't do it myself, even if I got raped (IMO, it's not the child's fault that his father is lower than pond scum, and the baby should not have to pay for the sins of the father. If I felt I couldn't live with the reminder, I'd give the child up for adoption)--however, if something was so wrong with my child, I may consider it---I don't think so, though, because I don't think I could live with myself. The way I see it, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people out there who can't have kids, and often they're willing to pay for both taking care of the woman during pregnancy AND the birth, so I don't see the point of abortion, unless the mother's life is at stake and both parents decide that that's what they want to do.

There are so many early-term methods of abortion that don't involve such cruelty and pain to the fetus. It's not like people wake up one morning to find themselves six months pregnant. They know they're pregnant early on, if not from a missed period (s), then from a pregnancy test. There's no excuse for waiting so long to get an abortion.

Everything TS said is right on, btw.

Just as an aside, I personally know of three abortion instances that I will relate here:

One, I personally SAW a woman dragging her daughter into a clinic. The girl did not want to get an abortion. The boyfriend was there, too, wearing all kinds of gold jewelry and nice clothes. The mother and the guy said to the protesters outside that they couldn't AFFORD the baby....(this was on the news about ten years ago)...maybe if he'd sell some of that gold, he could take care of his responsibility.

Two, I know two girls who've had abortions. They didn't know each other, but they both told me the same thing, almost verbatim, when I asked them why they didn't give the babies up for adoption: "I would rather kill my baby than know someone else had it." One of them even celebrated her baby's "birthday" every year. That's fucking SICK. Both the celebration and the callous reasons for having the abortion.


Sidhe

No, read the rest of my post. What I was questioning is noy having the man share responsibility in the case of a pregnancy which is not terminated due to moral beliefs. Accidents do happen and you really should find out a person's stance on these things before you hop into bed with them and have sex.

This is the statement I'm questioning:
Anything after 12 weeks, and the female should be stuck with delivery and adoption."

I think that under most circumstances 12 weeks is enough time. What I was asking about is the woman who opposes having an abortion on moral ground who gets pregnant due to a failure of whatever birth control method the couple is using (and NOT a woman who becomes "accidently" pregnant). Your statement sounded as if you absolved the guy of all responsibility for the medical costs and legal paperwork involved in the process of relinquishing the child for adoption.

I hate to get involved in this because I really haven't figured out exactly where I stand on the issue myself ..

But what difference does 12 weeks make in the morality of the situation? Isn't the baby just as much human at 11 weeks as 12 .. or even the morning after for that matter? Why is the morning after pill considered contaception and not abortion?

I used to be very pro-choice when I was a teenager (I was a women's liblet) but I'm finding as I get older, I just can't come to terms with the idea. People tell me that you have to put yourself in the shoes of the person making the decision. Maybe I need to hear more scenarios to do that.

My sister-in-law got pregnant with a third child after a botched vascectomy and considered an abortion. She eventually decided against it and this baby is now the apple of her eye. A calm little smiling boy in a hurricane household (the other two are uncontrollable). I'm tempted to ask her how she feels about abortion now that she knows what she would have lost. But I'm chicken.

You're right Pete, fetuses start off with continuous growth from the moment of conception, and the only other exact dividing line one can draw in their early life is at birth. Any dividing line placed anywhere else is arbitrary. Those that want to create that dividing line have a good reason. I agree, yes there is a big difference physiologically between a one week old and a 15 week old unborn child, but how do you come to terms with the fact that the decision of 12 weeks is arbitrary?

When exactly does a tadpole become a frog?

My cutoff date for "personhood" is when brain waves are detected. It's then that the fetus is becoming aware and can feel stimuli and such.


Sidhe