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What are the obligations of a biological father?

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KevinD

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A man and a woman who are sexually intimate agree that, should the woman become pregnant, she will have an abortion.

The woman becomes pregnant. She decides to bear the child and raise it.

Question: Does the father have a moral obligation to provide for / support / care for the child?

I'll post my own thoughts on this later. First I'd like to hear from others.

(Does anyone know if this particular issue has been addressed in any Objectivist literature or recordings?)

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A man and a woman who are sexually intimate agree that, should the woman become pregnant, she will have an abortion.

The woman becomes pregnant. She decides to bear the child and raise it.

Question: Does the father have a moral obligation to provide for / support / care for the child?

I'll post my own thoughts on this later. First I'd like to hear from others.

(Does anyone know if this particular issue has been addressed in any Objectivist literature or recordings?)

The closest I know of is a discussion on HBL several years ago.

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A man and a woman who are sexually intimate agree that, should the woman become pregnant, she will have an abortion.

The woman becomes pregnant. She decides to bear the child and raise it.

Question: Does the father have a moral obligation to provide for / support / care for the child?

Since he's responsible for the pregnancy, he should pay for the abortion.

Since, lacking any prior agreement to the contrary, she's responsible for the birth, she should pay for the child (or be responsible for finding adoptive parents for it).

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Since he's responsible for the pregnancy, he should pay for the abortion.

They are both responsible for the pregnancy; surely the father doesnt have the moral obligation to pay the entire cost of the abortion? (or did you actually mean that he should contribute towards the cost?)

And yeah, I find the laws mandating 'compulsory fatherhood', assuming the mother chooses to give birth, to be one of the most repugnant parts of the current legal system.

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They are both responsible for the pregnancy; surely the father doesn't have the moral obligation to pay the entire cost of the abortion? (or did you actually mean that he should contribute towards the cost?)

If they have an agreement beforehand, that should prevail. If they don't, I think the man should pay because she has to undergo the procedure and he doesn't. Also it relieves him of any further financial responsibility. Usually, an abortion doesn't cost all that much if done early.

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http://cl.cnn.com/ctxtlink/jsp/cnn-story.j...nn_law_dyn_ctxt

Apparently the law is even worse than first suspected.

Actually that was a perfectly reasonable ruling, I think. This is more a case of bad reporting. The article makes you think its all about an anonymous sperm donor when really its about the fact that its not a written contract. Person A sleeps with (not donates sperm at a sperm bank) Person B. Person B gets pregnant. Person A claims they had an agreement in which he was a sperm donor and didn't have to support her. Person B claims they didn't have the agreement. That's the problem with verbal contracts, no evidence that it was ever made.

Nothing in the ruling suggests to me that real sperm donors are going to have to start paying child support. I concede I may have misunderstood the case... it's impossible to make out all the details in this bit of bad reporting.

By the way I think this link works better:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a..._us/sperm_donor

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They are both responsible, so they should both pay (assuming she did not conceal the fact that the sex was unprotected).

Does this imply that it's also improper for a man to pay for a woman's dinner, since they both will be benefitting from it? Assuming they both want to eat out together, they're both responsible for eating at the restaraunt...

As far as I understand it, financial costs in a relationship don't necessarily need to be equal. If masculinity is strength and confidence, and the growing baby inside the female is an unwanted intrusion on her body, I consider it perfectly consistent for the man to provide the resources necessary to remove the intrusion.

And if the masculinity argument isn't enough, I completely agree with Betsy on this point:

If they have an agreement beforehand, that should prevail. If they don't, I think the man should pay because she has to undergo the procedure and he doesn't.

It's not possible for the man to share the physical aspect of going through an abortion...so it's proper for the man to compensate by paying the financial side of it.

I would say that the physical costs are probably more significant than the financial. The man is getting a bargain by not having the undesireable intrusion on his body by both the fetus and the doctors/medicine...and just having to pay for it.

--

Also, as a side note, I've heard from many conservatives that having an abortion can have major negative psychological effects on the mother. I don't know if this is an irrational psychological idea (i.e. a non-Objectivist woman thinks she has destroyed a life) or something more substantial. Has anyone studied this issue enough to know if this is a real issue? If it is correct, that would be one more reason for the guy to pay for it...

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Does this imply that it's also improper for a man to pay for a woman's dinner, since they both will be benefitting from it?  Assuming they both want to eat out together, they're both responsible for eating at the restaraunt...

Obviously not. If he invites her out, he should pay. If she invites him out, she should pay. Or not, depending on their relationship. If it's a "date" (at least under old-style rules), the inviter implicitly shoulders the burden of paying. Ask one of these youngsters here what the modern rules are.

As far as I understand it, financial costs in a relationship don't necessarily need to be equal.  If masculinity is strength and confidence, and the growing baby inside the female is an unwanted intrusion on her body, I consider it perfectly consistent for the man to provide the resources necessary to remove the intrusion.
That's true, but if you're assuming a relationship then the whole equation changes. If I cared about a person and they got pregnant, and they were unable to pay, then even if I weren't the father I would probably help pay or even pay entirely for the abortion. When you're talking about a relationship, it becomes a question of what value you assign to the other person (and hoe important it is for you to pay). Your decision in that case has nothing to do with traditional notions of "taking responsibility", and nothing to do with the male / female distinction.

Also, as a side note, I've heard from many conservatives that having an abortion can have major negative psychological effects on the mother.  I don't know if this is an irrational psychological idea (i.e. a non-Objectivist woman thinks she has destroyed a life) or something more substantial.  Has anyone studied this issue enough to know if this is a real issue?  If it is correct, that would be one more reason for the guy to pay for it...

That is pretty much what you would expect the conservatives to say. Remember, they say that America is a Christian country. This claim is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You should ask, how many Objectivist women have felt guilt over having had an abortion.

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Also, as a side note, I've heard from many conservatives that having an abortion can have major negative psychological effects on the mother. I don't know if this is an irrational psychological idea (i.e. a non-Objectivist woman thinks she has destroyed a life) or something more substantial. Has anyone studied this issue enough to know if this is a real issue? If it is correct, that would be one more reason for the guy to pay for it...

I dated a girl who had an abortion (she had it before I met her, the child was not mine). It had a HUGE negative psychological effect on her. She was a Christian and her family was very religious. I don't believe her personal religious beliefs added to her guilt, but the lack of support from her family, due to their irrational religious beliefs, did have an effect on her. I believe her own personal guilt came from making such a major life decision that she was not 100% comfortable with when it was all said and done.

As for the original topic, if the original agreement between a man and a woman was to have an abortion then the man has no obligation to support her if she decides otherwise. How much responsibility he will actually end up taking with the child depends on how much he values the woman and how much he values a child that he helped create after it is born.

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Actually that was a perfectly reasonable ruling, I think.  This is more a case of bad reporting.  The article makes you think its all about an anonymous sperm donor when really its about the fact that its not a written contract.

This certainly isnt how I read it.

The three-judge panel ruled Thursday that the deal between Joel McKiernan and Ivonne Ferguson ? in which McKiernan donated his sperm and would not be obligated to pay any support ? was unenforceable because of "legal, equitable and moral principles."
The suggestion seems to be that the contract, which would normally be binding, is not enforcable for "moral reasons". Obviously I dont have a copy of the actual ruling, nor am I a lawyer, so I accept I may well be mistaken.

Also

The decision could have implications for sperm and egg donors who expect anonymity, said Arthur Caplan, a professor and medical ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Anybody who is a sperm donor ought to understand that their identity could be made known to any child that's produced, and they could be seen by the courts as the best place to go to make sure the child has adequate financial support," he said Friday.

This seems to suggest that if your identity is not anonymous, ie you can be identified as the father, you will have a legal obligation to support the child regardless of contractual issues. As an analogy, consider I made a woman I was going to have sex with sign a contract which stated that she alone would be responsible for supporting a child should an unplanned pregnancy occur; this (as far as I know) would not be honoured in court for 'ethical reasons'. This surely isnt all that different to the case of non-anonymous sperm donors.

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Also, as a side note, I've heard from many conservatives that having an abortion can have major negative psychological effects on the mother.  I don't know if this is an irrational psychological idea (i.e. a non-Objectivist woman thinks she has destroyed a life) or something more substantial.  Has anyone studied this issue enough to know if this is a real issue?  If it is correct, that would be one more reason for the guy to pay for it...

I would say it depends almost entirely on the person involved - there's no "one size fits all" way of responding to potentially emotional events. That said, I would imagine that the psychological trauma is generally a function of either a) the guilt caused by believing that abortion is wrong, or akin to murder. This may well affect people who 'know' that there is nothing wrong with abortion - when you've been taught something all your life, and are placed in a society where people reenforce it every day, it can be hard to exorcize it from your emotions no matter what you might 'know' on a rational level. In this sense, the guilt could well be subconscious. Or B) simply not knowing if you've made the right decision. While some pregnancies are obviously wanted and some arent, I assume theres a lot that fall somewhere in-between. A girl could have had no plans for a baby, but once shes pregnant she may become attached to the idea of motherhood, and not be sure whether she wants to go through with it or not. This is a fairly big choice to have to make, and I suppose it would be natural for a person to wonder if they'd made the right decision for some time afterwards.

That being said, I dont think this constitutes an argument for the man to be legally forced to pay for the abortion. It's certainly a moral argument, in the sense that a person who gets a woman pregnant and then doesnt give her support (both emotional and financial) when it comes to the abortion probably isnt a very nice person, but I really dont think that it has anything to do with the government.

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The actual decision is here is you're interested to see what really happened. The legal basis for the decision against the man is a law to the effect that a child's right to support cannot be bargained away. Person A did not sleep with Person B, and this is in all apparently important respects like the case of an anonymous sperm donor, save for the anonymity. The court is correct in rejecting the woman's false statement that her husband (rather than Mr. McKiernan) was the father. The "rights of the innocent child" trump the rights of the sperm donor. Everything in that decision says that the only protection that a so-called anonymous sperm donor has from being deluged with surprise court orders for child support is his actual anonymity. However, there may be specific state laws granting protection: Washington has such a law (which I think requires that the donor be unknown to the mother). So before you contemplate making any charitable donations, I would suggest that you hire an attorney.

The suggestion seems to be that the contract, which would normally be binding, is not enforcable for "moral reasons".

The contract is not enforceable because there is a law against doing what the contract states (this being a general principle of contract law).

This seems to suggest that if your identity is not anonymous, ie you can be identified as the father, you will have a legal obligation to support the child regardless of contractual issues.

In Pennsylvania, it does not seem to suggest, it absolutely asserts.

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  • 1 year later...

He should only be morally/legally responsible for half the cost of an abortion.

There are much worse cases. It's basically correct to say that if you're the biological Father and they know your name you are responsible for supporting the child. Even when the child is the result of a Woman statutorily raping a Male the court has held the Male child responsible for supporting the... child that resulted from the rape.

Edited by Poor Richard
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  • 8 months later...

I would like to propound a modified version of the original question of this thread.

Suppose:

* There is no prior agreement before voluntary intercourse (is in most cases) what to do if the tryst results in pregnancy.

* The rendezvous results in pregnancy.

* The man absolutely does not want to be a father and has always held this position upon initially hearing about the conception.

* The woman wants to have the baby and exercises this right while knowing in advance the biological father's position on her having the child .

Questions:

1.) What legal obligations, if any, should the biological father have towards the child?

2.) What moral obligations, if any, should the biological father have towards the child?

If the context helps, we may assume that these two hypothetical individuals had an extensive, emotionally healthy history together as lovers.

As a disclaimer, these questions are most certainly not inspired from a personal predicament of mine nor of a friend (or a friend of a friend). I am just curious.

As a corollary, the answer to these questions will help resolve if the jerk from Dirty Dancing who pulls out an Ayn Rand novel to justify his emotional and interpersonal abandonment of an impregnated lover is truly an objectivist or not!

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1: He has no legal obligation because he has not intitiated force upon the woman, he explcitly stated that he did not want to be a finacnial supporter of the child.

2: He has no moral "obligation" either. The use of the word obligation is pretty suspect here, sounds like "duty". The Objectivist ethics is very anti-duty ethics. The only "obligation" you have morally is to yourself, and your own happiness.

Aside: I think a big contributor to this debate is the equivocation between "biological father" and "father"(which means: financial supporter, raiser). The two concepts are very separate and do not need be the same person all the time.

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Suppose:

* There is no prior agreement before voluntary intercourse (is in most cases) what to do if the tryst results in pregnancy.

* The rendezvous results in pregnancy.

* The man absolutely does not want to be a father and has always held this position upon initially hearing about the conception.

* The woman wants to have the baby and exercises this right while knowing in advance the biological father's position on her having the child.

Questions:

1.) What legal obligations, if any, should the biological father have towards the child?

2.) What moral obligations, if any, should the biological father have towards the child?

Both (a man and a woman) are morally and legally responsible for their actions.

Knowing that birth control devices might fail and that the choice of abortion is ultimately woman’s to make (it is her body) - the sex act itself implies the possibility of a child.

If there was no prior agreement to how such situation would be handled:

and "the rendezvous" results in a child both are morally, legally, and financially responsible for it.

If there was an agreement beforehand - the agreement should be upheld. If the agreement was that she would have an abortion and then she changed her mind - he is not responsible.

Edited by ~Sophia~
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Sophia, if we are consistent with your logic, the abortion shouldn't be an option.

An option for whom?

The choice of having an abortion (or not) is a woman's choice to make. An abortion is not an option for a man.

The choice to have sex is a choice that may have legal consequences. One should always keep this in mind.

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Sophia, if we are consistent with your logic, the abortion shouldn't be an option.

Indeed: if the man has 1/2 the responsibility for the results, he has say over whether there should be any results or not. If he doesn't want her to have an abortion, she can't.

This is why I take the opposite view: the man can decide whether he wants to donate money or not. I can decide whether there is a baby or not. End of discussion. If he doesn't want to support the baby, that's his prerrogative and it's up to me to take this into account before I do anything. Quite apart from being fair (which it is) this acts to encourage selectivity and good judgment in women instead of fear and repression in men, which is what the current system does.

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I believe that all matters relating to human reproduction, as well as child rearing, are entirely the responsibility of the woman. If the woman chooses to allow a man into her life - biological father or not - then that's great, but it should not be expected or seen as a moral obligation.

It is ridiculous to assume that simply because the act of becoming pregnant requires the effort of both a man and a woman, that both are responsible. The woman needs to recognize that her body, through no one's fault, is capable of becoming pregnant, and to treat that fact with the respect it deserves before she has sex.

When a man impregnates a woman he did not "do this to her", she did it to herself. In the same way that a hair stylist should not be held responsible if a woman comes to regret her choice of hair cut, neither should a man be held (even partially) responsible if a woman later regrets using her body in a certain way.

As long as their were no prior aggreements nor any element of coersion involved, what happens to a woman's body as a result of her actions is entirely her responsibility.

- Grant

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Knowing that birth control devices might fail and that the choice of abortion is ultimately woman’s to make (it is her body) - the sex act itself implies the possibility of a child.

I disagree that the man has any implied obligation to a potential child simply because that is a potential consequence for the woman even if they did not specifically discuss how to handle the potential consequences beforehand. The man does not have to face the natural consequences of becoming pregnant if he has sex with the woman. The woman on the other hand does risk the natural consequences of pregnancy to her body should she have sex so she has the obligation to herself to choose whether or not to have sex with a man under ambiguous circumstances. Her potential risks should not transfer to him unless he has specifically agreed to assume responsibility prior to their activities. The woman has all the control over the fetus' fate should she become pregnant. As you recognize in a later post, the man does not have the option of having the woman abort the baby, so his alleged obligations are not bound by the whether or not the woman became pregnant, but rather by her choice to have the baby or not. By your standard, even though the sex was by mutual choice, how the consequences are faced are left solely in the hands of the desire of the woman. If you are going to try to oblige the man in any way, then you must give him a choice in the matter if he wants the baby aborted. He if wants the baby aborted and she doesn't, she buys the whole show.

The choice to have sex is a choice that may have legal consequences. One should always keep this in mind.

Just because it has legal consequences does not justify those legal consequences. Remember, we are discussing what should be, not what is.

By comparison, the act of smoking (or even possessing) marijuana can have legal consequences, but it shouldn't.

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Indeed: if the man has 1/2 the responsibility for the results, he has say over whether there should be any results or not. If he doesn't want her to have an abortion, she can't.

This is why I take the opposite view: the man can decide whether he wants to donate money or not. I can decide whether there is a baby or not. End of discussion. If he doesn't want to support the baby, that's his prerrogative and it's up to me to take this into account before I do anything. Quite apart from being fair (which it is) this acts to encourage selectivity and good judgment in women instead of fear and repression in men, which is what the current system does.

Thanks for expounding Jenni.

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