RObert, "The simple reality is that the existing system and the one you support relies on double standards that treats men and women very differntly well beyond the biological necessities and or the practical issues around early childhood."

Well said.

Yes Antiseptic, I too hit the post limit on this topic.

Regarding your 'point 2 ' above, I have already said before that if a man doesn't want to have children, but still wants sex, then he should be very sure of the contraception, or not have sex.
If there is an 'accident', then he accepted that risk when he had sex, so if the pregnancy goes ahead, he shares in the upkeep of baby.

Point 3, same answer as point 2

Point 4, no, I believe both parents should provide equally for the baby. Obviously the Government believes this too, but there are so many different family scenarios that you can't or shouldn't have a one size fits all. I don't believe you can compare a womans decision to abort or carry on with a pregnancy, with that of the man's decision about whether he can or should pay for the upkeep of his child.
The pill has allowed 40 years of sexual 'freedom' for women, after thousands of years of the same for men.

Point 5...I don't know enough about the CSA to comment fully, but from what few people I knew who were in the system, both parents had wanted the kids, but the fathers were so angry that the wives left them, they were 'punishing' them by becoming unemployed so they didn't have to pay much maintenance.

This thread is about abortion...and therefore unwanted babies...

RObert, I don't know, nor need to know, enough about 'the system' to argue with you about the financial side of bringing up babies of separated parents.

I have said how I feel in my answer to Antiseptics post above.

Are you suggesting there are lots of men who are forced to pay for the upkeep of babies they didn't want?

Even if they were deceived into thinking their sexual partner was on ironclad contraception, with a resulting pregnancy, how on earth could the men prove this to a court?

Wouldn't all separated fathers who didn't want to give money for their kids then say they didn't want them in the first place?

I would suggest that all men who really didn't want a baby, but want the fun of sex, look after their own contraception...just to be sure.
If they don't, then they are agreeing to pay for the consequences.

If their partner decides she wants to abort the baby, then what other choice does the father have? He can't 'force' her to go through with the pregnancy.

Julia Gillard is silly to bring up the abortion topic now, because it makes her look desperate, but I don't trust Abbott as far as I can kick him...so I won't be voting for either party.

"I have already said before that if a (wo)man doesn't want to have children, but still wants sex, then (s)he should be very sure of the contraception, or not have sex."

Think I've heard that somewhere before, wonder where?

"I don't know, nor need to know, enough about 'the system' to argue with you about the financial side of bringing up babies of separated parents." perhaps then you should spend some time listening rather than arguing and ignoring the issues men have raised on this site and elsewhere for a long time. Its a brutal destructive system that in my view by its unreasonableness makes it far harder for seperated parents to work together.

My own passion is not particularly on the didn't want the child issue, rather on getting a saner child support system overall. Its the sexist double standards that get to me on this issue whe a womans right to choose at various points is regarded as untouchable and men are deemed to have no rights.

I tend to not like abortion at all but also believe in personal autonomy enough to support both parents rights to choose at the appropriate time.

In my own case whilst I would have liked more children thats not the way my life panned out. When I reached the point where I started to think about the age I'd be when any further children were in their teens I got the snip.

Suse, I see that you are less complex than I realised. Your position is very simple: you support bonded male servitude or slavery for a period of around 18 years, solely at the discretion of a woman, based on some weird idea that if a woman makes her vagina available for sex that the man must rescind all right to personal determination to her. Do you really think your vagina is that special?

What a nasty way to think.

Oh, suse, just to pick up on your rather silly little resntful comment above:" contraception has allowed 40 years of sexual freedom for women after thousands of years of the same for men", men were responsible for creating social structures that bound them to women. They CHOSE to be bound when they didn't have to, because of that eusocial drive to protect. It wasn't because they were simply wanting a vagina to call their own, but because procreation is an uncontrollable outcome of sex without contaception and tjhat means the children have to be cared for.

Now that women have an ability to control their own fertility, including after conception, in the form of abortion, the situation has changed.

In domestic violence law a great deal of emphasis is placed on the idea of "control" as a motivation for abusive behaviour. If a man argues against a woman choosing to go out with girlfriends or shopping or getting her hair done or gets upset because he has come home to a sink full of dishes when she's been home all day, he is being violent, definitionally.

But you want to control a man's right to have any choice at all in being a parent after he has recreational sex for the mutual pleasure, leaving his fate for the next 18 years entirely in the hand of the woman.

Over the time I've been posting here I've never seen such a blatantly oppressive point of view put forward by anyone, male or female. You're a violent abuser, Suse.