yvonne, I appear to have misunderstood your intent in making that comment.

There is a stance taken by some pro-choice supporters that women should have choice at the time they have sex, during any resulting pregnancy and after a child is born regarding their ongoing involvement but that men should only have a choice about particpating in the sex act, if an unplanned child results then dry your eyes fellow and start paying. I read your comment as being from that position, if it's not then I apologise.

R0bert

RObert,
thanks for enlightening me- I will accept that you know more about this system than I do as I only gained my information by reading, not from having practical experience in dealing with the system.
I agree, from your description of the system, that a better one is badly needed. This financial arrangement doesn’t seem to be in the best interest of your son.

While there needs to be some kind of system to ensure that non-custodial parents financially contribute to their children, the system also needs to become more flexible so that special cases such as your own can be. fairly and discretely, dealt with.
The child should be the main concern of such system.

Having said that, I still believe that a man’s reason of ‘not wanting the child’ is not a good enough reason to allow a father to financially abandon his child, unless there are special circumstances, e.g. the mother being more than adequate and willing to financially look after the child herself.

I am too concerned about the much higher rates of poverty among women than among men in sole parent families to allow fathers to escape their responsibilities because poverty has a very negative effect on children.

Yvonne,
thanks. I think that we were saying the same thing about BOTH partners responsibility in the prevention of pregnancy, although I realise that men don’t have as safe contraception as women have. My point to RObert and others was that it can’t harm if a man uses condoms even if his partner is on contraceptives.

Thanks for that amusing link, Yabby- I’ve always thought that sex-abstinence classes are quite ineffective, but didn’t know that they are totally useless!

Goodthief and other religious pro-lifers
“The fact that we have a choice doesn’t mean there is no right and wrong, it just means God hasn’t programmed us to do right”
Perhaps because God has no clue what’s right and wrong about abortion. Don’t forget he killed every Egyptian’s first born child, according to the Bible.

I thought of a question to ask the religious mob: Why don’t you target IUD’s instead of abortion?

The religious seem to be convinced that life begins at fertilisation.
Are they not aware that IUD’s destroy many more fertilised ova than abortions do? In fact, they can destroy one every month. So feel free to call all women who rely on IUD’s for contraception murderers, too. Go ahead, why not say it out loud?
Why is the focus on abortion? I have never seen a religious group standing outside IUD factories to pray,
I have never heard them attack these factory workers or on the inventers of IUD's, these evil human life destructors.

In fact, the silence about IUD's is so loud that it wouldn’t surprise me to find anti-abortionists who rely on IUD’s for contraception.

I expect this is another question that is going to remain unanswered.

yvonne, "Too often the tone is still, that if a woman has an unwanted pregnancy, she must be at fault and should therefore somehow be made to pay." No. What I'm saying is if mens only choice is to pay then men should be left out of the equation period.
"Even aqvarivs, whose comments I generally really like, seems to be of the opinion that it’s the feminists’ fault. They are promoting selfish behaviour and advocating (!) abortion."
Thank you for the first part:-), I personally know of many cases where the woman told me she was encouraged by pro-abortionist staff to abort. And yes feminist push the "right to abort/womans body" over "woman has responsibility for actions and for the life they initiated". "the fact that a financially independent woman would no longer be financially independent when she has a little baby", is their prime argument. Like if you have this nasty little creature our hopes of being CEO of Ford Motors is down the drain. "Motherhood devalues women". I've heard that little bon mot too.
"where did you get your statistics from"? www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au is the site that gave the profile.
Unwanted pregnancy,abort. Unwanted children,abort. Unwanted wives,abort. Unwanted husbands,abort. Unwanted aging adults, abort. Where does it end for those too selfish to contribute to the care of their own. Our disposable society. Lets all stand is self glorification and celebrate our freedom to dispose of life. Hurrrray

Aqvarivs, thanks for providing me with your source for your stats. It would indeed be disturbing if women were using abortion as a form of contraception, because that is what those stats appear to be implying. Incredibly stupid if you ask me, as there are so many good and safe choices now. Abortion is such an invasive procedure and does carry risks.

It is manifestly unfair to suggest a woman would not want to have a baby because she could not then be the CEO of a company. The truth is if she indeed could be, or was, she could actually afford the nanny and the whole shebang to help. I have a good friend who did just that. She started earning the money that enabled her to have a child. Not many in that league.

And ‘motherhood devalues women’ I’ve never heard that ‘bon mot’. It is that uniquely female thing men can never do. You’re sure that was not taken out of context or even part of a sentence?

Robert, it takes two people to make a baby, the decision to do so is a decision that is to be made by both. Yes, one party may be ready before the other, but neither can coerce the other to have a child. I’m aware that probably more men are pressured to have a child, than women, but women do have a shorter time frame to have children. It’s the very real biological clock ticking.

Celivia, what an excellent little cat you threw amongst the pigeons! The issue of contraceptives though, not only IUDs, is also pretty controversial amongst some of the anti abortionist brigade. That’s why there is this silence whenever there is talk of education re contraception and availability. Abortion should rarely be necessary. If they indeed were that concerned about ‘killing’ of babies prevention of conception should be their focus. Handing out packets of condoms would be more effective than praying.

Yvonne :)
I agree, and I’ve never been able to “get” why anti abortionist brigades don’t promote (free) contraception and education, which have been shown to be the most effective combination to prevent abortions, while a ban on abortions will result in backyard abortions and cause women to die.
Since I have never heard anyone dieing from using the contraceptive pill or a condom, or get a heart attack during sex ed, these methods are more logic and effective than a ban on abortion to lower abortion rates.

I know that some of the contraception methods are regarded by pro-lifers as abortifacients, that’s why I thought I specifically mentioned IUDs because many pro-lifers regard this device as one of the abortifacient methods because their reasoning is that it’s possible that the ovum is fertilised before it implants in the uterus, and the IUD would kill the day-old person.
Plan B, or the morning-after pill, would also fall in this category.

I hope that the little cat wasn’t too scarey and the pigeons come flying back soon because I’d really like to find out why it is that they focus on abortions and not on abortifacients, since these would be likely to kill more ‘persons’ than abortions at clinics do.

I am pretty sure that the vast majority of anti-abortionists do not really, sincerely, believe that abortionists kill babies, or that women who have abortions are murderers; I dare say that they’re just pretending to believe this for some mysterious reason. Could it be that they’re just protecting their religious dogma, their church, the pope, God, or simply don’t want to give up control over women? I am not sure of their motives, but I’m suspicious!