If he doesn't want a baby, you shouldn't seek CSA

[NeedACleverNN]

Why the hell is this line still trotted out?

I've even seen it on here. Woman falls pregnant, boyfriend doesn't want it and wants an abortion. She doesn't. People advise her to keep the baby and let him go. Don't bother seeking child maintenance because he didn't want the baby in the first place.

No!! If he didn't want a baby he should take his own precautions to preventing pregnancy. You don't like condoms? You don't have sex!

I keep saying, Pinky, but you don't compute: I think men should have the same choice as a woman does, after the sex act that results in an unintended pregnancy. Say, in the first trimester, when she can readily opt for an abortion without his say-so, he should be able to write off parental rights and responsibilities in the same way

Except it doesn't quite work like that does it?

When a woman 'opts out' (abortion) a man is left with no financial responsibility for 18 years and no human child is affected. This cannot be said for the other way round. So why should two people suffer for the sake of one person's bad decision?

Dooming a person to decades of parenthood when one was happy enough to jump into the sack with him without sufficient contraception on either side, seems quite hypocritical.

So instead TWO people have to be 'doomed'. How is that fair?

4. Woman behaves like an adult, faces the reality that, with her fully conscious and willing cooperation in careless sex, her egg has been fertilized by an uncommitted and unwilling partner and concludes that this is not an optimal situation for producing a human being, and has an abortion.

So you think that in the case of a husband and wife trying for a baby, then he buggers off, it still counts as 'careless sex' but only on the woman's part.

You have not answered by question: why do you think only women should suffer the consequences of reproducing and not men? Why should 2 people suffer for the sake of one person's bad decision making? An answer that's actually logical please.

Since studies show that Steiger men, gay men and lesbians have more orgasms than straight women, all without penises in their vaginas, maybe straight women are missing a trick.

Straight men. Clearly.

"But as that impacts women too, it's not a runner."

Rubbish.

For both men and women: don't have PIV (unless sterilised) if you want zero risk of conception.

If you do have PIV, you have to accept a risk of conception.

We all judge risk every day - an extra ice cream increases our risk of heart disease, crossing the road to the hat shop risks a car hitting us etc - and we weigh that against the pleasure we'll get from the action.

Why infantilise humans around sex and assume that the risks can't be judged and found worthwhile, or not, for any one person?

I would actually be completely in favour of PIV sex becoming seen to be as something people only do when both prepared for conception. I'm not sure it was ever wise for people to treat it as the "main event" of sexual life when there are so many other options that don't run the risk of creating another human being.

In reality, I'm not sure how it could ever happen. I guess it would take a full-on education/media/societal change in thinking, for men and women.

In any case, I don't think giving men and men only the completely imbalanced option for facing NO consequences is likely to get us any closer to that or any other solution.

Both parties should face consequences, and both do - women far disproportionately so, which is why they get an extra portion of choice.

I guess I come at this with the notion that abortion is the default if both partners don't wholeheartedly want the fertilized egg to be gestated.

If both don't agree to produce a human being, the woman gets an abortion. If a woman doesn't want an abortion, she should avoid PIV sex.

To me, abortion is by far the lesser of the evils than having humans produced willy-nilly in dysfunctional, disadvantaged situations. And in this day and age it is not unreasonable for a sex partner to assume it's a viable option in the case of a contraceptive slip-up.

Most of you are coming at this as "man doesn't want offspring and walks away, that leaves woman to bear and raise human alone." I come at it as "woman realizes she will have no partner in childrearing and sensibly gets an abortion." Or, if she is against abortion, avoids situations that might lead to pregnancy.

If abortion and the MAP were not safe, legal and readily available, my stance might change.

I've bungee jumped, skied and scuba dived. All recreational and all not without risk. I assess risk and continue as I wish. As long as all parties are aware of the risk, I see no issue. Which is why sex education is so important.

Just making one party immune to the risk really doesn't improve things.

But lilac
What if this is something that's been discussed and agreed. They will have a baby together. But then the woman gets pregnant and the man changes his mind. (Knowing his partners feelings about abortion) why should he then get to walk away without consequence? He should pay for his kid. She can't be expected to go through an abortion because he was a selfish twat who changed his mind.

I think coming at it with the point of view of abortion being default is a mistake (though I can see why it has shaped your views).

a) Abortion is not a viable ethical/cultural/religious choice for many people. It's easy to say that women against abortion shouldn't have sex then, but again this is disproportionate in that men are not similarly restricted in any way. They never have to face the physical reality of early gestation. They never have to choose abortion because they can't have them. No consequences.

b) If the woman does have an abortion, then it is still her alone who faces any physical/cultural fallout from that. Low-risk does not mean no-risk and some women will still die (even from early medical abortion).
The man faces no risk whatsoever.

There are additional, smaller points - but all point to the same thing, even abortion is not consequence-free for women, but it is consequence-free for men.

Additionally, we live in a world where abortion is not the default (whether it should be or not is another debate). In all other cases (miscarriage, pregnancy, childbirth, adoption), the woman already faces far, far more disproportionate consequences.

Still not all men in a (worst-case-scenario-for-them) situation will face any consequences at all (some will disappear, some women won't claim, some men won't be expected/eligible to pay, some will be dishonest), and of those that do pay (average: £27/week for a child as per gov.uk), this is the entire extent of the consequences they must face, still nowhere near what the woman in the same scenario must shoulder.

I agree her but if they decide to have sex a and the understanding is the woman will have an abortion if a slip up happens, and they had sex on that basis and she decides not to have an abortion, that's not entirely what the man signed up for either. I feel like their should be more options for everybody overall, but I'm not entirely sure how it could be made so.

But the woman, when faced with the actual emotional, social, religious, practical and family consequences of abortion may not 'change her mind' so much as not be able to.

Men never have to deal with the full consequences of hormonal contraception, worries about missed periods, abortion, pregnancy or childbirth. No wonder it seems so fucking easy to them.

He should have worn his wellies 🍌

Boys should learn at school that they are solely responsible for their sperms. Each and every one!! They should know to deposit them always in a condom and never trust a girl is on contraception (deliberate /accidental failures can /do occur).

I also think it's a damned shame if, as a society, we start to take the view that abortion is the mainstay way to control numbers of disadvantaged children (and places zero responsibility on men, all responsibility on women).

Far better to encourage more responsible contraception/sexual behaviour, amongst both men and women. Both parties facing consequence is a start toward making both think more carefully.

As it stands, men already face far fewer consequences than women, whatever the outcome. How in any world, is it a good idea to dial those consequences down to zero?

But maintenance payments are for the welfare of the child, the resident parent has to advocate for the child.

Whatever agreements the 2 parents may have between themselves about the responsibility for providing for the child must always be subject to change if the welfare of the child is in question. If I want to leave my children and dp agrees that he will bear all financial responsibility for them then should he discover that this is not possible then he should be able to seek payment from me. At any point.

And suggesting any circumstances that mean a woman OUGHT to have an abortion is pretty awful. The right to choose should be a free choice.

Yeah Voyage, that's what it is. Not that I resent some men for lacking empathy and decency.

A lot of people are talking like men should be punished for making women pregnant
And the rest think penis in vagina sex should be banned unless you agree to
having a baby.
Sex can be, and is recreational.
Sex is, and will probably always be, partly a spontaneous act that is neither planned nor discussed.
Pregnancy is not a guaranteed risk of having sex, in England C21st.

The consequences of an accidental pregnancy are not equal but that does not mean the choice of having an abortion is equal to forcing someone to pay financially, mentally, and emotionally for a lifetime.

Having both parents consent to a birth has many positive advantages. It gives the mother full knowledge of what will be coming. So rather than botched attempts to make it work followed by years of poverty and resentment the mother knows she has to make it work herself. Also there can be a lot of positives (for mother and baby) to getting rid of a dead beat dad before the birth. More children might grow up with two consenting parents.

A Sperm donor from a one night stand is NOT a father.

"I think coming at it with the point of view of abortion being default is a mistake "

I agree.

The default is, very rightly, bodily autonomy for the woman. Any other option is horrendous.

If conception has happened then the "passive" option is pregnancy and birth. The woman has to act on her own body to select any other choice.

"And the rest think penis in vagina sex should be banned unless you agree to
having a baby"

When you say "the rest", who are you referring to? One poster, VoD, has advocated this; others, including me, have pointed out to him that it's about risk assessment.

The consequences of an accidental pregnancy are not equal but that does not mean the choice of having an abortion is equal to forcing someone to pay financially, mentally, and emotionally for a lifetime.

Not an equivalent comparison of scenarios.

The choice of having an abortion is disproportionately consequential for women. Abortion consequences for men are zero.

Childbirth consequences for men are also sometimes zero (man disappears, woman doesn't claim, man not eligible to pay/dishonest)
Worst case scenario for a man is that he has to pay (average £27/week) with no other mandatory physical/emotional involvement for him.
Meanwhile the woman carries the entire risk of the gestation/birth and the enitre physical/emotional/financial rest of the workload.

It's not about punishing men. It's about making both men and women understand that there are consequences that somebody needs to take responsibility for.

Both parties should take responsibility, men already take far less.

Sorry if I've missed this bit of the thread but do we have numbers on the amount of non resident parents who were one night stands/casual encounters vs people who were in a committed relationship and leave after birth? It's obviously anecdotal (which is why I'd be interested in the real numbers) but all the single parents I know bar 1 are in that position because of a relationship breakdown, mostly the end of a marriage a significant amount of time after the birth of the child that they both wanted. I'm just questioning how many more children really would grow up with 2 consenting parents.

"Men never have to deal with the full consequences of hormonal contraception, worries about missed periods, abortion, pregnancy or childbirth. No wonder it seems so fucking easy to them

That comes across as if you resent men for not having vaginas."

Nope. Just a statement of facts about being a woman that you may not know,