To wonder if pro-life men think they should be responsible for..

[Myfamiliescleaner]

Paying child maintenance from the moment the woman is confirmed pregnant?

Since they believe it is a baby from the moment it’s created; if they aren’t with the mother; they should be responsible for paying for that child; in the US that would have to cover medical expenses too.

Is there some sort of background here? Context?

Isn't 'it' a baby from the moment of conception, though?

In my country (EU) the law is that in unmarried couple, men are financially co-responsible for the unborn child - contributing to the pregnant woman's food, health expenses and costs around labour.

We have good public health insurance though, so we talk about costs of additional scan and vitamins, not about costs of cs.

Plus 2 years alimony for the mother, to support her while/if she is a primary carer.

It sounds so logical that I've never realised it doesn't have to be the case elsewhere

Generally not.
A foetus can become a baby if everything goes right, or it can spontaneously abort if something in the process goes wrong, which something like 20% of them do.

If there are medical costs in the US, then yes, that makes sense in the US, and I would expect a pro life male partner to agree.

Actually it is nearer to 50% and most of the time the woman doesn't know she is pregnant.

@fiveIsNewOne That sounds how it should be.

They should. But they won't.

There'll be some reason why a man forcing a woman to have a baby, will mean it's the woman's fault she got pregnant and it's entirely her responsibility now. The wimmin folk seduce these men, and flirt with them and the man has no choice but to have sex with them obviously ... If it wasn't for the woman, they wouldn't have had sex and therefore it's entirely her problem to deal with now.

Sorry OP but how does the opposite of what you are suggesting actually happen? Men are weird a lot of the time but I can't imagine any is going to say: "I am a moral pro-life man, you keep that baby! Now I'm out of here" It is just too illogical
Variations on "do what you want, I am out of here" or "keep it I will support you" are the only actual things you're likely to encounter. (what happens in reality is another matter)

They may not "say" it, but you know there are scummy men out there who will do this

I like your thinking OP and I think the US pro choice campaigners should campaign vigorously for legislation to cover this. I'm sure the pro life men would support them! It could be a very affective way of making the misogynists reconsider their position on women's bodily autonomy.

I also think it would be a good idea to add maternity care costs to men's health insurance unless they've had a vasectomy.

50%? Wow. But yes, it sounds totally possible if we look early enough. My number would be those noticeable without intensive testing, "a few days late period" and later.

Yep and the ones that are just part of your normal period if you got pregnant on day 14 of your cycle and that only lasted a week or a few days.

The uterus can absorb foetal tissue so you might never know.

No.

I really think men should be forced legally to pay child maintenance like in the USA and have passports taken off them if they don’t comply, poor credit rating etc

But on the other hand, this simply isn’t an equal topic (in the UK). Unless it’s rape, men and women both consent to having unprotected sex but that’s where the element of choice ends for men. Women have numerous contraceptive options, far higher reliability than condoms. They also have the morning after pill, several types of abortion all available up to 24 weeks (which I believe is one of the latest time limits in the world). And ultimately they can have a newborn adopted.

So while I agree that in an ideal world men wouldn’t have unprotected sex unless they were ready for the responsibility of a baby, many pro lifers simply say they’re extending that very same logic to women - if we’re being exactly equal, then abortions wouldn’t exist neither would the morning after pill.

I’m sorry but I do think given the vast array of insurances women have here, compared to the 1 (fairly unreliable) method men do, this is the area where we really need to be looking out for ourselves and not the passive victim of what people call a misogynistic system.

Women in the UK have full power not to become pregnant if they don’t want to, but how many threads do we see where someone has discovered they’re pregnant by a useless or already long-gone man?

I suppose what I’m saying is there’s a lot of responsibility NOT being taken on both sides here

Why not?

100% of people die, doesn't mean they didn't exist

These people often don’t care about babies and preserving life. They just want to punish women.

Some foetuses have zero chance to become babies, some foetuses are just errors. Incompatible combination of cells, random biochemical mistake early in the cell division process.

It doesn't make any sense to think about them as babies. Proposing it is rather cruel to the potential parents. In case of early natural abortion they haven't lost a baby, they just lost that month's opportunity.

Yeah, I'd imagine a lot do think that, OP. What's your point?

Yes, things aren't completely equal - men aren't in an equal risk/capability of pregnancy, just to start with. Given this inequality, it's clear that some things just can't be identical.
Men have the same rights unless there is significant biological reason (a man is free to abort foetus in their body, not in someone else's)

it's nothing to do with being cruel, it's a scientific question.

Sure, in some cases there was never a viable pregnancy.

But if there was in fact an embryo, what you have was a human being, in the same way a duck egg with an embryo contains a duck. Or, some will say more colloquially, a baby or duckling.

They are still people, though, regardless of whether they are called foetuses, babies, zygotes, embryos or anything else. From the moment of conception, that's a new person. Yes sometimes very sadly things go wrong during the process of gestation but that's still a person.

I imagine that if you suggested to pro-life men that child support be payable during pregnancy (as a general principle, not their own pregnant partner), a fair number would say something like “well that’s not fair, how could he even know the baby is his that early on”.

I don’t think that’s in line with their rhetoric. I mean from what I’ve seen they are mostly Christian family values types so that doesn’t really apply.
I honestly don’t think that OP has come up with a killer counter argument, or if she has it’s not relevant to the group of people we’re arguing against.

ETA actually I do think that pregnancy support should be mandatory in any case