Mills75 wrote:You would compare eighteen years of child support payments to eighteen years of putting up with the names our parents give us? That is simply nonsensical.
I run into this kind of argument all the time, both here and in the real world. It goes something like this: a person says that A is unfair or wrong because it has the quality
x. Someone will then respond: "but B also has the quality
x, and you think that B is fair. So how can A be unfair while B is fair?" The first person will then reply: "because they're completely different; A not only is
x but it is also
y, while B is the former but not the latter. That's why A is unfair."
But if something can be a quality of both fair and unfair things, then that isn't what makes a thing fair or unfair. With respect to the present context,
Mills stated that allowing a woman the entire choice in an abortion decision was unfair because it didn't allow the man any say in the matter. When confronted with other instances in which we allow someone to make a choice for someone else, without that person's input,
Mills now says that those two situations are totally different -- indeed, that the comparison is "nonsensical." We don't exactly know why
Mills feels this way; no explanation is offered. Presumably, it's because there is something fundamentally different about deciding on abortion and deciding upon a child's name. But it is precisely
that difference (whatever it might be) that supposedly makes the former unfair and the latter fair -- it can't be because one involves making a decision that affects another, since both involve precisely that fact. Your job,
Mills, is to identify that fact.
Mills75 wrote:Now were I a woman I would be truly offended by your automobile accident analogy. It implies that women are passive recipients of the will of men and bear no more responsibility for the consequences of the things they consensually do with men than a child would. Pedestrians have a rightful expectation to be free from harm by motorists provided they are following the rules set forth for pedestrians. They have a rightful expectation of recompense for injuries sustained due to the negligence of motorists. This simply is not analogous to a pregnancy resulting from consensual sex.
Save us your false indignation,
Mills, and actually address the hypothetical.
Mills75 wrote:First, there isn't a victim if both participants are adults (remember, it's already been established that we're talking about consensual sex). Second, the woman is presented with a choice of two outcomes, not three. She may terminate the pregnancy for a relatively small fee, or she may bring the pregnancy to term at a far, far greater cost both financially and emotionally. Deaths from legally performed abortions in the US are nearly unheard of. A woman is just about as likely to be hit by lightning as suffer major complications, much less death, from a legal abortion in the US, and she's certainly at greater risk of death just driving to work or flying on a plane. And the argument isn't that the man should have any authority to decide whether or not the woman has an abortion, but that the man should be able to choose for himself whether or not he becomes a parent. Thus the automobile accident analogy just doesn't apply on any level.
The point of the hypothetical is that the Pedestrian gets to decide while the Driver has to pay for that decision. Is that unfair?
