Ideally, an argument should not be structured like an O. Henry short story or an M. Night Shyamalan screenplay. In other words, an argument shouldn't have a surprise ending. I suggest that, if you have a rationale, you divulge it rather than keeping us all in suspense.
Mills75 wrote:No, I would differentiate your scenario from the case of unplanned conception by pointing out that your pedestrian is not presented with equally viable options....
Your argument is getting even more confusing; let me see if I can help you sort it out.
We now know, as a result of your response to my hypothetical, that the reason why you consider it "unfair" for the man to pay more than just his share of the cost of an abortion is
not because you consider it unfair for one person to pay when another person chooses. There must, therefore, be some other explanation. As far as I can tell, you have offered
three: for convenience, I'll label them "reasonable expectation," "participation vs. imposition," and "viability of options."
Reason No. 1: Reasonable Expectationlogically hold." Furthermore, you claim that "it isn't
logic that forces parenthood on men at the discretion of women once conception has occurred, it's an irrational moral code based in antiquated religious belief." I'm not sure how that constitutes a
logical argument (you have neither laid the foundation nor followed the requirements for a deductive argument), but we'll ignore that deficiency for the moment.
As I see it, your goal here is to set forth an
objective standard for judging whether a woman's choice is "reasonable" or not. If a woman, in other words, chooses to have a child rather than have the abortion that the potential father would prefer, that choice would be
objectively unreasonable. And that may be so: I offer no opinion on that point. But you fail to explain why an objective standard, in this case, should be privileged over a purely subjective standard.
Let me illustrate my point with a variation on my previous hypothetical. Let us say that Driver injures Pedestrian and that Pedestrian is faced with two choices: she can either get a blood transfusion, which will be cheap and will undoubtedly save her life, or she can refuse the transfusion, in which case she will probably die. From both Driver's subjective standpoint and a purely "objective" standpoint, the choice is clear. But Pedestrian belongs to a religion that forbids blood transfusions. Can Driver force Pedestrian to take the "objectively reasonable" option?
The law would say "no," according to the time-honored theory that a tortfeasor (i.e. an injurer) takes his victim as he finds her. If the victim is especially unreasonable, that's just the tortfeasor's bad luck: the victim gets the decision because, in these kinds of cases, we
don't privilege the "objective" standard for decisionmaking. Your task, then,
Mills, is to explain why, in the case where a woman is deciding whether or not to have a child, we should impose upon her any kind of objective standard.
Reason No. 2: Participation vs. Imposition. My guess is that you'd answer that, in the case of the woman deciding whether or not to have a child, she is not a
victim. Rather, she participated in the initial "accident," so she bears partial responsibility (unlike the Pedestrian in my hypotheticals). In that case, your "reasonable option" argument is merely subsumed under your "participation vs. imposition" argument (which I suspect is the case).
There is, admittedly, a certain amount of persuasiveness to this argument. Tort law has long held that a volunteer who is aware of the risks of a particular action but who, nevertheless, willingly undertakes those risks cannot sue for any reasonably anticipated injuries (this legal maxim is venerable enough to have its own Latin phrase:
volenti non fit injuria).
There are, however, two problems with this position: one that I will deal with later in an addendum, and another that I will discuss here. The "participation vs. imposition" argument only works if one assumes that the pertinent decision is the woman's decision whether or not to have the child. But, as I pointed out before, one could also look at the pertinent decision as the one to have unprotected sex in the first place. If the focus is placed on the sex rather than the aftermath, then we see
two willing, informed volunteers, not one. In that case, neither the man nor the woman can complain about bearing the costs of their decision, whatever that might be. Your task here,
Mills, is to explain why the focus is on the woman's decision to have the child rather than the man's decision to participate in unprotected sex. You've had one opportunity to do that and failed to offer a persuasive rationale; I'm offering you a second chance.
Reason No. 3: Viability of Options. You've now raised another reason for exempting the man from paying for the woman's choice: the man should only be held to pay for his share of any "viable" option. But this is simply a red herring argument. As you've already stated, in response to my hypothetical, a person can choose even a "non-viable" option as long as she is a victim rather than a participant. Or, as you point out, "if the male had somehow misled the woman about contraceptive usage (perhaps it was a dark room and he said he was wearing a condom when he really wasn't, or maybe he said he had a vasectomy), then he would be obligated to whatever consequences may arise from the woman choice in the event of pregnancy." The "viable option" reason, therefore, is entirely subsumed under the "participation vs. imposition" rationale: if someone has a choice imposed upon them, then they can require the "imposer" to pay for the choice
regardless of its "viability." There is, consequently, no reason to explore this rationale any further: it is irrelevant to your argument.
Addendum: The Unexplored Complication. As I see it, you really have only one rationale: the "participation vs. imposition" argument. And, as I mentioned above, there are actually good arguments to be made in support of this rationale. But those arguments can only be made if there are
two parties involved in the equation: the injured volunteer and the putative injurer. Things get much more complicated, however, if there are
three parties involved: a volunteer, an injurer, and an innocent bystander.
In the case of a woman choosing to give birth, the innocent bystander is, arguably, the baby. We can say that the woman has been injured by the father, but in truth the injury is done to the child, who is the one who truly suffers if the father does not provide any financial support. Furthermore, like most innocent bystanders, the baby has no say in this matter: if he is injured, it is the result of the decisions made by both the parents.
The question, then, is: why is the baby not treated like the Pedestrian in my hypothetical, i.e. as a victim rather than as a participant? Since victims (but not participants) get to make any decision they want, and the injurer is required to pay (as you yourself admit,
Mills), why doesn't the baby get to make a decision here? We can assume that, from the baby's perspective, the best option would be the one that yielded the largest amount of money, and so the baby would presumably want
both parents to pay the maximum. Your task,
Mills, is to explain how the baby fits into this picture. Is it a victim or a participant?
