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Maybe, in light of the recent SCOTUS decision, it's time for the US to consider a 28th amendment to their constitution.
After all, they regard their constitution as sacred, and those celebrating the recent decision claim the preservation of human life as their major rationale.
They use the same logic to justify access to firearms through the second amendment. The most common justification is that possession of a firearm guarantees the individual protection against attack from somebody or something evil. That evil could be construed as a lifetime of poverty and suffering for mother and child as the consequence of this Roe v. Wade reversal.
The SCOTUS decision, as well as protecting the rights of the unborn child, also impinges on the rights of the mother. Unless immaculate conception is possible in the US, that unborn child will always have a father.
That father, in a moral world, has the same responsibility for the life of his child as does the mother who will, under this decision, be forced to bear that child. One very simple question should be asked. Why should the total responsibility for the well being of that child be vested only in the mother?
Currently in the US, maternity leave, public support for single mothers, and services such as child care, kindergarten and preschool are patchy at best, and in some neighbourhoods, almost non-existent. These are the neighbourhoods where access to contraception for the disadvantaged segments of the population is also difficult. It's a self-perpetuating problem and this decision will ensure it continues.
The upshot of this situation is that the mother's life is fundamentally changed, her access to an income jeopardised, and when the child is born, she assumes total responsibility.
By any measure, this is simply unfair, and now that the state has decided that abortion is no longer an option, the situation has changed utterly.
If the state can decide what happens to a woman's body, it would seem only reasonable and just that some kind of caveat be placed over the conduct of the other partner in the creation of that baby, its father.
The amendment (hereafter called the Shotgun Amendment) would go something like this -
Once paternity is established (and that is not difficult) the father would be compelled to contribute to the support of the child. This could be organised at a local level through paternity courts which would be established for the purpose. There would be debate about how the nature and duration of the support would be established, but working that out would not be rocket science. A contribution code could be established.
And of course, it would be called The Shotgun Amendment.
With the introduction of a firearm metaphor into the title, the NRA would love it....
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2 comments:
"Once paternity is established (and that is not difficult)", but in some cases would be expensive, embarrassing and require more involvement of family courts. In these times of multiple partners in short spaces of time, the pointing of fingers at likely fathers may be an interesting exercise in making lawyers wealthier.
You are a good RC Bobby, in the absence of the pill or the morning after pill or a rubber, or the ladies "fitments", you are aware of abstinence and self control. There is also the timing method as taught at military establishments during your training. Then of course there is tubal ligation and vasectomy.
I am surprised at your upholding the rights to murder children that have drawn breath, although through my youth and later in life the method has been upheld by those of your faith, to maintain the holier than thou appearance of the RC family unit. Those that did not avail themselves of the underground abortionist's talents could farm out the unwanted new family member to baby homes run by RC nuns. This was not a discriminatory practice of course, and common knowledge in lower socioeconomic areas.
Anti guns is probably understandable, but pro murder of the mother of children, by choice rather than necessity, is an unusual stance for a headmaster and carer of children in need.
I bet you came out in opposition to the death penalty for criminal acts by members of our society.
I am surprised at your upholding the rights to murder children that have drawn breath
Where did I make a statement supportive of abortion?
There are two options here. One is to allow a woman to have an abortion, and the other is to make that illegal. Both are morally unacceptable as far as I am concerned, the first because it ends a life, the second because it allows the state to take over a woman's body. My suggestion goes some way towards a solution.
What is deeply ironic is the Right in the USA (and here) getting their knickers in a knot about vaccine mandates but supporting outlawing abortion. Whatever happened to "my body - my choice"?
They are completely morally compromised, but that has never been a problem for the "Christian" Right.
My suggestion lays the responsibility squarely on both parents. As for the cost and complexity, it pales when you look at the costs to the community of an unwanted and unsupported child, and the inter-generational damage it causes.
In my career I frequently saw the results of fathers abandoning their responsibilities when a disabled child was born. It destroyed the lives of both mother and child, already deeply compromised by disability, and in the five schools I ran, single mothers made up an average of one third of the enrolment.
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