MODS - please delete thread

clearingout

alias*alibi wrote: »

I agree. She is obviously more level headed than I am and I admire her immensely.

I'm not level headed - I'm just further down the line than you and can see things a bit clearer and have the benefit of that wonderful thing called hindsight. I shift in my thinking on what happened all the time. Actually, if I'm honest, I don't give it that much thought anymore but I lived, breathed and ate it for quite a long time and I 'enjoy' trying to help those who are facing similar. It's so very hard a road to have to travel on your own and I wouldn't have done it without some good friends I made online. You'll get there, whatever happens.

Person_one

GracieP wrote: »

The amount of women who do it isn't really relevant, though it's interesting that you didn't acknowledge the other major reason for the drop in the amount of baby's placed for adoption, which is easily available, safe abortions.

The relatively generous social benefits and availability of free medical care available to single parents also clearly plays a part as infant adoptions are much more common in non-welfare, non-social medicine countries like the US, where similarly liberal values exist. But we don't consider American women who give their babies up for adoption to be lowlife scum either.

I didn't mention abortion because I thought the thread was getting heated enough and I've never taken part in a discussion on here that didn't completely disintegrate at the mention of it, sadly.

Medical care for low earners or the unemployed in the US is a world away from the situation here, not a remotely comparable situation.

alias*alibi

Person_one wrote: »

Unfortunately, there are some aspects of biology that we can't change or legislate for. If a man wants to be absolutely sure he won't be a father he should abstain from sex. If he's willing to accept a small risk, he should be absolutely religious about condom use (that covers the STI issue for the most part too).

If he's not really bothered he can just take the word of the woman when she says she's on the pill, but if he doesn't take any responsibility at conception he really can't complain after the birth.

Same goes for women!

Person_one

alias*alibi wrote: »

Same goes for women!

Not quite, but sort of.

Point being, your husband had one completely surefire way of making sure he didn't create an unwanted child with the other woman, and one slightly more risky option.

He didn't take either, and its not him paying the price its everybody else.

peachyprice

GracieP wrote: »

I'm wondering if everyone here who is castigating the man for not wanting to have a relationship with the baby girl feel the same way toward women who put their child forward for a closed adoption? Because in terms of the rights of the child to know their parents there is absolutely no difference whatsoever.

The only difference at all here is that there exists no legal right for men to rescind all rights and responsibilities to the children they biologically father. Something which is highly inequitable, especially as it isn't unheard of for a woman to put her child up for adoption and the biological father to then be given full custody.

There are thousands and thousands of women who chose for their children to be adopted because it suited them best at the time. Many go on with their lives not wanting to know anything about the child and preferring to never know anything more about them, not considering them a part of their family and never wanting their existence to jeopardise their relationship with those who they do consider family. That may be hard for most people to fully understand, tbh it is for me too, but almost nobody considers those women to be lowlife scumbags of the type the OP's husband is being called repeatedly here.

It's not nice, the OP's husband has behaved badly and while I sympathise with the baby (and even her mother) I also believe that a man should have the same ability to relinquish his parental rights as a woman does. And in the long run it will only devastate the child disproportionately to the "devastation" felt by any adopted child if the child's mother allows her own disappointment and hurt to influence her daughter's feelings about her upbringing.

But those women who have put their children up for adoption do not have a legal obligation to support them financially for the next 18 years, they give them up for adoptionand walk away. Therefore the two situations are not comparable.

GracieP

clearingout wrote: »

that's an interesting take on things and one I'm going to have to personally mull over for a while. I wouldn't berate a woman for giving up a child, no. I would consider it her right to be honest. But you're right, men don't get that opportunity - they either live with it or they walk away. Hmmm....

I had a very similar reaction when this was pointed out to me a few years back. Except it took me much longer to reconsider. I was quite stuck on the biological argument which Person_One makes. But the fact of the matter remains that we allow women to relinquish their parental rights and usually call them selfless, we don't allow men that choice and call them selfish if they want to make that choice.

That has nothing at all to do with biology. This isn't about whether a man can make choices about what happens to the foetus during pregnancy, a man's preferences can no take precedence in that case due to biology. This is about what happens when the child is born, at which point the biology of the parent is irrelevant and both parents should have equal choices.

alias*alibi

Ok, on cloudy days advice I'm bowing out; I have nothing left to say and will ask the mods to shut the thread now.

Thanks to all contributors for their input, some valued, some not so much.

GracieP

peachyprice wrote: »

But those women who have put their children up for adoption do not have a legal obligation to support them financially for the next 18 years, they give them up for adoptionand walk away. Therefore the two situations are not comparable.

Exactly! That is how the law is deeply inequitable. If a woman can give up her child and walk away forever without further obligation, a man should have the same rights. The law is unfair here. The man should have the same right to relinquish all his parental rights and responsibilities to the other parent as the woman does.

Person_one

GracieP wrote: »

I had a very similar reaction when this was pointed out to me a few years back. Except it took me much longer to reconsider. I was quite stuck on the biological argument which Person_One makes. But the fact of the matter remains that we allow women to relinquish their parental rights and usually call them selfless, we don't allow men that choice and call them selfish if they want to make that choice.

That has nothing at all to do with biology. This isn't about whether a man can make choices about what happens to the foetus during pregnancy, a man's preferences can no take precedence in that case due to biology. This is about what happens when the child is born, at which point the biology of the parent is irrelevant and both parents should have equal choices.

The thing is, and I appreciate I'm generalising here, women don't carry children for 9 months and then give them up because they don't want the financial expense, or because they don't want to be tied to a particular man, or because they can't be bothered with spending time with them. Its almost always for a much more complicated and generally a much sadder reason.

I know several children adopted as babies, one was a result of incestuous rape, two were the children of a drug addicted prostitute and social services removed them at birth.

We may allow women to ditch their babies and walk away, but how many healthy, happy women actually go through with pregnancies and do that for reasons of convenience?

Comparing adoption with men not facing up to their responsibilities is like comparing apples and oranges.

alias*alibi

Person_one wrote: »

The thing is, and I appreciate I'm generalising here, women don't carry children for 9 months and then give them up because they don't want the financial expense, or because they don't want to be tied to a particular man, or because they can't be bothered with spending time with them. Its almost always for a much more complicated and generally a much sadder reason.

I know several children adopted as babies, one was a result of incestuous rape, two were the children of a drug addicted prostitute and social services removed them at birth.

We may allow women to ditch their babies and walk away, but how many healthy, happy women actually go through with pregnancies and do that for reasons of convenience?

Comparing adoption with men not facing up to their responsibilities is like comparing apples and oranges.

The difference is there is a 'choice' for women if they chose to not want their children. A man has no choice in any part of it apart from the act itself. The choice is completely taken away from men; women have the overriding choice in every part from the moment of conception and the man cant do a damn thing about it. Gracie is correct when she says the law is not equal.