Nutty, if you have intent of getting rid of men, we're going to need to throw down. In a squash court, if you insist.

Fight the power, ita!

Nutty, you're going full-on Dworkin on me here.

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Why should the man be liable for the support of a child?

The two parents are responsible for the child, because it is their child. The same is true with children who were conceived because someone lied about contraception, or suffered contraceptive failure, or who opted for a sterility procedure which did not work. Not wanting, not planning for, and not intending conception, does not relieve parents of their responsibility for their living child.

I still don't see why the child should suffer.

She's a doctor. The child's not at risk of growing up poor. S/he's at risk of having a batshit crazy mother with no sense of ethics, but s/he won't starve.

Suffer was a poor word choice, I agree. Why does the child lose rights to parental support because of the action of the mother? What grounds are there for that?

I don't see how any argument can be made that sperm ejaculated into a condom has been "given" to the other party to do with as s/he chooses. The whole point of a condom is to prevent that kind of transfer of ownership.

I still haven't seen mention of a condom. Regardless, there are people who have conceived after undergoing sterility procedures. Their intent and desire, and the acts they took to prevent conception did not relieve them of responsibility for a child unintentionally conceived.

I am not against his suit for damages. And if what he alleges she did can be proven to be true, maybe he'll collect more than he'll ever have to pay in child support. Whether or not he ought to be entitled to damages is a separate issue from whether or not the child is entitled to support.

Why would his being wronged relieve him of parental responsibility when being wronged does not relieve other people of that responsibility?

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Re: Thomash's links:

Huh. I came out as .jpg and hp-ux. The former made sense, the latter made a whizzing noise as it soared over my head.

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Because she who wields the pipette wins the war.

The lesbian or female celibate who doesn't appreciate XY eye candy, you mean.

My mother splices DNA for a living, and if she could work out a way to make prettier men and more of them, well, she'd be the best mother ever, because she'd be turning out batch after batch of them.

It told me I was a .gif -- occasionally animated, but mostly I just sit there and look pretty. Huh.

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In a few more years it should be possible to fertilize an egg with DNA taken from a cell other than a germ (i.e. sperm) cell . That would imply that any DNA a guy leaves around (skin, hair, saliva) could be used to turn him into a "father."

A man intentionally discharging semen in a consensual act and leaving it in the woman's possession in one way or another is no different from shedding skin that is later bioengineered to extract its DNA? The sperm banks should not bother with all those silly releases and waivers, then.

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Nutty, you're going full-on Dworkin on me here.

Now, now. If I were being Dworkinesque, surely I would not have admitted it was an evil plan. Also, I would have used longer words.

The same is true with children who were conceived because someone lied about contraception, or suffered contraceptive failure, or who opted for a sterility procedure which did not work. Not wanting, not planning for, and not intending conception, does not relieve parents of their responsibility for their living child.

And we're back to the kleenex-in-the-trash scenario. Not wanting kids may not relieve someone of parental responsibility, but how about not engaging in activity that causes pregnancy? I think I would be pretty annoyed if someone waved their hands at me and I got pregnant.

This may be why I am not a Christian.

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The two parents are responsible for the child, because it is their child. The same is true with children who were conceived because someone lied about contraception, or suffered contraceptive failure, or who opted for a sterility procedure which did not work. Not wanting, not planning for, and not intending conception, does not relieve parents of their responsibility for their living child.

So, in your view, sperm bank donors are responsible for their progeny as well?

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A man intentionally discharging semen in a consensual act and leaving it in the woman's possession in one way or another is no different from shedding skin that is later bioengineered to extract its DNA?

If the consensual act in question is not one that could, under any natural circumstances, result in conception, then yes, there's no difference. What if it had been a hand job and she'd extracted the sperm from the carpet fibers? Still his responsibility?

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This may be why I am not a Christian.

Neither was Mary. I don't think that is much protection.

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It just seems highly weird to me that she'd go through this cloak-and-dagger stuff to conceive by the guy, and then angrily hit him with a child support lawsuit when she herself is a doctor and presumably not hurting for cash.

Asking for child support forces the father to admit that he is the father and also provides an 18 year relationship with the man. It's not necessarily about the money. She could have impregnated herself to make sure that the guy would always be around (in some fashion).

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