Supposing a woman gets pregnant when she’s in a position to support the baby. Then her partner decides he doesn’t want to be a father after all and flees for the hills.

Yup.

Very true, Laurie. But the type of men who pitch the “don’t have sex” line barely regard us as human; the idea that women have sex drives is totally irrelevant to them. If we’re going to squash that line of thinking, we have to drive home the point that they — the men — can’t enjoy sex with women if said women are being celibate to avoid pregnancy. Conversations like this….

M – Hey, honey, I’m feeling horny, you want to hmmm…?

W – I can’t; I can’t afford to get pregnant.

M – But you’re on the pill.

W – I know, but they do have a 2% failure rate, you know. I don’t want to chance it.

M – I’ll use a condom; then we’ll be doubly protected.

W – But condoms can break. No, it’s just not worth the risk.

M – But I’m horny!

W – Tough. Go jack off in the shower.

….would change their tune pretty quick.

It’s disgusting — BB has received HATE MAIL for being in the position of needing emergency contraception, has been called a slut and a whore, and told she should have kept her legs shut. NO ONE has suggested that Dubhe should have “kept it in his pants”, so that BB wouldn’t be in need of the EC. He is automatically granted the “right” to fuck; she is not. So… maybe he’s supposed to get it on with a ghost woman? These people conveniently ignore that it takes TWO people to fuck, and TWO to create a pregnancy.

And (people) shouldn’t have to have the threat of an unwanted pregnancy hanging over their heads every time they want to have sex.

That is the bottom line, and the big disconnect in the thinking of the Powers That Be. I think if I were granted one wish, it would be that these assholes could live as poor women, under the rules they’ve created, for six months. I think a lot of eyes would be opened.
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And how many women really want to live totally celibate lives? The “just don’t have sex” crowd really do seem to pitch that one almost exclusively at women, as if we don’t have sex drives. Or even the need for touch and human closeness. Granted, there are a lot of ways to be sexual without PIV intercourse, but a lot of couple actually enjoy that part of sex. And shouldn’t have to have the threat of an unwanted pregnancy hanging over their heads every time they want to have sex. ‘Cause really, we DO have the technology to control that aspect of our lives these days. It’s just that far, far too many people don’t have decent access to it.

And before anyone gets up on their high horse about unmarried women screwing around, let me remind them that a lot of women who want to control their fertility are in fact married. They may want children someday, just not NOW. And they should have that option without getting hassled about it. (Not that you, RM, were actually doing so in your above post. Just that I’ve seen that tack before.)

Really good breakdown, Starwatcher!!! :)

Why have children if you do not have the support system or money to take care of them?

Read almost any feminist blog.

1. Many (most) American schools don’t teach young people how NOT to become pregnant.

2. Many women cannot afford birth control, and many states will no longer provide it at reduced cost to those on welfare.

3. IF birth control is available, it is not always effective.

4. If birth control fails (broken condom), it is extremely difficult to get Emergency Contraception (read Biting Beaver’s hassles). If that fails, it is even more difficult to get an abortion.

5. As for the “don’t have sex” advocates — how many MEN will put up with their woman “not putting out”, and how many poor (and poorly educated) women can enforce their “no”? Also —

6. Rape happens.

In short, American society, at least, makes it almost impossible to PREVENT having children, at the same they it refuses to help finance stable living conditions for those precious fetuses that it insisted it must be born. Women are literally caught between a rock and a hard place, with a massive weight on top. And —

7. You should know all this. Your question is disingenuous, at best, and smacks of putting the blame on those who are not ALLOWED to control their own reproduction. Very few women want to birth a child they cannot afford, but once the government is finished fucking them over, they’re shit out of luck.
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Speaking as a childfree person, I always have this un-pc question pop into my head:

Why have children if you do not have the support system or money to take care of them? It’s not like we’re running out of people in either of our countries (as far as I know, the population has increased in every census taken in both).

I let 48 hours pass before I asked my question, to avoid derailing the thread.

the very crappy foster-care system

I experienced THAT first hand too. First foster family CHR sent us [my older brother (9) and I (7)] to were racists who locked my brother and I in a room and didn’t feed us. It was THREE months before CHR figured out what was going on and got us out of that house.

Nvmd that if it wasn’t for CHR’s bullying tatics my father likely never would’ve snapped and abused me so badly.

After my divorce from an asshat who wouldn’t work, but loved to make children, I went to work (in fact worked prior in order to gain some semblance of job skills to leave him). I stayed for eight years trying to ‘make it work’ like the wingers say us selfish divorcing women won’t do. Suffered chronic homelessness, starvation, transience, living conditions that nearly threatened my life (pneumonia in the winter of 1985 while pregnant with child #2). But I had to stay and work it out.

When I left him I had to shuttle children around to a plethora of babysitters, never mind daycare as the cost was untouchable, while trying and hoping still to get a job that would lead to the skills to earn a living wage. Rent, electric bill, shoes, coats, school supplies, field trips, birthdays and christmas, peer pressure, ridicule from neighbors, scorn and outright admonishment were our rewards for working hard the ‘old fashioned way’ like the wingers claim we women don’t do.

My children used to call on the company phone in the morning, I’d get paged much to my bosses’ consternation to direct them how to put their socks on, stop fighting over the comb and to walk together to school and don’t forget to lock the door and I promise I won’t have to work too late tonight and will be home to make dinner and read a story…I promise, I promise, just go to school so the teacher won’t call me again and tell me that you were late and make mommy have to go to another teacher’s meeting…

Most of the morons in this country would fall apart at the seams if they had to handle one day that the poorest have to endure every single day of every single year without mercy, without hope, without letup.

My children are intelligent, cynical and aware. I gave up pleasing the cacaphony of poverty deniers, went on welfare, went to college and stayed home to nurture my children as they needed. I used to tell harrassers, “burn me on the stake right here today or shut up.”

I still feel the same. Burn me now you stupid bastards and may you all burn in hell for the hell myself, my children and millions of others have had to endure so that you can feed your murderous, disgusting greed.

I went from paying $125 a month to $480. That little $40/month raise cost me $315/month in childcare.

I’ve since received another 3% raise so it is a bit easier now than last year, and I found a cheaper childcare shortly after I’d been told I no longer qualified for assistance.

On top of that, you are branded as lazy, and stupid, and any number of other things. Everything is stacked against you and it is all your own fault and how dare you demand to be treated as human.

Poor women are told that if they don’t give birth to children they cannot afford, they are murderers, and if they DO give birth to them, well, they CHOSE to, go DEAL with it, we don’t CARE that you can’t supervise your child WHILE you are working to make a wage that you cannot sustain life on.

Being poor is a total clusterfuck no matter how you look at it, and most Americans are happy to blame the poor, even as they exploit them to gain massive dividends. The very same people who refuse to raise the minimum wage, act shocked that poor people “refuse” to buy health insurance, and get abortions.

DO THE MATH ALREADY!