NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/misc/legal/21830

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-30 | 7.4 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!haven.umd.edu!mimsy!afterlife!adm!smoke!matt
From: [e-mail] (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Pre-Sex Contract
Summary: Male Choice through RU-486
Keywords: sex, agreement, legal, contract
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Dec 92 17:01:40 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.
Lines: 148

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Kevin Darcy) writes:

>The act which the contract purports to allow is criminal in nature. The
>only workable interpretation is one which limits itself to incidental
>civil suits.   [Kevin Darcy]

If using RU-486 is criminal in nature, it's not because it use violates
any rights of the fetus, because fetuses have no rights under our law.
If it's criminal because it violates the Slut's "right to bodily privacy"
-- well, that "right" is an artificial construct invoked here only to
frustrate Male Choice.  See what happens if she invokes "bodily privacy"
as a defense to a charge of shooting up heroin or snorting cocaine.

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Matthew Rosenblatt)
>writes:

>>It doesn't say anything
>>about her having the right to Change Her Mind (it doesn't have to,
>>because that right is inalienable, but more about that below).  It
>>says he can use RU-486 to terminate her pregnancy.   [Matt Rosenblatt]

>That cannot workably be interpreted as permitting a crime to committed. She
>cannot agree to contractual terms that make her an accessory to a crime.
>[Kevin Darcy]

The only thing that makes it a crime is her lack of consent.  When RU-486
becomes legal, she'll be able to go to a clinic and have it administered
to her, and it won't be any crime at all because she'll consent.  The
issue is whether she can enter into a contract preventing her from
asserting the right to withdraw that consent.  I say that she cannot
because A Girl's Got A Right To Change Her Mind About Parenthood.
That's her inalienable Female Privilege, and if the Stud wanted such
a privilege, he should have been born a girl.

>>>>She consented in writing, for good and valuable consideration.
>>>>[Matt Rosenblatt]

>>>WHAT "good and valuable consideration"? You didn't specify what that was.
>>>Love and affection? Sex? The former doesn't qualify as "valuable". The
>>>latter is barred as consideration by prostitution laws. The contract is
>>>unenforceable because it either a) lacks valuable consideration from the
>>>man, or b) violates prostitution statute.  [Kevin Darcy]

>>Aha!  Now the light is beginning to dawn for Mr. Darcy.  The "good
>>and valuable consideration" recited here is no different from whatever
>>"consideration" he would invoke to validate his "Pre-Sex Contract"
>>absolving the man from having to support his subsequently-born child.

>Incorrect. The good and valuable consideration from the man in the case of
>the variation of the so-called "pre-sex contract" I advocated consisted of:

>  o  Subsidy of abortion costs, if the mother chooses the abortion option
>
>        or

>  o  Complete waiver of all the man's custody and visitation rights, if
>       the mother exercises her option of carrying to term and taking
>       custody of the child

>Both of those are valid consideration. The latter, while not of discernible
>concrete, tangible value, would nonetheless be valuable to a woman who
>wished to raise a child without fear of the man's "interference".
>[Kevin Darcy]

It ought to be easy enough to alter the consideration in the "Fornication
Contract" to consist of:

     o  Complete waiver of all the woman's parental obligations,
            if both parties decide to let the child be born,

               or

     o  Payment of the cost of the RU-486, should the Stud choose
            not to become a father.

At the time of contracting, neither party looks upon having to be a
parent as a benefit, and a woman who does not want to be a parent
would find the man's agreement to waive her participation in the
raising of a child to be valuable.  And the Stud's offer to pay the
cost of RU-486 (if he chooses to use it) is as valid a consideration
as "Subsidy of abortion costs" is in the "Pre-Sex Contract."

It's not "want of consideration" that makes either the "Pre-Sex
Contract" or the "Fornication Contract" unenforceable.  After all,
the parties could just as easily recite, as old-time land deeds
did, "For Five Dollars and other valuable consideration . . .."
What makes these agreements unenforceable as contracts is the fact
that they contravene public policy.  Public policy is that men have
a duty to support their children.  No contract that attempts to let
them weasel out of that duty, whether by "terminating" those children
before birth with RU-486, or by leaving them bereft of paternal
support after birth through some "waiver" by their mother, is going
to be enforceable.  And that's as it should be: no one is entitled
to a "free lunch" at some innocent kid's expense.

>>It's not "pecuniary consequences" that she suffers.  The consequences
>>were that "He killed my baby!" -- as she contracted that he could do.
>>[Kevin Darcy]

>That is an offense against the Common Good, not just an individual. It is a
>criminal matter, and beyond her power to contract for or against.

The "Common Good"?  Letting an unwanted child come into the world,
unloved by his father and unlikely to get any support from him, is
"the Common Good"?  *Forced Fatherhood* is "the Common Good"?  Letting
a Slut use her supposed right of "bodily integrity" not as a shield
to protect her unborn baby, but as a sword to make an unwilling Stud
into a father, is "the Common Good"?

>>>. . . I would let her waive her civil-suit rights. She "owns" them.
>>>[Kevin Darcy]

>>I would not.  Yes, she "owns" her right to bear her baby, but unlike
>>many other rights, this one is *inalienable*, which means she cannot
>>give it away or bargain it away or sell it to another, even if she
>>wants to.   [Matt Rosenblatt]

>You don't seem to have read what I said. I said I'd let her waive her rights
>to file a civil suit. I never said I'd let her waive her rights to willingly
>bear children...   [Kevin Darcy]

But once she bears a child, no one can waive *the child's* right
to support from his father, and so the Stud is stuck again -- as
well he deserves to be.

>>She can always Change Her Mind, and any just system of
>>justice will uphold her right to do so.  That's Female Privilege,
>>and she's entitled to it because she was born a girl.   [Matt Rosenblatt]

>It has nothing to do with "Female Privilege" [sic] or status, Rosenblatt.
>Her right to choose whether or not to bear children falls under the Right
>to Privacy.  [Kevin Darcy]

On the contrary, it is her status as a girl or lady that gives her
the "right to choose whether or not to bear children" she has already
conceived, whereas a man has no corresponding "right to choose whether
or not to father children" he has already conceived.  The fact that
Mr. Darcy himself would not "let her waive her rights to willingly
bear children" (see above) shows that those rights are inalienable,
Status-based rights that do not derive from any "contract" and cannot
be alienated by any purported "contract."

                    -- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        ([e-mail])

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