"Women want mediocre men, and men are working hard to become as mediocre as possible." - Margaret Mead

***

I was railing against the injustice of the legal system, that it was unfair, inconsistent and sexist that men have no say at all over the fate of a foetus that they have jointly conceived with the woman (since it is regarded as an issue over the sovereignty of the woman's body), while suddenly bearing prime financial responsibility for the foetus once it is born as a baby (since it then becomes "you banged her. Face the consequences").

This means that if I don't want a woman to have my child, I have no say at all over the foetus's fate but am still obliged to pay for the child once it has been born. Conversely, if I want a woman to have my child, she is free to abort it at any time. The sheer injustice of it all rankles me.

A really strange excuse I was given was that an abortion is a medically invasive procedure and that you cannot force a woman to have it. Meanwhile, if the male doesn't have to pay for the child, the woman may in despair abort the foetus anyway since she may not be able to support it.

This strange structural inequality results, I think, from focusing only on the point of view of the woman and giving it primacy. The Chinese always blamed childlessness on the woman's failure to conceive (as opposed to the man's failure to impregnate her), and here we see that nothing has changed - a woman's being with issue is the "fault" of a man (as opposed to being the choice of the woman). However, the modern twist is that now the man has no rights - only responsibilities, and the woman has no responsibilities - only rights.

An added paradox is that those supporting these sexist laws will almost certainly support the right of women to have late term abortions, so the mere act of birthing a foetus is sufficient to transform it from a parasitic, incomplete lifeform that has no right to life to a living, breathing human being with rights (not least child support) due to it.