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[SalmonGod]

I have a good friend who is a prime example.  His girlfriend told him that she had a past injury that made her incapable of having children... And then got pregnant.  Turned out she was lying, and just wanted a kid out if him.  They split up immediately, but he abandoned career plans that involved moving and shouldered the financial burden of being a proper father, because he didn't want to punish the kid for what she did.

Very noteworthy to me is that I've never heard the word rape used once in reference to what happened.

[Starver]

I know you're talking about biology, but that sounds a bit sexist, perhaps unintentionally, especially since theres birth control methods.

Not entirely sure about being sexist. I think you misread/I miscommunicated the point. Which was deliberately heading towards preposterousness, anyway. (Was it my disclaimer that made you think otherwise? I put that there in case someone got a wrong idea about my being fervent about something, but may have actually sent you down the path of thinking that.)

[Dunamisdeos]

You forgot the best contraceptive of all, being unattractive.

Related: I never had a kid before getting married.

Jokes aside, I can talk about my experience, but I was lucky. My company offers a few days paternity leave, but it's only a week. They do let me spread it out when I need to, so if the wife needed time on a certain day or whatnot I could take the time. Very lucky to work where I do. All my friends had terrible experiences, and my wife was actually fired for being pregnant. Her supervisor got fired eventually over it, but we had to pick up work elsewhere at a new place, and that was extremely difficult to find.

[Trekkin]

Let's say 20 years from now we have a less invasive, easily reversible vasectomy.  Someone is already working on that, look up vasalgel.  Its not confirmed how easily it can be reversed yet tho. 

Oh, we already have better than that: there are transgenic CatSper antigens that cause permanent reversible contraception with a failure rate below our ability to detect. It's like being vaccinated against being pregnant -- or, via a different approach, against impregnating people. One shot (of proteins that can be made very cheaply), no side effects, no babies until that response is suppressed.

It's just not profitable to sell something people only need once, so no one's interested in bringing it to market. Isn't the free market great?

[Reelya]

idk, there are downsides to perfect contraception however. People are less likely to use a condom then, meaning Aids and other diseases are more likely to spread. Condom use has been dropping for a number of years, it's actually a big issue. The risk of pregnancy and having to pay child support might in fact encourage the little assholes to put a goddamn condom on.

[Maximum Spin]

Oh, we already have better than that: there are transgenic CatSper antigens that cause permanent reversible contraception with a failure rate below our ability to detect. It's like being vaccinated against being pregnant -- or, via a different approach, against impregnating people. One shot (of proteins that can be made very cheaply), no side effects, no babies until that response is suppressed.

It's just not profitable to sell something people only need once, so no one's interested in bringing it to market. Isn't the free market great?

Oh, don't worry, that would be incredibly profitable if it worked. It's mainly more that nobody wants a contraceptive that can kill you from immune overreaction.

[MrRoboto75]

can't get pregnant if you're dead.

[Trekkin]

Oh, we already have better than that: there are transgenic CatSper antigens that cause permanent reversible contraception with a failure rate below our ability to detect. It's like being vaccinated against being pregnant -- or, via a different approach, against impregnating people. One shot (of proteins that can be made very cheaply), no side effects, no babies until that response is suppressed.

It's just not profitable to sell something people only need once, so no one's interested in bringing it to market. Isn't the free market great?

Oh, don't worry, that would be incredibly profitable if it worked. It's mainly more that nobody wants a contraceptive that can kill you from immune overreaction.

I'm curious what has led you think that's actually a non-negligible risk with these. If you have a source, please, by all means post it.

[Lord Shonus]

You're the one that brought them up, with the usual nonsense Big Pharma conspiracy crap. Onus is on you.

[Maximum Spin]

I'm curious what has led you think that's actually a non-negligible risk with these. If you have a source, please, by all means post it.

It's a non-negligible risk with pretty much all immune-based therapies, one of the many reasons they fall out of the clinic constantly. I'm not going to dig up a source for a well-known phenomenon just because you know nothing about the field.

[Trekkin]

I'm curious what has led you think that's actually a non-negligible risk with these. If you have a source, please, by all means post it.

It's a non-negligible risk with pretty much all immune-based therapies, one of the many reasons they fall out of the clinic constantly. I'm not going to dig up a source for a well-known phenomenon just because you know nothing about the field.

And I'm not going to continue a derail that has sunk to the level of personal attacks.

[Maximum Spin]

And I'm not going to continue a derail that has sunk to the level of personal attacks.

... you have a very strange definition of "personal attacks".

[EnigmaticHat]

I have a good friend who is a prime example.  His girlfriend told him that she had a past injury that made her incapable of having children... And then got pregnant.  Turned out she was lying, and just wanted a kid out if him.  They split up immediately, but he abandoned career plans that involved moving and shouldered the financial burden of being a proper father, because he didn't want to punish the kid for what she did.

Very noteworthy to me is that I've never heard the word rape used once in reference to what happened.

I would put it in the "not rape but still shitty" category.  There is a type of rape that covers this, rape-by-deception, but.  I'd say if you knew roughly who someone is (like they aren't pretending to be your spouse in the old cliche) and you knew what acts you are going to perform, its not rape.  Cause that would imply that you could give full, enthusiastic consent and then revoke it after the act, which is just... odd.

I do mean it when I say still shitty tho.  Like I would define people who knowingly have unprotected sex with HIV and lie about it to not be rapists, but still committing a huge crime.  Although that's an extreme example compared to what she did.  I would say that lying about yourself to have sex should be some kind of sex offense, but not rape.  Maybe a new crime.  I don't think it should be the same thing as rape-by-deception because that covers impersonating someone and I'd say that is equivalent to other kinds of non-statutory rape.

The point I was making with my wall of text is that if you punish *her* for this, you're also punishing the child.  And that's why I'm not sure what the solution is in this situation.  I agree that she owes a debt to him and to society the same way that a criminal does.  But like... what do you do?  You can't fine her or imprison her because then you're hurting the child.  Neither the right nor the left would be ok with forcing her to have an abortion, with good reason.  You can't wait till after the child is fully grown to punish her because that's not how our and/or a sane legal system works.  So the only options I see are: the government pays the child support, have the father pay the child support, or don't have any child support.  Those are all shit options and we have to pick one.

Hence why I look forward towards a technological solution and hopefully towards changing social values turning this into an obsolete issue.  I'd also say that in an environment with less income inequality this would be less of a problem because people would have more ability to absorb child related expenses.  But then I relate income inequality to all issues.

[Doomblade187]

Injectable Male Birth Control 2.0

This is another version of the injectable birth control, non-hormonal. Not FDA approved in the US, I think. First article I found, had heard of it before.

[SalmonGod]

I have a good friend who is a prime example.  His girlfriend told him that she had a past injury that made her incapable of having children... And then got pregnant.  Turned out she was lying, and just wanted a kid out if him.  They split up immediately, but he abandoned career plans that involved moving and shouldered the financial burden of being a proper father, because he didn't want to punish the kid for what she did.

Very noteworthy to me is that I've never heard the word rape used once in reference to what happened.

I would put it in the "not rape but still shitty" category.  There is a type of rape that covers this, rape-by-deception, but.  I'd say if you knew roughly who someone is (like they aren't pretending to be your spouse in the old cliche) and you knew what acts you are going to perform, its not rape.  Cause that would imply that you could give full, enthusiastic consent and then revoke it after the act, which is just... odd.

I do mean it when I say still shitty tho.  Like I would define people who knowingly have unprotected sex with HIV and lie about it to not be rapists, but still committing a huge crime.  Although that's an extreme example compared to what she did.  I would say that lying about yourself to have sex should be some kind of sex offense, but not rape.  Maybe a new crime.  I don't think it should be the same thing as rape-by-deception because that covers impersonating someone and I'd say that is equivalent to other kinds of non-statutory rape.

The point I was making with my wall of text is that if you punish *her* for this, you're also punishing the child.  And that's why I'm not sure what the solution is in this situation.  I agree that she owes a debt to him and to society the same way that a criminal does.  But like... what do you do?  You can't fine her or imprison her because then you're hurting the child.  Neither the right nor the left would be ok with forcing her to have an abortion, with good reason.  You can't wait till after the child is fully grown to punish her because that's not how our and/or a sane legal system works.  So the only options I see are: the government pays the child support, have the father pay the child support, or don't have any child support.  Those are all shit options and we have to pick one.

Hence why I look forward towards a technological solution and hopefully towards changing social values turning this into an obsolete issue.  I'd also say that in an environment with less income inequality this would be less of a problem because people would have more ability to absorb child related expenses.  But then I relate income inequality to all issues.

I don't know what the right answer is, either.  But that's the contradiction I'm talking about here.  "Stealthing" basically the same thing, which outspoken feminists are very staunch about defining as rape, along with all of the black & white expectations of social exile that entails.  And questioning the definition of something as rape or suggesting that the proper response might be something other than total exile from society, especially on allegations alone, is one of those things that I've found to result in severely hostile shutdown, even from people that I'm normally on really good terms with.