5 ms·

My impression is that paying child support is a judicial obligation, and whether it's moral or not comes down to how moral the ruling is, and whether or not the

• Arainach 3y ago
  If you have a child, you should pay to support it. This is a moral obligation. It doesn't matter if you didn't intend to have a child, it doesn't matter if you're not currently in a relationship with the other parent.
  • cataphract 3y ago
    Maybe it is a moral obligation, maybe it's not. Depends entirely on the circumstances and in your framework for morality. Maybe paying child support prevents the parent from getting any sort of stability in their life. Maybe the money is squandered. Maybe responsibility should fall on society more generally, and the fact that basic needs of children depend on the financial capacity of the parents is itself immoral. Or the way society organizes itself around money is immoral. Not saying that that agree in general with those statements, but your categorical statement just irked me.
• HumblyTossed 3y ago
  > My impression is that paying child support is a judicial obligation, You're wrong. Plenty of people work out child support without having to even go to court specifically for that. Most people do the moral thing and take care of a child they were responsible for bringing into this world.
  • bill_joy_fanboy 3y ago
    As noted above, the father is never responsible for a child being born. The mother is the one who makes that choice.
    • HumblyTossed 3y ago
      Bullshit!
      • brailsafe 3y ago
        I'd say it's a toss up, in terms of an unintentional pregnancy, in no particular order. Prospective mother could decide on her own to keep it, and the prospective father is stuck with either guaranteed child support payments or trying to raise the kid. Prospective mother and father have hormones take over and both decide to commit even though objectively it's going to be a brutal road ahead. In what are probably quite rare situations now, the man forces the woman to have the kid against her will. One of the two parties merely convinces the other it'll work out, and they both try and figure it out. The parents of either party get involved and create a bunch of other branching variations because they've got money or want grand kids or that's how they did it. I don't think it's untrue to say it's the woman's choice ultimately, particularly in places where abortion is legal, but it is an unfair characterization, because creating life is incredibly messy, fraught with all sorts of complicating factors culturally and logistically.
  • brailsafe 3y ago
    Plenty of people work out how to collaborate in raising kid in a variety of ways, including as an incidental aspect of going to court, but "paying child support" colloquially is a judicial imposition that may or may not be grounded in moral reason. I'm not saying that paying to support a child is not a moral obligation, I'm saying paying child support or getting someone to do so is not a moral consideration more often than it is a judicial obligation. Others can explore the obvious hypotheticals, but plenty of the time one party ends up destroyed in proceedings. Any two parties should approach the prospect of raising a child with extreme diligence, unfortunately not everyone does, accidents happen, emotions take over and later things may or may not go horribly.
• indymike 3y ago
  > but I assume you're being hyperbolic. Paying to support children you make is a moral obligation. The justice of any given court decision is going to vary. But beneath it all is a social contract that says if you made the kid, you support the kid.
  • willcipriano 3y ago
    The assumption that the man must provide was largely due to the woman not having a choice in the matter either. I'm not sure if it applies anymore.
    • lolinder 3y ago
      Bob gets Alice pregnant. They could have used birth control but for whatever reason they didn't—maybe they thought they wanted a kid, maybe they made a mistake. Alice thinks Bob is going to stick around and help but he gets cold feet and bails. Alice has the baby and now is a single mom. Why shouldn't Bob be required to support Alice as she raises their kid? What does availability of birth control change here?
      • willcipriano 3y ago
        Bob wouldn't be allowed to get upset had she instead choose to abort, seems sort of unfair that he has to support her and the kid for the rest of their lives should she decide not to. Alice could've married Bob if she wanted a longer term commitment like marriage.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • michaelmrose 3y ago
          Bob could have not fucked Alice without 2 forms of birth control
          • 3y ago
• refurb 3y ago
  It’s wild to me how the right in the 80’s claimed moral superiority and the left’s response is “dont impose your morals on me”. 40 years later and the left is the one claiming moral superiority in terms of use of pronoun, social policy, etc. I thought we didn’t impose our personal morals on others?
  • zarzavat 3y ago
    The concept of “morality” absent justification or rationale, is at best laziness and at worst a subtle form of manipulation. It is a way to get someone to do something that is not in their interest by making an assertion that to do otherwise would be immoral. However “immoral” is an empty word, it means everything and nothing at once. To various people: Eating pork is immoral. Saying “Jesus Fucking Christ” is immoral. Sex before marriage is immoral. Smoking weed is immoral. If you’re a Catholic priest or Vestal Virgin even marriage itself is immoral. We shouldn’t accept statements of the form “X is immoral” as well-formed arguments. “Drinking and driving is immoral” is not an argument. “If you drink and drive you might kill someone”, that’s an argument.
• Dalewyn 3y ago
  >My impression is that paying child support is a judicial obligation If you don't want to carry the responsibilities of making a child, then don't screw with someone. Simple. Those who screw and then refuse to answer to their deeds are by far the most worthless people on the planet. Children born to such parents deserve better, and the courts are just making certain-as-they-can of that. Also, note that this is very different from someone who can't carry the responsibilities, that's another and far more complicated story.
  • shiroiushi 3y ago
    What if you get raped? What if you're a child? There's at least one case of an underage boy having sex with an adult woman who seduced him, got pregnant with his child, and then forced him to pay child support, even though the court ruled that he was a victim of statutory rape.
    • Dalewyn 3y ago
      That's what I mean by those who can't carry the responsibility, cases like yours are a different matter. What I speak of are two consenting adults having sex and making a child intentionally or otherwise. If those parents subsequently don't want to pay child support or otherwise don't want to own up to their acts, they are worthless people and the child deserves better.
      • shiroiushi 3y ago
        That sounds great, but we've seen the legal system doesn't think the same way, and will happily condemn a rape victim to decades of paying child support.
  • brailsafe 3y ago
    Well, in a case where the intention at the outset is to have sex for pleasure only and explicitly try and prevent it from happening, is it more immoral to take it to completion against the others intention to participate, or more immoral to excuse yourself from raising it on the basis you don't think you and the other parent will be able to raise the kid without too much conflict? Seems nuanced to me. If you go at it alone despite obviously bad circumstances, and you end up not winning that roll of the dice on your ability to do it alone long term, did you fuck up or did they?