Posted on 10/28/2005 6:07:22 PM PDT by neverdem
We can usually sympathize with one or another party to a dispute: one is usually more in the right—or less in the wrong—than the other. But with the breakdown of accepted conventions, it increasingly happens that neither side arouses our sympathies.
Take a recent case in Sweden, where a lesbian couple wished to have children. An understanding and liberal-minded male friend agreed to donate his sperm, and three children were born to one of the two women between 1992 and 1996. But then relations between the two women deteriorated, and they split up.
The mother of the children found herself alone and in difficult straits. Who would support her, in her—and her children’s—time of need? Her former lover was unwilling, because—after all—she was no relation of the children. The sperm donor had made it clear from the first that he had no wish to be a father in any but the most literal biological sense; he thought he was merely doing the couple a favor. He therefore felt no moral obligation to support the children, and his conscience was clear.
Nevertheless, the government’s department of social security—the potential surrogate parent of every child—sued to force the sperm donor to pay. After a case lasting four years, he found himself obliged henceforth to support the mother and children financially.
The president of the Swedish Federation for Sexual Equality declared the legal decision an outrage. “It is scandalous,” he said. “The man has been condemned to be a father even though he did not take the decision to have the children. Above all, one of the women who took part in that decision has been absolved of all responsibility. If one desires equality of rights for lesbians, it is anomalous that it should not be she who was obliged to support the children financially.”
It would take considerable space to elucidate all the errors in the president’s statement. But I think that the language of rights, and above all of equal rights, is what leads us into this sordid legal and moral swamp. If women have a “right” to children, in the sense that not having them if they want them is an infringement of their rights, then of course lesbian women can no longer accept childlessness as the natural consequence of their condition. Let it not be said that new medical technology is responsible for this change in attitude, incidentally: the kind of artificial insemination offered in a domestic setting by the sperm donor has been possible for a very long time. No, the culprit here is the idea that the fulfilment of our desires, no matter what our condition, is a right. As for the well-being of the children in this case—beyond the provision of sufficient financial support for them—that seems to have entered into no one’s thnking.
A plague on all their houses, then: the idea that one “condemns” a man to support children is in itself both revealing and chilling.
NEVER TRUST A LESBIAN!
They usually hate men and have no qualms about using and betraying us if it means any kind of gain for them.
The man in question was an idiot. ANY time your precious bodily fluids are allowed to be used for reproduction, you basically sell yourself into indentured servitude, if not outright slavery, to the whims of the (likely psychologicaly unbalanced and assuredly greedy) woman in question.
/counting the days until SHE gets the last, FINAL child support check and what's mine is mine once more!
I'm sure we all wish more people would use common sense. There are so many totally avoidable disasters ... it gets very frustrating.
Early gunpowder bomb. Used for knocking down gates and doors of castles. Given medieval quality control, there was a fair chance that the poor schmuck who lit the fuse would be immediately blown up, thus he was hoist (into the air, in little pieces) by his own petard.
I don't think his petard was involved in the traditional sense. But yes, he is hoist.
And the liberated feminists wonder why there's such a thing as a "marriage srike"...
While there is more than one defination, I believe that the common usage is that of a common animal trap, consisting of a rope attached to a bent over tree or branch that trips when an animal steps into it and it whips into the air, ensnaring the creature in the process.
Set it off by accident?
Hoist by your own petard!
I knew this guy that was paying child support and longed for the day his youngest turned 18. He was in his twenties and I thought that was sad but he really had it bad. His ex had sources. She knew if he worked overtime. She knew if he had a second job. She knew if he got a raise. I never found out what he had done to make her so angry but the poor guy was always being hauled to court for an adjustment.
Anyone else get the idea that this guy might also have been gay?
Thanks to both of you. Freepers know everything.
I didn't know that.
Should my old girlfriends pay for my children's college expenses? This "other lesbian" has no connection to the children. She's just an old girlfriend who was around for awhile and then left. There's no reason to hit her up for money.
Very close. A petard is actually an explosive device. If you set it off by accident, it will indeed "hoist" you!
Hasn't technology advanced to the point where paternity fraud is no long possible unless enabled by idiot courts (e.g., NJ)?
Its also an animal trap involving rope and bent branches.
That was the crux of the case that I followed.
He proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the child was not his, but the judge basically ruled that he didn't give a rat's azz who the father was.
I believe the original saying goes back to Shakespeare and I believe the term "petard" got applied to that type of animal trap only in the 19th century. But that's a quibble.
You're not the only one. But some discussions are pointless.
Maybe he didn't want to have that memory!
Hamlet, act III, scene 4, lines 206 and 207: "For 'tis sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petard."
Which certainly supports the bomb explanation of the phrase!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.