Legislative Alert- Abortion Opponents Come Together to Promote Birth Control.

I read about this in Glamour Magazine - offline. However, it appears to be getting little attention - I retrieved this in the Great Falls Tribune.

There's even a chance now that Congress will approve legislation that would expand women's access to birth control and help prevent unwanted pregnancies, Keenan said.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid opposes abortion but supports increasing women's access to birth control. In 2005, Reid teamed up with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. to introduce legislation that would, among other things, increase federal birth-control funding for low-income women, require insurance companies to pay for contraceptives just as they do for male impotence drugs, and provide funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs.

"We hope that all young people are abstinent," Keenan said. "But if they are not, then you have to provide them with information to make good decisions."

She waves off any suggestion that access to information on birth control encourages teens to become sexually active.

"It's like saying that air bags promote car wrecks," she said.

The offline article implied that this, and a mirror bipartisian effort in the House - are progressing presently, even though the article refers to 2005. I'll research this more shortly and post my results here.

Technorati Tag: childfree

Child Support - has it gone too far?

There are a handful of cases which highlight potential unfairness in the current child support system. For example, courts have held non-anonymous sperm donors liable for child support, even when the mother explicitly agreed to support the child fully herself. A court in Sweden recently upheld a similar ruling.

The law examines child support rights from the perspective of the child, so the acts of the mother, no matter how heinous, will not supersede the right to support. The right to payment stems solely from biological parentage, and does not depend on the will or the deed of the man in question. And thus courts have upheld payments in extreme cases, such as boys who were statutorily raped and in cases where women took the sperm from a condom and impregnated herself without the father's consent. These are just the notable cases, there are also myriad circumstances in which a woman lies about or sabotages birth control to get pregnant, and is still entitled to child support.

Although these cases seem extremely unfair, it is hard to counter the argument that the child still deserves support, and still deserves a living. A man paying $800 a month for a child conceived from sperm stolen from oral sex proposed one solution: a separate suit against the mother. An Illinois court recently reinstated his suit for emotional distress, providing some hope that this solution could stick.

I would go one step further. If the mother's actions were the sole cause of the child support obligation, why not force her to indemnify him for the payments? In the majority of the cases in which the mother has custody, this may seem impractical. The funds that she paid him would go straight back to herself, and would be taken from the same coffers that are providing current support for the child. This would effectively cancel out the child support and would not result in more overall provisions for the child's welfare. But what if such cases were instituted against non-custodial mothers, or after the child turned 18? Could the father obtain the value of his payments from the mother, now that her funds are her own and the child is independent? Such a result would seem to be a tad fairer than our current system.

And yet this is not the worst of it. A court ruled today that a man still owes back child support for a child that is not his, and whom he never claimed to parent. An Arkansas Court found that payments due before the paternity test were not waived, since the results of those tests only apply to future payments under state law. Existing laws already oblige non-biological fathers to pay child support when they become de facto parents by acting as such.

This departs from the justifications above; how can that basic entitlement inure to the child when there is no biological relationship?

I'm not quite sure whether this qualifies as a 'child-free' issue, and I welcome your feedback on that point. However, I have always suspected that, even as a woman, it is my childfree tendencies that have lead to my outrage on this issue. No one could trick me into having a child. Indeed, I would hold all the decision making in my hands while the man would nearly equally pay for that choice. Perhaps it is the absence of any ticking biological clock that allows me to feel that way; perhaps it would make a woman understand, even a little, why a woman would dupe a man into paternity. Or perhaps it is that in this pro-natal culture, we are very nearly the only ones left speaking on one side when someone cries "for the children!" on the other.

Technorati Tag: childfree

National Study of the Changing Workplace, Part I

The National Study of the Changing Workplace was done in 2002, but remains one of the more comprehensive studies of its kind. I've been on this 'deduce your own' kick with studies lately, and thought I would take a fresh look at the study from the perspective of the Childfree Issues project.
Interestingly,

the combined time that spouses with children spend caring for and doing things with their children on workdays has actually increased—from 5.2 hours in 1977 to 6.2 hours today.

despite the fact that dual-earning couples have increased from 66% to 78% in the same timeframe. This is notable because it contradicts the common assumption that the rise of the working woman has met with the unfortunate side effect of latch-key kids. Perhaps we are simply more cognizant of 'quality time' than we were in the past. Of course, this does not negate the possibility that the support demands of mothers were also needed back then.

Since 1977, fathers have increased the time they spend on workdays doing household chores by approximately 42 minutes, while mothers have reduced their time by the same amount, although they still do more than fathers. The amount of time, then, that couples with children spend on household work has not changed—what has changed is how that labor is divided. In other home activities such as cooking and child care, women are still much more likely to shoulder greater overall responsibility, though fathers appear to be taking more responsibility than they used to.

These numbers are less surprising, and d weigh in favor of giving more benefits to working mothers. However, the fact that these arrangements are the result of the choices of married couples still remains. The indication that the shifting balance may reflect a trend may well mean that demands to supplement what fathers aren't doing may someday be moot.

I think that is one thing that both sides of the issue can wish for together.

I will continue to cover this study, and others I find, in the coming weeks.

Technorati Tag: childfree

Working Women of Today More Likely to Have Large Families

a related post on this article is also at Childfree News


Family Size In America: Are Large Families Back?

Professional moms have twice as many kids at home, on average, than their high-powered counterparts did back in 1977, according to a 2002 report from the Families and Work Institute. And in a 2000 study, sociologist Martin found that college-educated women who put off motherhood until their 30s are suddenly having families almost as big as everyone else's. "That's historically unprecedented," he says.
. . .
Wealthier families in general seem to be warming up to the idea of moving past a tasteful two. "Our survey from 2002 found that 12 percent of higher-income women had three or more children," says Anjani Chandra, a researcher at the National Center for Health Statistics. "The figure from 1995 is only about 3 percent."

Part of the reason that wealthier people are having more kids may simply be that there are more of them. "In this country there's been a pretty dramatic increase in people with higher incomes," says demographer Morgan. "And if you like kids and can afford them, why not?"

So professional moms have twice as many kids at home than their 1977 counterparts did. But how telling is this statistic? Certainly, the working world is different for women than it was back then, fresh off the impression that a 'working woman' meant being a teacher or a nurse. With fewer women in the workplace, the stereotypical mannish female executive of the 80s was probably emerging for a reason - they had to, (or thought they had to) blend in with the big boys to get ahead. With women reaching a critical mass, that need is less pressing today.

Also, the statistic applies only to working moms - there is no mention of how many working women have no kids at all. With the rising demands for childcare, flextime, and other mommy benefits, combined with the continued pressure to keep a balance of females in the workplace, we may just be more valuable than ever.

Technorati Tag: childfree