Papa Smurf wrote:The drivers's actions are the direct and proximate cause of the accident, I'm not so sure that it could also be concluded that his actions are the direct and proximate cause of the death. To me it seams that the doctor's willful decision to not take a simple life-saving action and who had a legal obligation and opportunity to prevent the victim's death should be considered the direct and proximate cause of the death. He essentially murdered him.

They are direct and proximate. This is demonstrably true. If the doctor himself suddenly had a heart attack on his way to helping the victim and the victim still died you'd have to say the death was direct and proximate from the driver's actions. Whether they doctor willfully chose not to save him or couldn't for some other reason is only relevant to the doctor's culpability, not the drivers. This is very simple logic. You may feel unconformable with the nature of it but it is what it is.

purplerat wrote:

Papa Smurf wrote:

purplerat wrote:You still haven't given a good reason as to why a person should be absolved of their responsibility just because somebody else could have fixed the problem for them but didn't?

For one thing, I'm pretty sure that if the man could fix the problem afterwards he would do so. But he's not allowed or able to do that, only the woman is.

Well, that's utterly irrelevant.

Given your opinion on the traffic accident example it would follow that you think it's irrelevant. I'll just have to disagree with you that it's irrelevant in both cases.

purplerat wrote:

Papa Smurf wrote:
There are scenarios where the man should be absolved from responsibility. If the woman agreed to have an abortion in case she gets pregnant, he should be off the hook. And there are of course other extreme cases such as puncturing a condom or stealing sperm from a condom. I don't see how you could not agree to these scenarios in principle. In practice it might be hard to prove any of this and in principle it would upon the man to show that it is extremely plausible that she did make such a promise, that she did puncture the condom or that she did steal the content.

If the woman agreed to have an abortion then he'd better have that in writing. Otherwise, you're going down the very slippery slope of holding people responsible for what promises they make in bed. Do you think a man who promises to marry the woman should pregnancy occur be forced into marriage if he really didn't want it?

I like to keep my promises, don't you? If he does have it in writing, do you agree that she should follow through? And that if she changes her mind anyway, the man should at the very least not be held responsible (which is pretty much the only available option)?

And yes, the man should marry if he made that promise,unless there are factors that would make it reasonable to back out (for instance if she cheats on him, basically anything that would be grounds for divorce). Otherwise he would be an unreliable scumback. Just as she would be an unreliable scumback if she does not follow through on her promise to have an abortion if she gets pregnant.

Obviously if the man does not want to marry the woman might want to think twice about forcing him since it's unlikely to do her much good in many cases but she would have that right. If you make such a promise and have sex as a result of the woman consenting to it because of your promise and then back out I'd say you were already de facto married so if you want a divorce you're gonna pay.

purplerat wrote:As for those more extreme cases, those are criminal acts tantamount to sexual assault. Nothing about this discussion has even the slightest to do with holding victims of a crime responsible for the outcome of their victimization. So those are absolutely irrelevant.

So I take it that you at least agree that the general, unqualified suggestion by The_MetaTron that if you father a child you're responsible does not apply in such, admittedly, fringe cases.

purplerat wrote:

Papa Smurf wrote:
In the actual case we're dicussing, being a driver requires that you are a woman. Men are not allowed to drive and he's not allowed to touch the steering wheel or the brakes and he is also not allowed to jump out of the car. If the man was allowed to drive he could chose to hit the brakes if he wanted to, grab the steering wheel or jump out if he was allowed to do that.

What's the reasoning for only women being able to drive?

It's a necessary part of the analogy to make it analogous to the topic we're discussing. In the case of a pregnancy (driving in the car) it is only the woman who gets to decide to hit the brakes (abort) or just keep her foot on the pedal where it is (proceed with the pregnancy).

purplerat wrote:That would be absolutely relevant as it is with abortion. If women being able to have an abortion was simply about her not want to have a child then you'd have a fair point. But it's not so you don't.

Yeah sure, woman can decide whether or not to have an abortion because of bodily autonomy. In practice it does mean that she can decide to abort the pregnancy simply because she does not want to have a child. So it's a fair point.

Still interesting how after 24-26 weeks her bodily autonomy goes out the window. There is a valid reason for that but it goes to show that bodily autonomy is not absolute. Does bodily autonomy exist for someone who is on deathrow and executed?

France is making measles vaccinations mandatory. It's not how I would have like to see their problem solved but I understand why they did it. Of course they don't force a needle in, you simply pay a very hefty fine if you don't have your child vaccinated so the consequence is a legal and financial one.

If religious parents withhold proper medical treatment from their child and instead prefer to rely on prayer, I'm all for taking the child out of their custody and have it treated and I think most people would agree. So who should have authority over the childs' body? Apparently neither the child nor the parents.

purplerat wrote:

Papa Smurf wrote:
The passenger has done everything he could do to ensure a safe journey. He's take care of the car, made sure the driver has a driver's license and is a competent driver and the driver has told him that she's not suicidal and is not intent on colliding with a train. She changes her mind and yet he is still not allowed to intervene or jump out because he knew there was a risk that they might arrive at a railroad crossing at the exact same time as a train.

But if the driver didn't have a decision to make, let's say that person has a seizure and can't make a choice. Would the passenger then be legally responsible? No of course not. That's why your analogy fails unless you are arguing that men should NEVER be legally responsible for their children.

If you don't distort the analogy it works fine. The driver did not have a seizure and was able to make a choice. That is an analogy to the situation where the pregnant woman is lucid and competent. Your distorted analogy is more an analogy for the case where the pregnant woman is comatose or something like that. I have no idea who gets to decide what in that case but that's not the situation I'm trying to clarify through my analogy.

purplerat wrote:
As for "he has to live with the consequences either way" well the same goes for fucking and producing children.

Again, fucking does not necessarily produce children and it doesn't even necessarily result in pregnancy. Especially if you use anti-conception measures and the moreso if you use both a condom and the pill. And if there was an understanding that producing a child was not the desirable outcome (which is pretty obvious if you use protection) etc. etc.

purplerat wrote:Even if you absolve him of his legal responsibilities he still has to live with the remaining consequences. That is unless you are arguing he should be able to force her to have an abortion.

Yes, and that is bad enough if it is forced upon him after a broken promise or other scenarios. He rightfully cannot demand an abortion. Legal impunity in somes cases is all I'm arguing for.

purplerat wrote:

Papa Smurf wrote:
But regardless of the legal definitions of direct and proximate cause and the legal outcome, I simply don't see it as fair to hold the driver primarily reponsible for his death in this scenario. I can't imagine I'm the only one whe sees it like that. And I have zero personal interest in this, just like I have nothing to gain or lose from what is discussed in this thread because none of it applies to me and never will.

Why did you add that word right there? That very much so changes both the analogy and how it relates to the topic at hand. Who has said anything about fathers needing to be "primarily" responsible for their child? This fundamentally changes the whole argument.

Change primarily to equally if you want. Still don't think that's fair, the doctor had an opportunity and obligation to treat the vicitm and save his life but choseto do so for his own benefit.

purplerat wrote:

Papa Smurf wrote:The drivers's actions are the direct and proximate cause of the accident, I'm not so sure that it could also be concluded that his actions are the direct and proximate cause of the death. To me it seams that the doctor's willful decision to not take a simple life-saving action and who had a legal obligation and opportunity to prevent the victim's death should be considered the direct and proximate cause of the death. He essentially murdered him.

They are direct and proximate. This is demonstrably true. If the doctor himself suddenly had a heart attack on his way to helping the victim and the victim still died you'd have to say the death was direct and proximate from the driver's actions. Whether they doctor willfully chose not to save him or couldn't for some other reason is only relevant to the doctor's culpability, not the drivers. This is very simple logic. You may feel unconformable with the nature of it but it is what it is.

You can't change an analogy and then transfer a conclusion from that changed analogy back to the original one and say that it applies to the original situation that the original analogy was designed for.

If the doctor had an opportunity and obligation to treat the victim but chooses not to do that for selfish reasons that makes him primarily responsible. Whatever contribution the driver has had is dwarfed and essentially nullified and renderered meaningless by what the doctor did.

(Edit: typo)

Papa Smurf wrote:

purplerat wrote:

Papa Smurf wrote:
But regardless of the legal definitions of direct and proximate cause and the legal outcome, I simply don't see it as fair to hold the driver primarily reponsible for his death in this scenario. I can't imagine I'm the only one whe sees it like that. And I have zero personal interest in this, just like I have nothing to gain or lose from what is discussed in this thread because none of it applies to me and never will.

Why did you add that word right there? That very much so changes both the analogy and how it relates to the topic at hand. Who has said anything about fathers needing to be "primarily" responsible for their child? This fundamentally changes the whole argument.

Change primarily to equally if you want. Still don't think that's fair, the doctor had an opportunity and obligation to treat the vicitm and save his life but choseto do so for his own benefit.

Nope, because even then nobody is asking that men be equally as responsible. Look at the report that was posted earlier. Even when women do get support it's an average of $430/month. And that's per mother, not per kid. Even assuming it was for one kid do you honestly think $430 a month is even remotely close to being equally responsible?

I think the word you are looking for is "minimal".

Papa Smurf wrote:

purplerat wrote:

Papa Smurf wrote:The drivers's actions are the direct and proximate cause of the accident, I'm not so sure that it could also be concluded that his actions are the direct and proximate cause of the death. To me it seams that the doctor's willful decision to not take a simple life-saving action and who had a legal obligation and opportunity to prevent the victim's death should be considered the direct and proximate cause of the death. He essentially murdered him.

They are direct and proximate. This is demonstrably true. If the doctor himself suddenly had a heart attack on his way to helping the victim and the victim still died you'd have to say the death was direct and proximate from the driver's actions. Whether they doctor willfully chose not to save him or couldn't for some other reason is only relevant to the doctor's culpability, not the drivers. This is very simple logic. You may feel unconformable with the nature of it but it is what it is.

You can't change an analogy and then transfer a conclusion from that changed analogy back to the original one and say that it applies to the original situation that the original analogy was designed for.

If the doctor had an opportunity and obligation to treat the victim but chooses not to do that for selfish reasons that makes him primarily responsible. Whatever contribution the driver has had is dwarfed and essentially nullified and renderered meaningless by what the doctor did.

(Edit: typo)

Why would one person being more responsible nullify another person being responsible at all? Where does this concept come from? Who the fuck lives there life like this? I really want to know because I want to stay the fuck away from anybody who walks around thinking that nothing they do carries any responsibility so long as somebody else can clean up after them.

Like if I'm sitting at a crosswalk waiting for a little old lady to cross but she's taking for ever and I see an ambulance with EMTs ready to go waiting on the other side I can decide it's ok to go ahead even if it means possibly hitting her because I don't want to wait and she'll be ok since there is medical help right there. Not my responsibility, right?

From evolutionary point of view, having a gene vehicle kept alive, parented and educated for a monthly fee of $430 is a bargain.

purplerat wrote:Nope, because even then nobody is asking that men be equally as responsible. Look at the report that was posted earlier. Even when women do get support it's an average of $430/month. And that's per mother, not per kid. Even assuming it was for one kid do you honestly think $430 a month is even remotely close to being equally responsible?

I think the word you are looking for is "minimal".

I cannot interpret the $430 a month by itself. You'd need to do statistics on ratio between the amount of money spent by the mother on the child and the amount of child support to see if there is equal responsibility, which gets complicated if you also want to factor in differences in income.

If we assume equal responsibility and equal income, then the total amount spent on the child would be $860 per month. Is that what it costs to feed and cloth a child and send it to school in the USA? I have absolutely no idea.

But yes, if the father cannot be deemed responsible for the child in a given scenario than no he should not be required to pay a single buck.

People should avoid all this by talking about it in advance, but even then according to some here the mother can change her mind afterwards and require him to pay. I find that totally unacceptable. The child should not suffer from it though and the state has an obligation to make sure that doesn't happen but not by requiring the man to pay.

@Papa Smurf
Regarding your train analogy.
First off why do you need two competing analogies? Pick whichever one you think works best and stick with it.

Secondly, when would a passenger in a car ever be legally responsible for the driver's actions? Excluding fringe cases like somebody putting a gun to the drivers head, when would the passenger ever be held legally responsible for what the driver does? Or maybe you are like will and say men should never have any responsibility in which case it would be accurate to compare them to a passenger just along for a joy ride.

purplerat wrote:
Why would one person being more responsible nullify another person being responsible at all? Where does this concept come from? Who the fuck lives there life like this? I really want to know because I want to stay the fuck away from anybody who walks around thinking that nothing they do carries any responsibility so long as somebody else can clean up after them.

The driver is not given carte blanche to just drive recklessly and hit people left and right in the assurance that a doctor will come along and fix them. He's still required to drive carefully (use a condom). If he doesn't (use a condom), we have a different situation where he has more responsiblity than in the first scenario. If both the driver and doctor acted with malicious intent I'd say they would both be 50% culpable.

Haven't you said you were parenting? It takes much more effort, time and energy than can ever be financially compensated. In this sense, to talk about 50/50 responsibility in situation when one only pays and the other actually takes care is absurd.

Papa Smurf wrote:

purplerat wrote:Nope, because even then nobody is asking that men be equally as responsible. Look at the report that was posted earlier. Even when women do get support it's an average of $430/month. And that's per mother, not per kid. Even assuming it was for one kid do you honestly think $430 a month is even remotely close to being equally responsible?

I think the word you are looking for is "minimal".

I cannot interpret the $430 a month by itself. You'd need to do statistics on ratio between the amount of money spent by the mother on the child and the amount of child support to see if there is equal responsibility, which gets complicated if you also want to factor in differences in income.

If we assume equal responsibility and equal income, then the total amount spent on the child would be $860 per month. Is that what it costs to feed and cloth a child and send it to school in the USA? I have absolutely no idea.

But yes, if the father cannot be deemed responsible for the child in a given scenario than no he should not be required to pay a single buck.

People should avoid all this by talking about it in advance, but even then according to some here the mother can change her mind afterwards and require him to pay. I find that totally unacceptable. The child should not suffer from it though and the state has an obligation to make sure that doesn't happen but not by requiring the man to pay.

It's not even close. And it doesn't even consider everything else that goes along with parental responsibilities which are completely separate from financial support. Being a parent myself and having paid support myself I'd say $430 a month is somewhere in the low single digits in terms of percentage of responsibility.

But yes, if the father cannot be deemed responsible for the child in a given scenario than no he should not be required to pay a single buck.

And in which cases are that? When he's raped or a minor or has some other cognitive impairment by which he cannot be responsible for the likely outcome of his actions?

Why is the father not like the doctor in your analogy? All he has to do is one simple medical procedure and everybody's problem is solved. Since he failed to do that maybe he should be held fully responsible as you say the doctor should and the mother completely absolved. Not that I think that way myself but why doesn't your argument work that way?

Papa Smurf wrote:

purplerat wrote:
Why would one person being more responsible nullify another person being responsible at all? Where does this concept come from? Who the fuck lives there life like this? I really want to know because I want to stay the fuck away from anybody who walks around thinking that nothing they do carries any responsibility so long as somebody else can clean up after them.

The driver is not given carte blanche to just drive recklessly and hit people left and right in the assurance that a doctor will come along and fix them. He's still required to drive carefully (use a condom). If he doesn't (use a condom), we have a different situation where he has more responsiblity than in the first scenario. If both the driver and doctor acted with malicious intent I'd say they would both be 50% culpable.

Wait did the doctor act maliciously or did he just not act ethically? Those are two different things and you are again shifting the goal posts. If the doctor shows up on the scene and strangles the victim to death then you'd be right in regards to the driver's responsibility but I don't see how that relates to a woman having a baby. Unless we're going back to the scenario of a man being raped which nobody has argued should require him to pay support.

purplerat wrote:@Papa Smurf
Regarding your train analogy.
First off why do you need two competing analogies? Pick whichever one you think works best and stick with it.

Can't remember the first analogy off the top of my head (Edit: ah you mean the train vs traffic accident; they both clarify it in a different way and one might be more appealing or clear to others) but what's wrong with developing an improved analogy if the first one is deemed unsatisfactory?

purplerat wrote:Secondly, when would a passenger in a car ever be legally responsible for the driver's actions?

In this analogy being hit by the train is analogous to a child being born and both parents being required to support it. It's just an analogy, what's a physical outcome in one universe can be analogous to a physical and legal outcome in the other.

purplerat wrote:Wait did the doctor act maliciously or did he just not act ethically?

According to your logic it wouldn't matter. But if I remember correctly what I said way back, I'm pretty sure in the first post with this analogy, that he chose not to perform the required medical procedures because he had the hots for the victim's wife (Edit: so he acted maliciously from the start).

Really the last post for today, will check back on Monday. But if there is another 10 pages of replies I might decide to pull out of this conversation

Papa Smurf wrote:

purplerat wrote:Wait did the doctor act maliciously or did he just not act ethically?

According to your logic it wouldn't matter. But if I remember correctly what I said way back, I'm pretty sure in the first post with this analogy, that he chose not to perform the required medical procedures because he had the hots for the victim's wife (Edit: so he acted maliciously from the start).

Really the last post for today, will check back on Monday. But if there is another 10 pages of replies I might decide to pull out of this conversation

What do you mean "according to my logic"? I've not suggested that a woman raping a man to get pregnant (or some approximate action) would be the same as her getting pregnant because she was careless or didn't take any action to stop it from happening. What is so hard about that to understand.

So if the doctor now acted maliciously that is a completely different matter. If the doctor literally murdered the victim then no the driver who caused the injuries that did not ultimately kill the victim is not responsible for his death.

But that is simply a matter of shifting the goalposts.

Papa Smurf wrote:

purplerat wrote:@Papa Smurf
Regarding your train analogy.
First off why do you need two competing analogies? Pick whichever one you think works best and stick with it.

Can't remember the first analogy off the top of my head (Edit: ah you mean the train vs traffic accident; they both clarify it in a different way and one might be more appealing or clear to others) but what's wrong with developing an improved analogy if the first one is deemed unsatisfactory?

purplerat wrote:Secondly, when would a passenger in a car ever be legally responsible for the driver's actions?

In this analogy being hit by the train is analogous to a child being born and both parents being required to support it. It's just an analogy, what's a physical outcome in one universe can be analogous to a physical and legal outcome in the other.

That makes no sense.

The driver in your train scenario would be legally responsible (assuming they survive) assuming that universe has any resemblance to ours. So legal responsibility does exist and thus it's not true that "physical and legal in one universe" = "physical alone in another". This is a complete logical failing.