A: Proponents of legalizing choice for men generally support contraception, but keep in mind that condoms are unreliable. Condoms have a 16% annual failure rate [1]. After just four years you can bet on having an accidental pregnancy and after 20 years of using condoms, the chances are that a man will most likely experience not one, not two, but three accidental pregnancies!I (heart) my vasectomy.
elquien: A rape victim is not a voluntary participant, period. You simply cannot make the comparison, and frankly, this analogy makes me ill.Spare us the melodrama. Prepare to be ill, because it's a valid analogy.
Why do all these threads dissolve into the idea that all women are liars out to ensnare men, and that men have the god given right to stick their uncovered dicks where ever they want, and women should shut up and use birth control[?]Who's saying that? I see some pretty reasonable arguments, on both sides of the issue (ok, calling someone "retarded" is, well, pretty stupid). I think you're overstating just a bit, FunkyHelix.
Married couple, seemingly happily married. She gets pregnant, they agree to have the kid, raise it as their own, etc. Only thing is, shortly after the child is born, it is apparent the child is not the husband's, but rather the milkman (or some other stereotype), and this is proven via DNA testing, etc.This is why I agree with some variation of Jezztek's proposal, that a guy should have an "opt-out", whereby he renounces fatherhood and if the woman still carries the child to birth it's solely her responsibility. And again, this will never happen because the state would rather this be the financial problem of some random schmoe, and not their problem of supporting these kids.
Now- which male is financially responsible for the child? The legal guardian and "father", or the stunt dick that shot the semen? Let's say he's so pissed she cheated on him, he files for divorce. Divorce is granted. Should he be charged with child support? Who should get custody?
If I don't want to be pregnant, I take the responsibility and use birth control.So, what you're saying then is that any time your birth control fails and you become pregnant, you actually wanted to become pregnant? Even if birth control is 99.9 percent accurate when including human error, one out of every thousand times the failure of birth control will be because a woman unconciously desires to be pregnant. Now it makes sense. Sorry for the confusion.
Probably not. Right now, if a woman steals your sperm from a sperm bank, and uses it to get pregnant; you still have to pay child support.Did that case ever get resolved?
no woman in her right mind would have sex with them.Fortunate for men and women the world over, you do not speak for anyone other than yourself. You're misandy is incredible.
Take a little bit of responsibility for once.Yow. Angry?
First of all, that is the failure rate of people who claim to be using condoms as their method of birth control.Actually, DrAmy, that is the failure rate when human error is introduced. The only way to reduce it is to remove the humans from the equation.
It differs considerably from the technical failure rate which is probably in the range of 3%.No, the technical failure rate, with human error removed, differs with every method. Don't guess. There are facts that might back you up if you bothered to look.
The reason the actual failure rate is so high is that men who claim to be using condoms often don't use them every time, or put them on immediately before orgasm, and have intercourse for some time before using the condom.At least your sexism is consistant, but I'm afraid your wrong again. The reason the actual failure rate is this high is that humans, of both genders, make mistakes. The pill is only as effective as the manufacturers claim based on a very specific method of taking it. There are more possible errors with the pill than with a condom.
Third, vasectomy is the safest method of birth control, with a failure rate of less than 1%.There are numerous operations a woman can have that are equally, if not more, effective. Why is it just a man's responsibility?
The reality is that true birth control failures are quite rare.When people start using words like true or real when defending their argument, it signals that they are not talking about something either true or real. Instead, you're making all of this up because it sounds like it's real to you.
So even if you carve out an exception for men who experience birth control failures, you are talking about very few people. Most unwanted pregnancies are caused by failure to use birth control at all.Probably quite by mistake you have unearthed something that is true. It must feel like finding a treasure. Be proud.
Geez konolia what method were you using, rythym?Play nice. :-) I presume she was using the pill. It's also likely that the pill was using was less effective then. The pill also has significant room for human error, even when the user believes they are following the instructions.
Studies done in the 1960s and 1970s suggested that estrogen was the hormone most responsible for this decrease in milk production. However, those studies were done with pills containing larger amounts of estrogen than are in the contnraceptive pills on the market today. Contraceptives containing only progesterone, including the long-acting injections and under-the-skin implants do not appear to be associated with a decrease in milk production if taken after six weeks after delivery, when the milk supply is established.(I couldn't resist, having just read that section this morning.)
Neither estrogens nor progesterones have been associated with any change in the quality of breast milk. Furthermore, long-term studies have failed to find any effect on growth in children up to eight years old whose mothes took estrogen-based birth control pills while nursing. Also, no effect on growth or the onset of puberty has been found up to seventeen years of age in children whose mothers took progesterone compounds.
---The Complete Book of Breastfeeding
You cannot take the Pill while you are fully nursing a baby.Alms, I realize that you're simply correcting something you know to be untrue, but konolia gave birth somewhere in the range of 1985. Even if the studies cited that proved the original studies from the 1960s and 1970s wrong were done in the early 1980s, it is reasonable to expect that konolia or konolia's doctor could have honestly not known this.
Wrong.
Men who know this, like any of my exboyfriends who worked in health care, have condoms on hand at all times and use them. As should you all.Why would you need a condom at all times? Do people really have that much sex without warning? (Please excuse my monogamy for a second.)
With actual usage (because people make mistakes) the statistic is about 3% per year.It helps your argument when you don't make up numbers to support your position.
Of every 100 women who use the pill, eight will become pregnant during the first year of typical use. Fewer than one will become pregnant with perfect use. (1)There are numerous other methods with different rates of effectiveness, but the pill has a real life failure rate of 8% in the first year of use. The FDA lists the rate of failure for the pill at somewhere between 1% and 2%. The failure rates listed by the FDA are the also the percentage of women that become pregnant in the first year of use in a clinical trial. This is not a strict measure of perfect use of the pill, but it is understood, given the nature of clinical trials, that it's also not the best measure of actual human error.
are the also the percentageare
I didn't "make up" the stats that I quoted.In the future, if you're quoting stats, cite them. I'm sorry for the accusation, though. Please accept my apologies.
The FDA stats are for perfect useFrom the FDA site we both linked:
Failure Rates in this chart are based on information from clinical trials submitted to the FDA during product reviews.Clinical trials do not measure perfect use, as they use human beings, which introduces human error. The page you cited does not support your assessment.
which I happened to pull off of the Wellesley Health siteFrom the Wellesley Health site:
When pills are used perfectly --that means taken at the same time every day, and other considerations such as concomitant antibiotic or other dug use or vomiting and severe diarrhea are taken into account--only about 1 out of 1000 women (0.5%) over the course of a year will actually become pregnant. In actuality, with typical use--taking them erratically or failure to use a back-up method during a flu-like illness, for example--the failure rate is about 3%.First, 1 in 1000 is 0.1%, not 0.5%. "About one" is not equal to five. That should be your first hint that there is something fishy. Furthermore, 1 in 1000 isn't even what birth control manufacturers are claiming to the FDA. From the percentages, it sounds like their "used perfectly" numbers appear to be referring to lab tests, not clinical trials or real life use of the pill. Their 3% number doesn't jibe with any research I've seen. I suppose it's possible that it's an outlier study or the measure of failure rate other than the first year of use, which typically drops. Either way, I would not cite these numbers in a research paper or in a submission to a journal.
thanks for the dig there - married actually, myselfNice reading comprehension there - no one was taking a dig at you. Why would I carry a condom all the time if the only times I have sex are with my partner and I'm not with her all the time? Understand now? Your comment was just a little overboard, despite its good intentions.
Men who know this, like any of my exboyfriends who worked in health care, have condoms on hand at all times and use them. As should you all. (1)
Why would you need a condom at all times? Do people really have that much sex without warning? (Please excuse my monogamy for a second.) (2)
thanks for the dig there - married actually, myself (3)I showed my fiancee this exchange this morning and we discussed it on the way to work. Her first thought was, and excuse my paraphrasing, "Marriage does not imply monogomy."
I don't think that the male can choose to be exempted from his responsibility because women have the choice to terminate a pregnancy.As it stands, every case is judged independantly. There are exceptions, but the precedant generally favors the child, hence many here have said it favors the mother. That's exactly what this case, Roe v. Wade for men, is supposed to address. Given precedent, I presume that the best outcome of this case is the ability to appeal the verdict. It would take a serious lapse in judgement for a judge to find in favor of the father given current law.
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whee!
posted by carsonb at 10:42 AM on March 9, 2006