On that I some what agree, men that pay child support should get joint custody / visitation rights unless there is risk of harm to the child, it's pretty bleak that men are still forced to pay child support and the mother can claim that they have no rights to ever see the child.

I also believe that child support should be for the child, the mother should not be able to use it for anything which isn't directly related to childcare, and it should be in it's base a flat amount based on living costs rather then a percentage of your income (unless you willingly want to pay more).

That said men have very easy way to avoid children and that's to use a condom or to pick a partner who does not want them, if you are both willingly make one or take on the decision to keep it own up to it the child should not suffer because of that.

Forcing women to have an abortion will never happen, forcing them to give the child up for adoption will never happen, men and women are not identical and so will never be truly equal in every regard, it's not like women can force sperm out of you without assault or rape.

And if there's some extreme case when fraud has actually been committed e.g. she intentionally sabotaged contraception or went "Satisfaction" on you taken your sperm while you were unconscious (which is technically rape) you should be able to sue for a weaver.

> That said men have very easy way to avoid children and that's to use a condom or to pick a partner who does not want them

That's not nearly as easy as it sounds, as condoms are not 100% effective and the partner may not be truthful when they say they don't want children. Women hold all of the power in these situations, as if contraception should fail they have the opportunity to abort or give the child up for adoption, meaning they can change their mind at any point. Men don't have such "second chance" options, as they are completely beholden to the woman's choice from conception on.

In an ideal and fair system, a man should be given adequate opportunity to declare their intent not to support the child, after which the woman will then have the opportunity to abort or put the child up for adoption, or know that if they keep the child then they will be raising it alone or with a different partner.

Life isn't fair, this will not ever be possible biology and modern values make it so. You have other options, get a vasectomy or RISUG, use a condom and wait for the male contraceptive pill to come to market if you still some how manage to reproduce then you'll be the unluckiest person on the planet. You can't force a woman to give up a child anymore than you can force her to bare one, most things in life have some risk associated with them,so does sex.

The problem is that there won't be a system that will allow for men to say "I don't want it" which won't be exploited, and children suffer, it suck yes, but we should rather focus on ensuring that both parents will have fair access to the child and act in it's best interests.

BTW if the woman gets another partner who becomes the legal parent of the child then you are in the clear for child support in most cases.

Life isn't fair, but justice ought to be.

> The problem is that there won't be a system that will allow for men to say "I don't want it" which won't be exploited, and children suffer

Exploitability holds less weight to me than legal fairness. "Think of the children" is more often than not used to justify facilitating unfair actions, in my view.

> It's funny how often it's brought up even before marriage.

What do you mean by this? Do you mean that the topic of children should not be brought up before marriage between two people in a relationship? Or do you mean that the topic gets brought up by family members before you're married?

I mean how often the subject is brought up by friends and family before marriage is. It's more often I get asked about kids than "when are you going to pop the question?"

Within a relationship, though, discussing kids and such are definitely something that should be done well before marriage.

Ah okay, I figured that since the rest of your argument seemed reasonable, but I wanted to verify since it struck me as odd.

As for your actual meaning, that is definitely a weird yet amusing trend. I haven't really heard much of either from my family