----- Original Message ----- From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 4:48 PM Subject: Re: Mandatory fatherhood
> Ian writes:
>
> > > Jeez, Nathan, why not draw the obvious and indeed feminist conclusion
> >> that mandatory fatherhood is also deplorable? The current practice of
> >> running down the father for child support before affording children
> >> access to (too meager) public support is sexist and regressive and we
> >> should oppose it. All children (and indeed all people) ought to have
> >> basic rights to food, shelter, education, healthcare so that no one's
> >> well-being hinges on the good will or sense of responsibility of this or
> > > that or the next male.
> >===================
> >
> >This just anonymizes the structuring of obligations in the society
> >and anonymizing
> >obligations leads precisely to the culture of mutual indifference
> >many claim to abhor.
> >I'm not disagreeing with what you write by any means, but a paradox
> >is showing in
> >demanding a libertarian-individualist approach to bodies and their
> >dispositions and
> >intentionalities yet calling for the State to coerce others to
> >refrain from using the
> >State to coerce us while respecting the obligations we call for. I
> >for one don't know
> >how to overcome the paradoxes-aporias of how we go about
> >constructing a socially
> >stable public-private distinction.
>
> This so-called "paradox" exists in the United States (among other
> nations) for simple reasons of _presence of sexism_ and _absence of
> social democracy_, not because of any complex philosophical "aporia."
> In Sweden, which is less sexist and more social democratic than the
> USA, there is no such paradox in practice:
>
> ***** Abortion is a right in Sweden and is free on request until
> the eighteenth week of pregnancy.
>
> <http://cwr.utoronto.ca/cultural/english/sweden/health.html> *****
=========================
Sweden also has 10 million people with an electorate of maybe 7 million, whereas the US has 280+ million with far greater levels of ethnic, religious etc. diversity thus making collective action for achieving social democratic objectives via the ballot box far more difficult. The Swedes have their own public/private distinctions, they're just different from the USA's.
Ian