According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, "[t]hey had sex. She got pregnant. She sued for child support. Now, he's suing back, claiming that men have a constitutional right to 'avoid procreation.'"
Matthew Dubay, 25, of Saginaw, Michigan, claims he had a discussion with his then-girlfriend wherein he told her he was not ready for the emotional OR financial responsibilities of parenthood. She allegedly responded that she was infertile and using birth control "just in case" anyway. Of course, she got pregnant. She did not want to give up the child. After her little girl was born, she got a court order requiring Dubay to pay $500.00 a month in child support.
He doesn't want to pay, so he is (largely at the behest of the National Center for Men, which has wanted to make this case for over 12 years) suing back, claiming that under the equal protection clause, he has a right "not to be a father." [The National Center for Men more properly should be called the National Center for Boys, as what they really want is to play without paying.--Ed.]
Arguments favor both sides. As a practical matter, once the woman IS pregnant, if the father does have a constitutional right not to be, would that mean he could compel her to have an abortion? That certainly isn't going to sit well with a lot of people. Or does it mean that he has a right not to support that which he helped create? That, too, is BAD social policy. All it does is pass the financial burden onto the rest of us while letting the man have his cake and eat it, too.
On the other hand, when couples create test-tube embryos but then decide to go their separate ways, courts have ruled that the father can stop the mother from using the embryos to get pregnant.
A simple solution to this conundrum exists, however. It comes down to the facts of the case. If the man relied on the woman's assertion that she used birth control, he accepted the risks--both the risk that she was lying and the risk that she was telling the truth but the birth control failed. In that case, he reaps what he sows, literally. He is responsible.
On the other hand, if he takes the initiative and provides additional birth control, and his partner gets pregnant anyway, he may be able to make the company providing the faulty birth control at least partly financially responsible for the results. [Not that that would ever happen in the current pro-business-profit, anti-business-responsibility environment.--Ed.]
But there's an even easier answer! All you men out there: think with your brains and not your gonads. If you are not willing to accept the consequences of your actions, DON'T DO THE DIRTY DEED IN THE FIRST PLACE.
You don't want the burdens of being a father? Then don't have sex. The ONLY 100% effective method of birth control is abstinence. So grow up, kwityerbitchin, and accept the facts. If you insist on having sex, you have to take responsibility for the consequences. You don't get to dance without paying the piper when the tune is done.
5 comments:
"You don't want the burdens of being a father? Then don't have sex. The ONLY 100% effective method of birth control is abstinence."
I take it that you are against abortion, right? You must be, as this is the same argument they have been using for years.
If you are not against abortion, how is this not hypocritical?
I am not against abortion per se. Abstinence IS the only 100% effective method of birth control. Just because I can recognize that truth doesn't automatically make me anti-choice.
Nor is it hypocritical. One can agree with aspects of an opponent's argument without having to concede the argument overall.
What I find hypocritical is the so-called pro-life propensity to push gruesome pictures into peoples' faces and to scream at them rather than to help by putting their energy, time, and money into funding programs to improve the health and welfare of poor women and children and into promoting adoption as a viable option (along with contributing to the considerable costs of good pre-natal care in the interim).
I know several people who proclaim themselves pro-life who happen to agree with me about that. But their agreement on that point most definitely does NOT make them pro-choice.
What we really should be doing is working on the underlying social and economic problems so that abortion, legal or not, becomes simply UNNECESSARY.
Peter Schickele once noted that "you can't have opinions about truth." And it most definitely is true that abstinence is the only perfect method of birth control. So, all you men AND women out there: if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
"So, all you men AND women out there: if you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
For a man, I guess "the time" is child support due to an unwanted pregnancy (if the woman chooses to have the baby).
What is the "time" that a woman should do for an unwanted pregnancy?
I don't think a man or a woman should do "the time", as I don't consider sex "the crime"
You are taking me much too literally. "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" is an expression, an idiom if you will--what it means is that if you are not prepared to accept any and all of the possible consequences of something you're going to do, DON'T DO IT.
I certainly don't think of sex as being a literal crime, except in certain cases defined by law like rape and child molestation.
What I'm really calling for is for people to think first . . . with their brains, not their glands . . . which unfortunately is something that doesn't seem to happen much these days.
Thank you for your perceptive contribution, Indigo. And I must also thank Raving Moderate for making me clarify the logic of my position.
I have to say, however, Indigo, my perception about whether most men are proud to be fathers is not as positive as yours. Yours is, nonetheless, the higher road, and it does my heart good to see you taking it.
Perhaps there is hope for this world after all!
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