Unwanted Fatherhood

So Ith linked to this article. Frankly, I've been wondering how long it would take for this to happen - it has seemed like the no brainers of next steps for some time. What I find fascinating is that if you were to ask women who identify themselves as feminists what they thought about this, more than likely they'd be upset. Because, you see, this guy trying to get his "fair turn at bat" as far as reproductive rights goes, impinges on a woman's ability to choose, and more than likely - as so many men who have gone to court to try and prevent a woman from aborting a child they desperately want have found - the court will rule that he must continue to support the child. Because no one else's rights are as important as a woman's. Abortion, on its own, proves that.

I think the author of the above was trying to say that this is just one more chip in society as a whole and particularly in removing any kind of consequence from sex. And therefore, to try and reverse the trend,that men ought to still be held accountable financially for children that they didn't want born. While I agree that in a perfect world there would still be consequences for pre and extra marital sex that would encourage people to think twice (or nineteen times) about "hooking up" willy-nilly, we don't live in a perfect world. The fact of the matter is, women are just as responsible for sexual behavior as men are. If you get pregnant from a hookup - or a short term (heck, even a long term) relationship oustide of marriage - it's on you. The man involved should have just as much of a right to say, "Whoa! Not interested in being a daddy." as the woman does. So as long as a woman has the right to just pop down to the clinic and "have it taken care of" without anyone else's wants or rights being considered, then men should have that same equality. They should be able to "terminate the pregnancy" - whether or not the woman makes that same decision.

In many ways, I think this ability to relinquish responsibility for a pregnancy might end up being beneficial for women, and possibly for society as a whole. Certainly it might encourage those women who do not believe in abortion to think more carefully about sex since they would then (potentially) have the sole financial responsibility if they went on to choose parenting over adoption. I think this would also cut down on women being forced into an abortion. No longer does the man hold any kind of leverage over a woman to force the abortion. If the guy asks you to abort and you don't want to, then the guy can say "Fine, I'm getting an abortion. It's now completely under your control." While some might say this puts even more pressure on the woman to abort, I think it's freeing, because there's now no opposition from the father to an adoption placement if the woman doesn't want to abort and doesn't see how they can reasonably parent without child support from the father.

I do think there would need to be limits on this freedom, however. A man would need to be limited to the same time constraints as a woman as far as getting their abortion. In other words, if the man goes along with the pregnancy and birth, then at that point his time has passed, he is now financially responsible for the child. We don't need to encourage deadbeat dads any more than they already are. Just like a woman can't terminate the baby once it's born, neither should the man be able to terminate his responsibility once it's born. And with the termination of that financial responsibility goes the termination of any parental standing. The man does not have any visitation or custody rights. He does not get to "claim" the child in any way. And if he ends up marrying the woman at a later date and she has chosen to raise the child, he needs to formally adopt this child to make it his own. There's no way for a woman to go back on her decision once the abortion has taken place, the child is dead. So it should be a non-trivial task for the man to decide he wants to be part of that child's life if he changes his mind.

Ideally we could go back in time and fight against the decay of the meaning of shame in our society. Then the problem might not be as pervasive as it is today. But since time travel is, as yet, a matter for science fiction and romance authors alone, it seems reasonable that the courts work to provide equality in reproductive rights. This either means that women can't abort a child without the permission and support of the father of that child or that men can get a financial abortion to relinquish any fiscal or parental responsibility for the child, without the permission or support of the mother. It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this and where the usual suspects fall as far as supporting or decrying the decision.