I am always looking for crowd-pleasers like this:
Contending that women have more options than they do in the event of an unintended pregnancy, men’s rights activists are mounting a long shot legal campaign aimed at giving them the chance to opt out of financial responsibility for raising a child.
The National Center for Men has prepared a lawsuit — nicknamed Roe v. Wade for Men — to be filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Michigan on behalf of a 25-year-old computer programmer ordered to pay child support for his ex-girlfriend’s daughter. The suit addresses the issue of male reproductive rights, contending that lack of such rights violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.
The gist of the argument: If a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood. The activists involved hope to spark discussion even if they lose.
“There’s such a spectrum of choice that women have — it’s her body, her pregnancy and she has the ultimate right to make decisions,” said Mel Feit, director of the men’s center. “I’m trying to find a way for a man also to have some say over decisions that affect his life profoundly.”
I just don’t take this whiney shit seriously. Men make the decision to accept financial responsibility for a child at the time he decides to insert his penis into the vagina of a woman. End of story.
You sound link a pro-lifer, just change out “men” with “women”, and you’re there. To wit: “Women make the decision to accept financial responisibility for a child at the time she decides [to have sex].”
The question is not about who will be forced to accept responsibility before sex, the question is who has a “choice” in the event of a pregnancy. Most of the time, women are willing participants in the act, so it’s not like it’s only the man’s fault that the woman got pregnant. And everyone knows that no birth control is 100% effective, so arguments about using adequate protection should apply here either.
The problem is “choice.” What choices does a woman have in the event of a pregnancy, and what choices does a man have? If a woman can force a man to accept responsibility for raising a child by deciding to keep the baby, should a man be able to force a woman to keep a baby that she doesn’t want? Why should the reverse be true?
Please know that I am a supporter of a woman’s right to decide what to do with her own body. But I think the issue is more complicated, and deserves a little more than just man-bashing.
In the end, men have NO say in what is probably the biggest decision of their lives.
That should have been: “arguments about using adequate protection SHOULD NOT apply here.”
Now, let the flaming begin…
that’s not true. A man, when confronted with an unplanned pregnancy, has the choice of whether to be supportive or not, whether to offer to pay for the child or not, whether to pay for an abortion or not, whether to encourage one outcome or another.
It’s not like the man has no influence in the matter. What he does and how he does it may be the deterining factor in the woman’s choice.
Ultimately, it is the woman that has to carry the pregnancy, so it is ultimately her decision whether or not she is prepared to deal with being a mother.
It is their health and their future that is most at stake. But, it should be obvious why the man doesn’t have the right to force either a birth or an abortion. And it should be equally obvious that he must help support a child that he helped bring into the world. It’s only complicated if you try to apply an equality in principle that never exists in fact.
But pregnancy (therefore, risk to life) ends at birth. What follows is 18+ years of responsibility. It is true that a man can have an influence over the woman’s decision, and in a perfect world, both parties would be able to agree. But in the end, it’s up to the woman whether to terminate the pregnancy or not, and the man has to live with her decision. If a woman decides to have a baby and seeks child support, a man’s choice is to pay it, or face legal consequences (this statement is not meant as a belief that Child Support Enforcement works well in this country. Just that, if you get caught, the consequences can be severe).
As someone whose been down this road, I was lucky that the woman I was with and I agreed on what the best decsion was. And as a man, I offered her care, support and the best advice I could give at the time. And I also told her that I would support any decision she made. Any decision SHE made, because I knew it wasn’t up to me. At 18, I realized that I had no control over what could change my life forever.
My point is only that, instead of all this man-bashing, perhaps a little more consideration to the issue could be given.
i can sympathize with your deside for more empathy. However, the second we take this lawsuit remotely seriously we wind up either supporting a man’s right to force an abortion on a woman, or supporting a man’s right (under certain hard to prove circumstances) not to help provide for his children.
Sometimes it doesn’t pay to think to hard about things. The lawsuit and the idiots pushing it deserve to get slammed.
I agree with that. And in the end, I would not support any kind of change in the way things are set up now. It should be a woman’s decision.
I just find it troubling to read all of these comments that sound like they could have been taken straight from the anti-abortion play book. I would think that there would be a little more sympathy for someone who was being forced into parenthood against their wishes.
gotcha. I noticed that too. But, as I said, the mindset of the people pushing this suit is moronic, and the reaction is justified.
I can sympathize with a lot of things that I consider to be ultimately wrong.
But I will do my best.
When a lady becomes pregnant, she may have two choices:
Number 2, depending on her financial resources and where she lives may not be applicable in her case, in which she is left with choice 1
While it is true that she can choose to give birth and not raise the child herself, even if she also has the choice of an abortion, in no case can she escape from having the pregnancy, or the termination, impact her own body.
In other words, no matter what the man who got her pregnant thinks or wishes, at the present time, it will still be she who throws up in the mornings, she whose feet will swell, whose back will ache, she who will have some tough choices to make career-wise, and if career in her case refers to a shift at Wal-Mart, those choices may be even tougher.
If she is fortunate enough to have the option of terminating the pregnancy, it is still she who will have to go to the clinic, get up on the table, and her body that will be the recipient of the procedure, bear any risk of complications, any pain, discomfort, embarrassment, indignity, or physical sequelae of any kind before, during, and after the event.
Should she decide to have the child and keep it, it will be she who will bear all physical and emotional costs of that decision, regardless of what the man who got her pregnant thinks.
Should he, on reflection, decide that he would prefer, after all, not to share in the financial aspect of child-rearing, it is the woman (and the child) who will bear the consequences of his change in plans.
Even if he, in an overabundance of magnanimity, agrees to marry her, that the children may be “legitimate,” maybe even have a place on his health insurance policy, if a few years down the road, he realizes, upon meeting a more attractive sexual partner, the duress and pressure under which he made this ill-advised decision, it is the mother and the child who will no longer be able to afford the same food, the same housing, if she can afford any at all, once his income is elsewhere occupied.
It will be she, and her child, who will be in line at the food stamp office, only to be told, after waiting all day, that she will qualify only if she cuts her shift back at Wal-Mart, which, even if Wal-Mart does not help her out by cutting it back to zero, will mean that she cannot even afford the dingy one room on the dangerous street any more, and it is she who will be slogging through the rain, carrying a cranky toddler to the distantly located (so as not to “attract so many”) indigent care clinic, or something like it, where she will, after waiting a day or so on a hard plastic chair, squalling, suffering toddler in her lap, be told that sorry, out of samples, it’s really going around, and given a prescription that she has no money to fill, and is three days’ waiting and form-filling from getting filled free.
Throughout all this, from the moment he learns of the pregnancy until the day that some will say mercifully, an oncoming bus that the mother could not afford to ride to the store AND buy toddler pampers, instantly closes the chapter on the two lives, the man who got her pregnant has the option of lounging by the pool, sipping a tropical beverage with a little umbrella, or just hanging out with some friends watching the ball game, throwing back a couple brewskis.
It is because the woman, under no circumstances whatever, has either of these admittedly preferable and pleasant-sounding options, that any and all decisions regarding her body, including the decision of with whom she will discuss its contents, fall to her.
She may have shared her body with him willingly, however, she did not not sign over the title to it.
Putting aside the biological differences between men and women (all of the “physical” issues that you stated end after the pregnancy ends), men do not have exclusive domain over bad or irresponsible parenting. So your nightmare scenario notwithstanding, it doesn’t answer my question.
What right does one person have to force another person into parenthood?
office, I hope you will consider doing so.
No man can be forced to be a father.
There are entire websites, as well as offline groups devoted to helping men avoid the problem of women they have impregnated and since grown tired of who wish them, not to be fathers, but to contribute something to the child’s upkeep.
Parenthood is not about sending a check, or how skillfullly one can avoid sending one.
Parenthood is about the day to day care and love, being spit up on, going without sleep even though you have an early bus to catch. It’s about going without food because there is not enough for the child and his mother and you. It’s about carrying that squalling toddler in the rain, it’s about stealing the medicine if you have to, because that is your child and he is in pain.
Parenthood means it is not about you anymore.
It’s not a thing that can be forced.
I spent 7 years working for Domestic Relations attorneys, and have spent more time in DR court and the Child Support Enforcement Agency than most. I’ve seen this from all angles. I’ve seen single mothers fighting to get deadbeat dad’s to pay up; I’ve seen fathers struggle in vain just for the right to see their child despite the fact that they pay their child support on time, every time.
When it comes to parenthood, men have very few rights. But that’s not what this is about.
This is about “choice.”
I still can’t believe, that even with all of the “pro-choice” women around here, there’s not the least bit amount of sympathy for the men who struggle with these same decisions.
Just as most women struggle with the decision to terminate a pregnancy, “walking away” is not as easy an option as you would make it out to be. Sure there are men who have no problem casting aside all of their responsibilities; but there are also women who don’t mind using abortion as a means of birth control and have 4 or 5 or more of them. Does that mean that any women who has an abortion should be slapped with the same kind of label? So just because some men can simply walk away with no feelings of remorse or regret, doesn’t mean that all of us are assholes who can do that same.
It’s really simple. Inequal risks result in inequal rights. The man doesn’t have the same level of choice, true. He also doesn’t face death, infertility, or serious injury. He doesn’t wind up put in the hands of medical teams who feel they need to put the baby’s life before his.
Of course, I fully expect Alito, Thomas, and Scalia to rule in favour of this decision, even while they rule against the real Roe V Wade.
Lucky for men, their choices regarding fatherhood, or lack thereof just got broader with the advent of the male “pill.”
And then, there’s alway vasectomy.
[ [ Begin Rant ] ]
Fine….as women we become the Lorena Bobbitts of the world. Every woman should be issued blades, much as women in medieval times were. When no fucking well doesn’t get the point across…then self-defense with a blade will.
Holy goddess! Save us from the pricks!
[ [ End Rant ] ]
Cue Damnit Janet and Military Tracy
You know what pisses me off the most? Try raising a child on a $500 a month support payment…clothes, food, shelter, healthcare, diapers, daycare!!!!
I feel sorry for someone, but it’s not those assholes trying to weasel out of child support.
feeling less brave after that rant…
We really do like our guys – so you and the others here are truly safe….
We just don’t like the ones that don’t get it…like these jerks even considering comparing their checkbooks to a woman’s body….aaaaaarrrggh
As a matter of fact, you gave me my first laugh of the day when I read your comment about the writing being a real “crowd pleaser”. I knew I was in for a “fun” little essay, and I appreciate the advance warning.
(Crowd pleaser. hee! :^)
g’night
Now that’s entertainment. Do you think we could get BostonJoe to videotape the trial for us?
Hell, I may do it myself…I’m closer to Saginaw than he is.
Don’t these people realize the inevitable end they’re working towards is that no single guy will ever get laid again?
Or they will be forced to wear multiple condoms at the same time during sex – and we all know how much men love wearing condoms…
This may be the only comment I’ve ever rated a ‘4’ that I think will probably give me nightmares 😉
And, given the personality traits most of them exhibit, they’ll have a heck of a time finding women stupid enough to marry them. So THEY’LL never get laid again, and they’ll yank themselves clean out of the gene pool by their own short and curlies.
Not an entirely bad outcome.
…they’ll yank themselves clean out…
They probably do a lot of that already since no one else is ever going to want to have sex with them. ;^>
Anything that keeps `em from bombing small countries just for something to do is an improvement….
TOTAL BULLSHIT is the best way to describe this move. The fact that some loser doesn’t want to pay support for his daughter is not a civil or reproductive right. My Mother raised two boys on her own because my father was a damn deadbeat who refused to send support. Fine tell them not to pay support but they have to be castrated so they can not impregnate anyone else.
The other alternative is to train all the pre lifes to do this.
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/9822/spermicide6ap.jpg
The clothing and feeding of their offspring is seen not as the clothing and feeding of children who need to be clothed and fed, but as — WAAAH, WAAAAH, WOMEN BEING MEAN TO ME!
It’s so mean that I might have to pay an incrementally small amount of the money it takes to raise human beings who share my very DNA!
WOMEN SHOULD BE FORCED TO HAVE ABORTIONS WHEN I SAY SO, AND FORCED TO BE PREGNANT WHEN I SAY SO!
WAAAH!
Children should be naked and cold and hungry, so I’m not inconvenienced by using a birth control method that’s fail safe.
Let me just say..jesus fucken christ, what a whiny bunch of rotten shitheads. My language at the best of times has not exactly been pure and elegant but the last few days has sorely tried my trying to post without degenerating in complete and udder fucken incomprehensible fucken ranting.
Here’s a thought: Let your brain rule your sexual desires, instead of the other way around.
(Wonder how a loser like the guy who is named in the suit can even get a date, much less get lucky!)
The worst part of this is putting it into the frame of women’s reproductive rights. But if you gotta do it, how about Roe vs. Wade… for Deadbeat Dads.
I was thinking of using that for a title, but I decided to stick with the article’s usage.
You made the best choice.
GOP pro-life = Roe v. Wade for rapers.
Let’s talk with Bill O’Reilly about that.
Good one.
P.O.W.E.R.
MU.THU.FUH.KAHS
I’ve got your Roe v Wade right here, fella.
For what most of them do in the situation anyway.
Yeah, Bush has really ushered in an age of personal reponsibility.
There are whole websites devoted to helping men avoid the problem of women who wish them to pay child support.
It is another issue that inspires stirring speeches and this or that really tough law, but as anyone who works in a child support office can attest, it is not difficult for a man to avoid paying, or to pay a token amount, depending on his situation, the state he is in etc.
In fact, 90 odd percent of the people living in poverty in the US are mothers and their children in situations where the father prefers not to participate in the financial aspect of parenthood.
I just want to quietly say at the end of the thread here that there is nothing lower, in my opinion, than a man who doesn’t provide for a child he helped create.
Stepping back out now.
Hey ~ I just checked out your blog. Cool.
Hey
Thanks :o)
When I figure out how to comment, I will.
I’m sure you will ;o)
I did…
I’m sure you did :o)
Thank you for making me feel important!
Except it’s not showing up…I think blogger doesn’t like me…
Maryb didn’t have a problem.
Maybe you two are just pulling my leg and setting me up for the amatuer blogger crestfall ;o)
blogger knows that I’m special
Just for the record, I don’t like man-bashing because it all us males a bad name. But your diary should say Roe v. Wade for men “WHO ARE NOT MAN ENOUGH TO RAISE THEIR OWN CHILDREN”
I find it fascinating that there is not one person willing to see anything but selfishness and greed.
Sounds a lot like what I think Chomski called “deserving victims”, i.e. the victims we like.
This is why I don’t like “mutual admiration and support” groups.
Interesting discussion. Amazing how many names to call the men. Sounds pretty bigoted to me, to say nothing of looking way past reasonable discussion on the subject.
There are plenty of complexities to the issue. The fact remains, that a woman can decide to end the pregnancy, in which the man has no choice or decision OR she can decide to keep it and have him pay the bills.
While the record is pretty clear on how men get treated in custody, child support issues.
If you are the father of a child, you should help out, pay your due, but you should get the right to see the child as well. But this right is NOT well supported by the law. To read these comments one would think that there is no legitimate issue of father rights, just go on to bash dead beat dads (read all men).
Further, the discussion suggests that only the women are victims in this with the children, when in fact that is not the case. There are well documented cases of women using deception to get pregnant, and join one more to the welfare roll they are already on.
4 kids, 4 different dads.
But it also dismisses any responsibility on the part of women. They do have two choices, men do not. So if they use deception, what is the man to do? If a man uses deception (I can’t have kids, I’m sterile, I’m on the pill) he still gets to pay child support.
I think, give men equal rights to abortion. If the woman doesn’t want one, then she can opt to let him sign off. If she wants to abort, and he doesn’t, he won’t get any say in it.
Maybe the women should take some responsibility for getting pregnant in the first place too, like a split of something radical, like maybe 50%.
That’s pretty much what I’d have said if I had the guts.
with my sisters in their struggle for their rights as standalone human beings as opposed to property, I also recognize that there are times when it is better to stand aside, and let the ladies generously bestow upon you the sumptuous gift basket of new orifices that you have requested, as they will be able to perform this service with much greater efficiency and grace than I.
Or, alternatively, by their deafening silence, freely grant you the Right of Return to gaze raptly at the underside of whichever bridge you call home, as they in their wisdom see fit.
For my part, I will invite you to do us all the honor of writing your own diary, to share with us more of your views on the subject of women living in poverty, and edify us with your knowledge and insights into the vast and bounteous array of social programs the US provides to those of its citizens who have failed to accumulate wealth, and when your diary is up, I will see you there.