There is a trend among some men to advocate for men's rights. By this I mean that men want the right to opt out of supporting children from any pregnancy they may have contributed to.
Specifically, they want the right to not have to help support children that they did not mean to father, especially if the woman goes ahead with her pregnancy without their say so.
It is not just men who lean right that support these desired rights. Plenty of men who have been asked to pay child support for children they did not plan on having are opposed to being asked to contribute to the welfare of their children. Even men who have never been asked to contribute to the welfare of a child they fathered seem to advocate for "men's right of refusal".
Many men seem to be simply opposed to the veto power women have for their pregnancies.
Even men who are pro-choice can be found to be anti child-support.
In my conversations with some of these men, I find that generally the sentiment is that the women "trap" the men, evilly plotting it all out to take their money.
Personally I do not believe this to be the case. I do think that when women find themselves pregnant by mistake, with a reluctant or unavailable father, they make decisions based upon their circumstances. Many if not most will find the father and let him know about the pregnancy.
Then, if the man is opposed to becoming a father, and the woman is opposed to aborting this particular fetus, for whatever reason, a stand-off occurs.
I think that many women who find themselves in this particular situation rationalize that they can do it alone. Only to find out that it is much harder than they ever imagined. Which is when they petition the father for child support.
Where these men see an inequitable justice, I see biological reality. For instance: I have had conversations which go like this:
Him: A man cannot give a child up for adoption, but a woman can.
Me: Well, if you are talking about an infant, surely you know that a woman recently gave birth to that infant, and any authorities would want to know that A) the woman was alive, and B) that the woman has given her permission. And they would want proof of those things. Or C) proof of death if the woman died during or just after the birth.
Him: But that is unjust.
Me: Gah!
I say to these men: Abandonment of pregnant women is as old as time. In ancient times women had means to end pregnancies, which may have been dangerous, but they did use herbs to end unwanted pregnancies. Today we have a whole different set of economic and societal circumstances.
What is the norm in courts consideration of child support cases is the welfare of the child, first and foremost. This is not an inequality of justice. It is a standard which looks after the welfare of children before it looks after the pocketbook of an absent father. OR an absent mother.
Our attitudes towards abortion have quite a bit to do with how the courts rule in cases of fathers abandoning their offspring. If abortion was not so vilified, and if the right did not have the mistaken idea that zygotes and nonviable fetuses are "babies" there would not be quite so many children born to unwilling fathers. This is not to say that babies wouldn't still be born to unwilling fathers. They would.
The choices that women make are not to hurt men. They are simply the choices made regarding reproduction, and child rearing, based upon a myriad of circumstances. And sometimes men are required by the courts to contribute to the welfare of children they did not want.
This is not injustice. It is biological and societal reality.
What this advocacy for "men's rights" would do, if implemented, is result in more abortion, and more children raised in poverty.
Unless the government stepped in and supplemented women's incomes, and ponied up for daycare so that women could work.
This would change the structure of society in ways that our largely conservative court system doesn't see the upside of.
If men feel free to simply abandon the children they father, what kind of society will be the result of that freedom? Co-ops of women living and raising children together while men search for new sex partners, or while they feel free to impregnate the mother of their child again and again while contributing nothing? Government housing for mothers and their children, creating a new, modern welfare state? More unwanted pregnancies because men don't care if they impregnate women? And finally, a devaluation of women and children in general.
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