We want a woman to have the right to choose, but a man must do as he is told? C'mon, you can't force a man to be a father any more than you should be able to force a woman to have the child in the first place! Fair is fair.

Here is my master plan:
NO ONE CONTROLS ANYONE ELSE.

What do you think of that? Can it be done in the "Land of the Free"?

The only remaining issue is the financial one, and I am sure both the mother and society want the father on the hook for that - but that's not fair. Maybe would-be parents should have to prove financial ability before having any more children in this vastly overpopulated world. If she wants to be a single mom, let her prove she can afford it.

Seriously, one of the reasons I support choice is because of overpopulation.

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If the woman wants ALL rights involving the DECISION on what to do in case of an unplanned pregnancy... should she not hold ALL responsibility?


A this stage, the man has zero say... except to pay should SHE choose to have the child. If the pregnancy was unplanned... both were caught off guard... yet she gets to decide while he waits to see what happens. If he wants the child... oh well... he is SOL if she doesn't.

I don't see fair anywhere in that equation.


It may not be as simple as giving the man the right to opt out of fatherly responsibilies, but it IS worth a discussion. As it stands now... SHE gets that right while he doesn't.

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Since South Dakota has decided that they have all the decision making power over whether a woman has a child or not with similar laws soon to follow in Mississippi, Indiana, and Kentucky, it kind of nullifies this guy's argument.

If abortion is completely banned there will be a big difference between now and when it was illegal in the past -- there was no DNA testing back then. A lot of guys are going to end up paying out a lot of cash.

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For a long time, we have known that if men had monthly cycles, menstruation would be celebrated as a monthly affirmation of the most extraordinary skill in the world: bearing a child. So as soon as this man gets pregnant, he can talk about "choice." Until then.....we can only hope that he has access to a good mental health provider--for his ex-wife.

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This man is absolutely right. Women cannot hope to gain and maintain their reproductive rights if they refuse to allow men those same rights. If a woman wants a child, she better be prepared to pay for that child; otherwise, she should get an abortion or give the child up for adoption to someone who can afford to raise it. Trapping a man into 20 years of child support should be no more acceptable than forcing a woman to carry a fetus against her will. Furthermore, if the government (society) doesn't want to support the "precious lives" of these unwanted children, it should offer free birth control or abortions to ALL women. Or, provide R&D funds to pharmaceutical companies to produce fool-proof birth control for men and women. This is a no-brainer for a pro-choice supporter...unless you're a hypocrite.

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Since when did men not have any say in contraception? Should a man choose to not father a child, there are ways he can avoid doing so, and it is not by putting the contraception off on the woman, and then arguing entrapment. What a weenie wuss. What a loser. He wants his cake and to eat it too. In my day and age we called those men cads and assholes.

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Having unprotected sex is tantamount to accepting the obligation on both sides. I'm sorry for the guy, but that doesn't excuse responsibility. It also takes a sperm to make a baby and male birth control is available. Nobody forced him into bed with her.

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You are leaving out an important part of the man's case: Dubay says he has been ordered to pay $500 a month in child support for a girl born last year to his ex-girlfriend. He contends that the woman knew he didn't want to have a child with her and assured him repeatedly that — because of a physical condition — she could not get pregnant.

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In my younger days twice I have had women who wanted to have a child by me. We were not dating or in a relationship of any kind. We met in a bar or at a dance and they accepted my offer of coming home with me that night. One of those women actually came to the affair with her brother, and he was the one who approached me. When I agreed, all he told me was to "take care of my sister." She came purposly for she had with her a night gown and other daintys in a case. It was a one night affair for the next morning she called her brother to come and pick her up. I never saw her again until about 15 years later. We were on a bus and she walked up to me and said "you want to see a picture of my daughter?" and showed me a picture of a young girl. I knew immediately it was my child. I could see the resemblance for I have children by the woman that I was married to.

The other occasion was similar. I met a woman at a social event. she was with some friends. After the event was over she invited my to her apartment. We spent the night together and the next morning she fixed me breakfast. I never saw her again but about a year later I met her girlfriend and she told me that the woman had a little girl. All I said was, "Oh, that's nice."

Now I am not saying that there was no contact or law suit for me to support those children. I am saying that women may set a man up to have a child by him with out his approval. And if that is the case, then she should bear full responsibility.

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Women control abortion because fetuses gestate in their bodies. It's just a fact of mammalian reproduction that men don't get to decide whether to gestate fetuses.

Fast forward to now: the deadbeat dad has a daughter. She is a human being with needs. She didn't ask to be born. He has obligations towards her because he helped bring her into the world.

It's not enough for him to say that he never wanted this to happen. Boo fuckin' hoo. He had sex knowing not only that his girlfriend might get pregnant, but also that she had the final say over whether to carry the pregnancy to term. So, now he wants to pass on to society the burden of caring for his daughter and blame it on abortion rights. Please.

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It's very simple in Texas....a father can simply sign off on an Affidavit of Relinquishment, thereby relinquishing his parental rights to the child. No more visitation, but no more child support. Otherwise, his ass is in a sling until the child turns 18, or beyond 18, in certain circumstances. Maybe New York has a similar provision.

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Awwwwww - poor baby. There's one easy way for men to make certain they don't end up paying child support. Keep it in their damn pants. When you decide to engage in any behavior, you have to assume the risks that go with it. The mother of this child is raising the baby which is a much bigger, expensive job than the pitiful $500 a month this man has been ordered to pay for the support of the child he helped create.

I wonder how far you boys would get with women if, before engaging in sexual activity, you advised them that if they should get pregnant, they're on their own. They can either get an abortion or look forward to raising the child alone, with no financial support from him?

Time to stop whining, guys. Grow up and start acting like a real man instead of a self-centered adolescent.

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I hope this makes men re-think the idea of casual sex. And re-think any aversion they might have to condoms. Let's make "Don't have sex with someone you don't love" apply to BOTH men and women. Perhaps this will mark the beginning of the end of men's supposed "right" to no-strings sex. Oh oh, this means that Maxim will cease publishing...

And yes, it is the woman's body and her choice whether or not to have the baby. It's also imperative for BOTH partners to use birth control - yup, that does mean condoms as well as the Pill or whatever female method - in order to minimize the chances of an unwanted pregnancy.

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A reversal of an above post:

Men control pregnancies because men create pregnancies. It's just a fact of mammalian reproduction that women don't get to decide whether to become impregnated.

Fast forward to now: the deadbeat mom has a daughter. She is a human being with needs. She didn't ask to be born. She has obligations towards her because she helped give her life.

It's not enough for her to say that she never wanted this to happen. Boo fuckin' hoo. She had sex knowing not only that she might get pregnant. So, now she wants to pass on to society the burden of caring for her daughter and blame it on abortion rights. Please.


Sound ridiculous and bigoted, doesn't it? All I did was replace masculine pronouns with feminine ones.

This woman LIED to him and told him it was IMPOSSIBLE for her to get pregnant, and that she didn't want to anyway. Then she did, kept the kid, and now wants him to pay for it. How is that fair? How was it his responsibility to use birth control anyway when his parter said it wasn't necessary? What was he supposed to say, "I know you can't get pregnant, but let's just use a condom anyway"?

You can't have it both ways: either both parents have the right to disavow a child, or neither does. Child support is a lot of oney, and this woman trapped her former partner into it. That's crap.

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Perhaps it would be better for men concerned about this to redirect their energies towards pushing for better male-controlled birth control. Condoms are a pain, make sex less enjoyable, and aren't as reliable as other forms of birth control, yet it's the only type of birth control outside of a vasectomy available to men. Women have pills and patches and injections to give them more choices. I think men deserve the same range of birth control choices that would give them much more say in when, where and if they become fathers. (P.S. Never rely solely on the word of someone you don't know well when something as big as an unplanned pregnancy is at stake. I don't care if the party in question swears on a stack of bibles that his/her testes/ovaries have been removed, everyone is still responsible for carrying their own insurance policy.)

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Men do control pregnancies by consenting to sex with women. The deadbeat dad wasn't raped. If he says his girlfriend told him it was "impossible for her to get pregnant" that sounds like an excuse for having sex without birth control--which would be a huge act of contributory negligence on his part, regardless of what she said. How do you know she lied? Lots of people think they can't get pregnant, and they are proven wrong. These are the kinds of accidents that happen when you have sex.

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How naive is it to think that women have reproductive rights equal to men's? From the beginning of time it is the man who has done the impregnating and the woman who has primarily cared for the resulting child whether she wanted said child or not. For a relatively brief period of time this country's men have granted women the right to abort an unwanted pregnancy, but now it seems that they have decided to take that right away bit by bit, so it's not like women have ever had complete and inalienable rights to their bodies. Men, largely, make the rules, and men impregnate women, who are then required to bear a child like it or not.

Hitler had a breeding program to produce perfect Aryan children. Here I think more workers are wanted(even though there's not that many jobs any more), more bodies for war, more prisoners for profit-making privatized jails, more illiterates to pass through our so-called education system, more welfare recipients to revile, more souls for Christ. All the above is self serving to those in power and are needed to keep them there, to serve them, to financially support them, to believe in them, and to partake in the deception that we have freedom and a democracy. Without a steady supply of peasantry to support the bureaucracy, they would have to consume themselves in order to survive, the lesser ones first, to be sure, but once they were gone... So you see, they need the proles. And they have taken steps to render us not only powerless but incapable of acquiring power.

What I have never understood is why, since there are more women than men, the rules so lopsidedly favor men? A woman should be able to sue a man who impregnates her for not having adequately protected himself--apart from child support. Both parties should protect themselves. Men have traditionally resisted this. Women who participate in consensual sex without protecting themselves are punnished by the existing rules and the way our bodies work; men, not so much. Even wealthy men often don't meet their obligations. Women who are raped suffer the most.

But not all women can afford birth control. Not all women can use birth control. Not all women are permitted to use birth conrol. For a country built upon the premise of separation between church and state, it seems to me that more and more of our policies are being dictated by religion, and I don't mean Buddhism, but the fundamentalist religion of the right wing that helped elect Bush and is now getting paid off. Women's bodies and rights are being sacrified at their altar.

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It is is disenheartening in this great country to see mothers and fathers, instead of being free from the burdens of raising and supporting infants--who as they grow up either turn into 80+ hours a week workers barely able to make ends meet, or are recruited as canon fodder to fight for the the Bush empire in the middle East--are subject to the misery of childrearing.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the union a very great additional grievance.

Having turned my thoughts upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other thinkers, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their conclusions. I propose that, instead of children being such a geat hassle for either of their parents, they can on the contrary contribute to the sustenance and indeed protection of our entire nation.

There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent both legal and illegal abortions (depending on the state of your residence), that questionable practice of people murdering their own zygotes. The cessation of halting such sacrifice of innocent not-yet-humans would avoid the expense as well as the shame, which move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.

I shall now humbly propose my own thoughts to public consideration, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection: that of children born, one sixth may be reserved for breeding, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine (one male will be sufficient to serve four females). The remaining five/sixths may, at birth or up to a year old, be offered in the sale to the military industrial complex to solve the deplorable problem of our forces not having enough armored outfitting for their vehicles (see recent investigations by the Marine Corps' inspector general, which states that all of its fighting units in Iraq ''require ground equipment that exceeds" their current supplies). Complaints of equipment shortages in Iraq, including lack of adequate vehicle armor, have recently plagued the Pentagon.

A child--especially if the mother lets them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat--will make excellent vehicle armor. I have been assured by a very knowing acquaintance in Washington that the average weight for a healthy newborn full-term infant is seven and a half pounds and measure between 19 and 21 inches long. Imagine the vehicular protection afforded from a passel of such infants strapped to an armored personnel carrier!

I grant this armor will be somewhat dear, but that is exactly the point. Imagine the distress of the enemy when firing upon a vehicle covered in plump infants! And this is also very proper for our government’s administration, who, as they have already disrupted the lives and livelihoods and privacy of most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

The proceeds from selling infants to the military could easily offset the parents’ financial woes. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance...

(Thanks to Jonathan Swift.)

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If the woman and the man had a discussion about reproduction, voiced their concerns, and came to a verbal agreement - that's all perfectly ethical and responsible to my mind. Many are assuming things on the parts of both the mother and the father that just aren't in evidence here.

How and when did women become a "baby trap"?

How does this further the cause of women?

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Men and women are both resposible for creating a child.

Whether the pregnancy is aborted, or the child is born should be discussed by both parents. Sure, mama has to keep it in her womb for 9 months, but he helped make it didn't he?

And if she decides to keep it and raise it on her own, he doesn't have to pay. But if she doesn't have the money to raise it on her own, but wants to he should pay. Especially if he wants to be in the child's life. If he's a deadbeat dad, he shouldn't pay, he shouldn't even be acknowleged as the father.

My dad hasn't paid since I was a kid. I'm not 18 yet, and the courts on his ass. My mom has her reasons for going after him I guess, but I don't care anymore. I wish he did pay, because he wants me to call and be his daughter, but he hasn't made enough of an effort to be my dad.

This guy obviously doesnt wanna be a dad. He shouldnt have to pay, but he shouldnt be allowed to go "yeah thats my daughter" either.
As for making it optional for men to pay child support: It's more of a "duh" than anything. Who WANTS to pay for a kid you don't want? And even if you kinda like having him/her around, its not fair to say "yeah I wanna be a parent too, I just rather not have my money involved."

Isn't paying for your kids food and clothes and stuff part of being a parent? I guess what i'm saying is, if they want any parental rights, they pay. Otherwise, they don't.

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I have seen men runing away from their responsibility of fatherhood. The law requiring them to step forward to at least give financial aid is just. I hope this guy will not escape fom the spot on which he has placed himself.

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Being gay, I really don't have a horse in this race, but I do belong the human community and therefore have a right to my opinion, and here it goes:

Since the beginning of mankind, and in every culture, women have been placed in a position of second-class personhood, subjugated to the whims of men. The reasons are obvious. Women hold all the cards. Women can give birth. Men cannot. In the truest sense, women have all the power, and it's the men who feel they must wrest this power from women in order to dominate and control procreation. Be fruitful and multiply (and all that bloody rot). But if every woman on the planet woke up tomorrow and agreed NEVER to give birth again.....well, you see where I'm going.

But as western values change and form new perspectives, we pat ourselves on the back for squeezing into our collective conciousness the concept of "equality" (it's not REAL equality, we just pretend it is on TV), and give women the "choice" of whether to procreate or NOT.

So with this "right" comes the "responsibility". Because women have the patent on the baby making apparatus, it is their responsibility to decide whether or not to utilize it. As a male, I've got the flour and the female has the eggs and together we make a bun. But she's the only one with the oven to bake it in, and she has the ultimate responsibility as to whether or not it is to be used.

Within the abortion debate the women has total responsibility for her body - RIGHT? I'm not suggesting men should not assist, but she also has the ultimate responsibility as to whether or not to become pregnant, and for her NOT to take full responsibility is to abdicate it and put the onus on the male, who has NO right to decide in any way whatsoever.

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I'm seriously considering making a financial contribution to this man's legal fund. He is intelligent and brave for doing this. I'm sick of it being so legally lopsided in society today. If a man even asks for palimony he is chastised. If he even suggested his girlfriend get an abortion, he would be considered vile if she was anti-choice. And yes, it takes two. He is not the only party responsible for the pregnancy. Why does the man have no say wether or not the child should be born? If the woman is anti-choice I say fine, let her sign a court approved agreement that she will be 100% responsible for the child until the child is of legal age. Of course the man should have to appear in court as well and agree to nullify any and all rights to the child until the child is of legal age. Not to use overuse a worn out phrase, but I've noticed that some of the self centered "screw all men" people want to have their cake and eat it too.

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Fathers & Mothers & Family are about who you have supporting you and being involved in your life. Biology hardly makes any difference (maybe only for hereditary diseases).

Also, a single parent is perfectly capable of raising kids w/out financial support from anyone, forced or otherwise. I've seen it many times. Sure it's harder, but it's possible and hardly a reason to force anyone to pony up.

Hearing people say he should have "kept it in his pants" disappoints me. It's the same attitude that anti-choicers have. Fatherhood/Motherhood as punishment. That's not the right place for progress or equality to happen. Traditional family roles may have contributed to this attitude about "deadbeats".

ANYONE who doesn't want to be a parent should NOT be forced to. Pretty simple.

~A pro-choice, feminist mother who supports true equality

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Let's not forget the frequency of unintended pregnancies that occur despite the use of birth control! The righteous indignation and tsk-tsking can go right back in your pockets, okay?

Not that anyone has the right to judge people's situations, birth control or not. What to do about it is still their choice, not ours, and certainly not the government's.

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I cannot believe the opinions I am hearing on a supposedly progressive blog.

As was pointed out above, most bio-dads have an opt-out already, as in Texas where he can waive his rights completely and totally. No support, and no parent-child relationship.

(Or, a bio-mom can choose to not put him on the birth certificate at all)

The fact is this: Guys, if you have to pay support because it is in the best interest of the child, then you also get the benefit of having a relationship with said child. Just like the mom!!!

Fair and simple.

So stop trying to tell us what to do with our bodies, which is where the contentious point of the argument lies. Not your body, not your choice. So Sorry.

This is just another way for men's rights groups to try to further their campaign of Total Control.

"Equality" is just a frame.

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No, it isn't. It's far harder than a lot of you seem to think.
Feminists need to think about this logic: If the baby, and the financial responsibility, are half his, why doesn't he get a say in whether it gets born? Anti-abortionists do use that logic, at least where husbands are concerned. I think the answer is "no", but do feminists really want to raise the question?
As things stand, it's perfectly possible for women to con men into paternity (larryfromgary was just lucky they didn't BOTH sue him), unless he is distrustful enough to ALWAYS use a condom. That is certainly wise; men should use them and women should insist (unless they're looking for an unwitting sperm donor). But where sex is concerned, wisdom is beside the point (and condoms don't always work). We need to talk about the real world.
In practice, society will probably come down on the side of its financial interest in support for children. But is that really the feminist position? Reproductive biology is very asymmetric, as many of you pointed out, and we have to somehow extract "equality" from it. Equality comes at a price, for both men and women.
BTW, check out "lostgirl"'s comment. She asserts a peculiar authority on the subject.

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In the event of an unwanted pregnancy, equality mandates that each parent have a choice in whether or not to go on with or terminate the pregnancy.

Not all pregnancies are wanted and not all pregnancies are due to carelessness. At times condoms break or birth control fails. At other times, people are not afforded the sex education that they should be. In our society, teaching abstinence seems to be much preferred to teaching about sex and its dangers. However, this will not keep teens from succumbing to their hormones and having sexual relationships... no matter how much parents and governments would like.

Unsought pregnancy is unsought pregnancy, no matter which parent is opposed to it. I believe that no one should be able to force a woman to have a child, as many people do, and so I also believe that no one should be able to force a man to have a child.

In light of this, I do believe that safeguards should be put in place in order to force parents who choose to have children follow through with those commitments. And, I think that if this lawsuit leads to the decision which it should, by the standards of equality, that births occurring before the lawsuit is decided on should be exempt from any rulings due to the fact that they did not have safeguards in place.

What is meant by safeguards is this:
Two parents might agree to having a child together where each would not have agreed to do it had they thought they would be raising the child themselves. In light of this, if two parents decide to have a child, and then 3 years later one decides that they should not like to continue down that path, it is too late to foist the responsibility on to one parent.

For this reason, it would be required that during the pregnancy each parent decide whether they want to go forward with it and then draw up a legal document stating the intentions of each. This way, if it is known to the woman that the man does not want the pregnancy to continue, he can not be penalized for her deciding to continue the pregnancy. Thus, neither person's right to decide not to have a child is compromised and still no one can be left without the support they were promised in the verbal contract which occurs when two people agree to have a child.

The crux of the issue is that no one person should be able to force another person into an unwanted action. That negates the other person's freedom. This includes forcing a man to be a father when he does not want to just as much as it includes forcing a woman to be a mother when she does not want to.

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This man said that, during the relationship but before the pregnancy, he specifically told his partner that he didn't want any children at that time. She went ahead and allowed herself to get pregnant anyway. I use this terminology because this woman had options in the face of his feelings about parenthood. If she didn't have a fool proof way of birth control, she should have gotten out of the relationship. However, he, and any man who comes after him, in the face of this lawsuit should get this agreement in writing. This should say he doesn't want children; which of them is responsible for the birth control method; what will happen in the event of pregnancy. It should be signed and notarized. In this way, perhaps these women who "didn't really believe he wouldn't love this child after it was born" will realize he really meant what he said. They may then think twice about the person with whom they are sleeping and the repercussions of getting pregnant by that person.

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The president of the National Organization for Women, Kim Gandy, acknowledged that disputes over unintended pregnancies can be complex and bitter.

"None of these are easy questions," said Gandy, a former prosecutor. "But most courts say it's not about what he did or didn't do or what she did or didn't do. It's about the rights of the child."

I wonder if NOW saw this article and cringed at the use of Gandy's quote. Because "the rights of a child" is basically the same case that conservatives make in protesting abortion, and promoting family values.

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The article says $500 a month, but it doesn't say for how long. Is that static, or is it a percentage of his income? Does it go up if he becomes CEO? Is it reduced if his job is offshored? What if he decides to give everything away and become a Moonie? Or walk the earth like Cain? Does the child support need prevent him from doing so?

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The system is set up to make sure that the male is bled dry and is left homeless and destitute. Unless the male is rich beyond the dreams of avarice he won't even be able to eat by the time the government gets done raping him. So what is the incentive to pay? I say live on hud and foodstamps and tell that goldbrick that is trying to ride you to find another sugardaddy.

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never mind about progressive taxation, universal healthcare and other trivial economic issues that unite all working class Americans.
Instead make sure the political debate DIVIDES. THat way the rich people and corporations have nothing to fear...

DIVIDE AND RULE. And Alternet does its little part...

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What kind of self-absorbed shoe-gazer would begrudge a child over...what?...a day or two of work each month? When I was single I spent that much on booze. Heck, the IRS dependent child deduction alone is going to compensate for a third of that annually. I'm left to wonder how he managed to impregnate a woman in the first place--he's clearly got some severely dried-up husks where his balls ought to be.

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