The "financial abortion" option

Jeff Jacoby writes cogently about where the sexual revolution train is now, precisely at the station called, "Cads are True Heroes." Having marked the train's path from "Contraception," to "Abortion," to "Fatherless America," and now having taken a precarious swing near the town of "Men Support their Offspring," men are standing up for their freedom. Freedom from Responsibility.

This centers on a case concerning a man who engaged in intimate relations with a woman while making it clear he wanted no children.

A 25-year-old computer programmer in Michigan, Dubay wants to know why it is only women who have "reproductive rights." He is upset about having to pay child support for a baby he never wanted. Not only did his former girlfriend know he didn't want children, says Dubay, she had told him she was infertile. When she got pregnant nonetheless, he asked her to get an abortion or place the baby for adoption. She decided instead to keep her child and secured a court order requiring him to pay $500 a month in support.

Not fair, Dubay complains. His ex-girlfriend chose to become a mother. It was her choice not to have an abortion, her choice to carry the baby to term, her choice not to have the child adopted.

Rather than embracing the miracle, he screams foul and shakes the dust from his shoes.

Roe v. Wade gives her and all women the right - the constitutional right! - to avoid parenthood and its responsibilities. Dubay argues that he should have the same right, and has filed a federal lawsuit that his supporters are calling "Roe v. Wade for men." Drafted by the National Center for Men, it contends that as a matter of equal rights, men who don't want a child should be permitted, early in pregnancy, to get "a financial abortion" releasing them from any future responsibility to the baby.

Jacoby is righteously indignant at the state of affairs for women and children. I want to emphasise he should be disgusted, but Dubay is only thinking logically.

Does Dubay have a point? Of course. Contemporary American society does send very mixed messages about sex and the sexes. For women, the decision to have sex is the first of a series of choices, including the choice to abort a pregnancy - or, if she prefers, to give birth and collect child support from the father. For men, legal choices end with the decision to have sex. If conception takes place, he can be forced to accept the abortion of a baby he wants - or to spend at least the next 18 years turning over a chunk of his income to support a child he didn't want.

What this does is crystallises what women are playing with. They are the ones who historically are called to keep their heads, to put on the brakes, so to speak, when passion gets out of hand. They have had to deal with the long-term consequences of intimacy out of wedlock and are wired to deduce more clearly that sex goes hand-in-hand with commitment. This discussion should be a wake-up call, at least. God willing, it won't be adopted as policy anywhere, but just knowing that men could be this callous and selfish might tip off a woman that he isn't worth her time.

It is the logical extension of a "rights" based philosophy that has no room for responsibility. It may just get people thinking about the nature of sex and its "miraculous" relationship to ... progeny.

Comments

[Georgette]

**What this does is crystallises what women are playing with. They are the ones who historically are called to keep their heads, to put on the brakes, so to speak, when passion gets out of hand.**

Amen. And also illustrates why the loss of chastity and modesty and the other related virtues are to be mourned by all of society! All this selfishness just hurts the innocent and weakest among us.

Please see my blog-post on the lost Christian virtue of ladylikeness. http://chronicleofameanderingtraveller.blogspot.com/2006/03/marie-antoinette-catholic-saint.html

[Tony]

God willing, it won't be adopted as policy anywhere, but just knowing that men could be this callous and selfish might tip off a woman that he isn't worth her time.

I say in this particular case "right on, brother!". I believe men should stand up for their responsibilities, but I'm firmly in the camp that if a woman can get off the hook of an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy by killing her child, the ethics of a guy getting off the financial hook is so small in comparison as to be insignificant.

As long as fathers are considered disposable in the raising of their children, and are considered only as state-mandated ATM machines then women aren't going to care.

Now, on the other hand, if they know that they might be all alone in their choice, they might think twice about having sex with some strange guy they hardly know.

It's time to shut down the ATM machine for women who trick men into impregnating them and then doing whatever they wish with no regard to the child or the man they created that new life with.

[Teresa]

This suit is a grim trajectory from the roots of Roe v. Wade.

What are the possible arguments and decisions of the case?

Would they argue that he loses on the grounds that the "by product" of their sexual union is on/in her property. Therefore, it makes it her possession? (I'm not aware of any precidents of lawsuits where a bicycle becomes yours because it's left in your yard, but, hey... they can argue anything!)

Would he win on the charge that she defrauded him, so she has to pay restitution... BUT, he still has to pay chid support?

[Charles R. Williams]

This thinking is the result of logical arguments founded on insane premises. Now if we could just get people to understand that the woman's "right to choose" is insanity.