Cheyenne
Ms. Smarty Pantsless
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- Apr 18, 2000
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http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/10/19/mens_choice/index1.html
Some men who spoke to the Bergen (N.J.) Record a few years ago for an article on men and abortion keenly felt their powerlessness. Bill, a builder, was ecstatic when his fiancée became pregnant. Raised in a broken home, he dreamed of being the caring father he never had. His joy turned to grief when she told him she had miscarried -- and agony when he came across
a receipt from an abortion clinic.
"I cried for two hours, then went into my truck and just drove and drove for hours," recalled Bill, who was 25 at the time. "I hadn't even been given a chance to say yes or no to that baby ... OK, she was the one carrying it, but I was never even consulted."
When he confronted his 20-year-old fiancée, she told him she felt too young for motherhood. Somehow, they worked things out; in less than a year, she got pregnant again and assured Bill that she wanted to have the baby. Several weeks later, after a fight about buying a house, she went to stay with a friend for a few days "to clear her head" -- and had an abortion. When her sister called to tell Bill, he screamed with anguish and rage, threw some lamps around and smashed all the framed photos of them together; after cleaning up the mess, he went to a bar and drank himself senseless.
His fiancée actually returned, but they soon broke up.
"I couldn't get over the pain," said Bill. "I didn't even date anybody for a year, and I lost all interest in sex. It was a long time before I could trust anyone again." (At the time of the interview eight years later, he was happily married, with a stepson he had adopted and a baby on the way.)
Of course, men's lack of reproductive rights has another side: being forced to assume the burden of unwanted parenthood, at least financially. In the eyes of the law, it seems that virtually no circumstances, however bizarre or outrageous, can mitigate the biological father's liability for child support, as an overview of cases published in Divorce Litigation journal in 1999 shows.
Did the woman ask him to impregnate her and sign an agreement relieving him of any financial obligations? He's still liable if she changes her mind. Was he underage and legally a victim of statutory rape? Makes no difference. (One such case, in Kansas in 1993, involved a 12-year-old boy molested by a baby sitter.) Did the woman have her way with him when he had passed out
from drinking and brag to friends that she had saved herself a trip to the sperm bank? Tough luck, said Alabama courts. Did she retrieve his semen from the condom she had asked him to wear during oral sex and inseminate herself with a syringe? Yes, it's a true story, and in 1997 the Louisiana Court of Appeals told the man to pay up, saying that a male who has any sexual
contact with a woman -- even oral sex with a condom -- should assume that a pregnancy may ensue.
Even in less dramatic cases that involve sex between two consenting adults with no coercion or deception, there is a fundamental imbalance. A woman who gets pregnant in her freshman year in college can decide that she's not ready to be a mother, or that having a child would disrupt her life too
much. A man can find himself in the predicament of "A Dad Too Soon in N.J.," a 27-year-old newlywed graduate student who wrote to Ann Landers that he got a young woman pregnant as a "very naive" 18-year-old and tried in vain to persuade her to have an abortion or put the baby up for adoption. The woman
had recently filed for child support, and he was "burned up" about having to make payments he couldn't afford for a child he had never wanted -- a child that, as he saw it, the mother alone decided to bring into the world. (Predictably, Ann's response was that "Dad" should quit whining and meet his obligations.)
Some argue that the law should treat women and men more equally. One proposed measure is "veto for fathers," which is as simple as it sounds: No abortion can be performed without the prospective father's consent. (Proponents of this idea do stipulate that a man who blocks an abortion must be willing to take full responsibility for raising the child.)
The language of the Veto 4 Fathers Web site strongly suggests a general anti-abortion agenda. But the idea is also endorsed by men's and fathers' groups, such as Fathers for Equal Rights and the National Coalition of Free Men (NCFM), which emphasize that their position on the issue of choice is distinct from that of the pro-life movement.
The NCFM's "Declaration of the Father's Fundamental Pre-Natal Rights," adopted in 1992, states that "the prospective father has the fundamental right to participate with his partner-in-conception in any decision affecting the future of the fetus he helped create" and "a fundamental right of custody" equal to the woman's.
A competing proposal, "Choice for Men," leans in favor of the partner who doesn't want to be a parent: It would allow a man to legally "abort" his parental rights and responsibilities within a limited time of being notified of the pregnancy.
"Ending paternity suits against men is the equivalent to legalizing abortion for women," Hayward of Men's Rights Inc., wrote in the Berkeley, Calif., alternative weekly the Spectator in 1992. McCulley's article in the Journal of Law and Policy, provocatively titled "The Male Abortion," endorses this idea and features a model statute under which an unwed father could petition
for paternity termination.
Some men who spoke to the Bergen (N.J.) Record a few years ago for an article on men and abortion keenly felt their powerlessness. Bill, a builder, was ecstatic when his fiancée became pregnant. Raised in a broken home, he dreamed of being the caring father he never had. His joy turned to grief when she told him she had miscarried -- and agony when he came across
a receipt from an abortion clinic.
"I cried for two hours, then went into my truck and just drove and drove for hours," recalled Bill, who was 25 at the time. "I hadn't even been given a chance to say yes or no to that baby ... OK, she was the one carrying it, but I was never even consulted."
When he confronted his 20-year-old fiancée, she told him she felt too young for motherhood. Somehow, they worked things out; in less than a year, she got pregnant again and assured Bill that she wanted to have the baby. Several weeks later, after a fight about buying a house, she went to stay with a friend for a few days "to clear her head" -- and had an abortion. When her sister called to tell Bill, he screamed with anguish and rage, threw some lamps around and smashed all the framed photos of them together; after cleaning up the mess, he went to a bar and drank himself senseless.
His fiancée actually returned, but they soon broke up.
"I couldn't get over the pain," said Bill. "I didn't even date anybody for a year, and I lost all interest in sex. It was a long time before I could trust anyone again." (At the time of the interview eight years later, he was happily married, with a stepson he had adopted and a baby on the way.)
Of course, men's lack of reproductive rights has another side: being forced to assume the burden of unwanted parenthood, at least financially. In the eyes of the law, it seems that virtually no circumstances, however bizarre or outrageous, can mitigate the biological father's liability for child support, as an overview of cases published in Divorce Litigation journal in 1999 shows.
Did the woman ask him to impregnate her and sign an agreement relieving him of any financial obligations? He's still liable if she changes her mind. Was he underage and legally a victim of statutory rape? Makes no difference. (One such case, in Kansas in 1993, involved a 12-year-old boy molested by a baby sitter.) Did the woman have her way with him when he had passed out
from drinking and brag to friends that she had saved herself a trip to the sperm bank? Tough luck, said Alabama courts. Did she retrieve his semen from the condom she had asked him to wear during oral sex and inseminate herself with a syringe? Yes, it's a true story, and in 1997 the Louisiana Court of Appeals told the man to pay up, saying that a male who has any sexual
contact with a woman -- even oral sex with a condom -- should assume that a pregnancy may ensue.
Even in less dramatic cases that involve sex between two consenting adults with no coercion or deception, there is a fundamental imbalance. A woman who gets pregnant in her freshman year in college can decide that she's not ready to be a mother, or that having a child would disrupt her life too
much. A man can find himself in the predicament of "A Dad Too Soon in N.J.," a 27-year-old newlywed graduate student who wrote to Ann Landers that he got a young woman pregnant as a "very naive" 18-year-old and tried in vain to persuade her to have an abortion or put the baby up for adoption. The woman
had recently filed for child support, and he was "burned up" about having to make payments he couldn't afford for a child he had never wanted -- a child that, as he saw it, the mother alone decided to bring into the world. (Predictably, Ann's response was that "Dad" should quit whining and meet his obligations.)
Some argue that the law should treat women and men more equally. One proposed measure is "veto for fathers," which is as simple as it sounds: No abortion can be performed without the prospective father's consent. (Proponents of this idea do stipulate that a man who blocks an abortion must be willing to take full responsibility for raising the child.)
The language of the Veto 4 Fathers Web site strongly suggests a general anti-abortion agenda. But the idea is also endorsed by men's and fathers' groups, such as Fathers for Equal Rights and the National Coalition of Free Men (NCFM), which emphasize that their position on the issue of choice is distinct from that of the pro-life movement.
The NCFM's "Declaration of the Father's Fundamental Pre-Natal Rights," adopted in 1992, states that "the prospective father has the fundamental right to participate with his partner-in-conception in any decision affecting the future of the fetus he helped create" and "a fundamental right of custody" equal to the woman's.
A competing proposal, "Choice for Men," leans in favor of the partner who doesn't want to be a parent: It would allow a man to legally "abort" his parental rights and responsibilities within a limited time of being notified of the pregnancy.
"Ending paternity suits against men is the equivalent to legalizing abortion for women," Hayward of Men's Rights Inc., wrote in the Berkeley, Calif., alternative weekly the Spectator in 1992. McCulley's article in the Journal of Law and Policy, provocatively titled "The Male Abortion," endorses this idea and features a model statute under which an unwed father could petition
for paternity termination.
