Letters to the Editor
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Why Is It That Posting to The End of One of These...
...feels like being the last one in the room to get a whiff of a particularly long fart??
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Mens and Womens roles
So much as been written very well in other letters that I won't repeat what I've already read here. I am a man, one who is happy to have never contributed to a pregnancy. Children are great, but I'm not prepared to be a father. If I had done so through an accident or deception by a partner it would not seem fair that not only does the woman have the "right to choose" for herself what to do, but has the right to choose for me as well. Cetainly the welfare of the child is very important, and I neither want to see a child raised by someone who doesn't want them, nor go hungry or homeless due to lack of support. I see the argument that someone must support the child, the "life isn't fair" argument, etc., but cannot agree with those who say the man must be responsible.
It was hard to resolve so many well spoken points of view that all made a certain sense, until I reached a letter that contained this passage:
"On a practical note, no legislator in their right mind would agree to a law that allows men to just legally forget their own progeny."
That was an Ah-Ha! moment. Simply replace the word men with the word women, and reread the sentence. The fact is the legislature long ago did this, most likely in every part of the USA. It is called adoption. Woman doesn't want child, even in a world without abortion, give it to the state and have no further involvement -- by law. Man doesn't want child, but woman does? Suck it dad, the mom can opt out of her financial and other future responsibilities, but you cannot. Not only isn't that fair, it clearly discriminates against men.
Either men and women are going to strive for equality or we aren't. If we are, a man should be able to opt out of responsbility for a child before/at birth the same as a woman can. That is a fairly small trade-off for women insisting on the same rights as men. If men can't do that, why should women be able to? If the mens argument holds no water, then in the 21st century with working women perhaps the idea of adoption has passed. Either PEOPLE must be financially responsibility for their offspring or not, which is it?
Society hasn't embraced the equality of men when it comes to raising children in other ways. If a single woman can raise a child, why not a single man? If a woman considers giving a child up for adoption, does the father have an unconditional right to custody if he wants it? Why not? If the law lets the mother keep a child unless/until proven unfit, why not a father?
The more I think about this the more convinced I am that such conversation and probably changes in the law are long overdue.
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What the Judge Wants to Know
Since this is a precedent-setting case, which means Matt Dubay is, in fact, a poster child for all men who want the "financial abortion" option, let's take a look at how the judge is likely to respond to the individual details of this particular case.
I haven't seen, in any of the news accounts of the case, any confirmation of whether Dubay used a condom or not when he had sex with his ex. It's easy to assume not, but rubbers do break. Nevertheless, what's likely to occur to the judge is this: "If you absolutely, positively didn't want to be a father, can you say you did absolutely, positively everything you could to make certain you wouldn't become one?" If it's established that no rubbers or other barrier contraceptive methods were used, the case is a loser, frankly.
Another issue here is the believability of the woman's account. It sounds to me, from what I've read, that she genuinely believed she could not conceive and therefore, she did not resort to trickery in order to "hunt" Dubay's sperm -- as would be the case in circumstances when a woman lied about being on the Pill and led a guy to believe it was "okay" not to use other protection.
Finally, it's not as though she is currently in the first trimester of pregnancy; this child already exists and requires constant care. If the judge removes $500 a month from the kid's mouth, so to speak, where are the resources to pay for care of this child going to come from? Taxpayers? Not when both the feds and the states are busy cutting, cutting, cutting funding for such services. If Dubay -- who appears to be much better off financially than a lot of "opt-out dads" -- wins this case, the "loser" isn't the mother, it's the kid. Tough precedent to set.
If the NCM really did look around for the "right" person to pick in order to get the decision they want, I think they struck out. Better they should have picked a recovering addict "dad" with two years' sobriety trying sincerely to put his life back together but crippled by the garnishment of huge chunks of his barely-over-minimum-wage paycheck, and a "mom" who has a history of knowingly duping men into believing she can't get pregnant so she can collect child support, live with her parents who care for the kids, and put most of the money up her nose (or her boyfriend's nose). Surely the NCM ran into more than a few of those during their search, if the conniving-woman problem is as widespread as they claim it is.
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Clarification
When I said
Nevertheless, what's likely to occur to the judge is this: "If you absolutely, positively didn't want to be a father, can you say you did absolutely, positively everything you could to make certain you wouldn't become one?"
I meant to say, "...did absolutely, positively everything short of abstaining from sex entirely." That is, did everything he could, contraception-wise. Sorry if that was unclear.