Letters to the Editor
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Hank
My girlfriend and I both do not want to have children. We have decided to use the pill as neither of us like condoms (we used them for the first several months of our relationship). We have also mutually decided that if she gets pregnant anyway, she will have an abortion. Now, let's just say that she gets pregnant. One of us changes our mind and wants to have the baby. The other says "No way. We agreed no children."
2. Should one of us be able to force the other into the obligations of motherhood/fatherhood against her/his will? If the answer depends on the sex of the person changinng their mind, isn't that unfair?
If you do not want to have children and are so worried that one of you will change your mind and "force" the other into something they don't want...
You need more than the pill, and a condom, and maybe even some spermicide EVERY time. You even need more than a vascetomy AND a tubal ligation.
You need a relationship therapist.
Your illigical question is framed poorly, that's why you don't get a straight answer. It's built on false pretense, let alone a shaky foundation for a relationship. By your own word you've been fucking like bunnies since the get go and only now you've actually started to get serious about pregnancy protection. Word: it should have been the other way around. You're writing to strangers asking what if my live-in fuck buddy changes her mind when you should have been getting to know her--not her vagina-first. Then you wouldn't be boring us with your silly syllogisms, you'd be in a committed relationship where you both intimitely knew each other as people, not as possible accidental parents.
So, to answer your question: if you're asking strangers about your responsibility regarding sexual relations you're already fucked, and not in the good way. No child deserves you for a parent until you mature. So until then, take responsibility for your lil feller.
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For No Name Given who responded to my post
I'm not quite sure why you're so angry with me.
Perhaps my earlier post was unclear. My girlfriend and I discussed our feelings about having children before we started having sex. That's why we use birth control and discussed what we would do if it failed. It seemed like the proper precautions to take. What more can I do to prevent becoming a father?
Why do I need therapy? I've found a mate who shares my desire to remain childless, we use birth control, and we have agreed on what to do if it fails (abortion). Should I just be celibate for the rest of my life?
Perhaps I should have worded my original question differently to be a hypothetical situation more clearly. In order to put the focus back on my original question, replace "my girlfriend and I" with "John and Mary", "we" with "they", etc. Is your answer still that they need therapy?
Why is this question "illogical" and "built on false pretense"? Do you mean to say the situation I described is an impossibility?
I hope you will reply again (but without the anger directed at me this time). I'd be happy to answer any questions (politely) that you might have for me.
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Reproductive rights for men
Of course a man should be able to refuse responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy. If he would choose to have an abortion or put the child up for adoption, his responsibility should end there. I am sick of women trapping men into parenthood, ala George Gilder. Most men do not want to be fathers. They seldom play fathers growing up the way girls play being mothers. They don't plan their lives around it. They generally don't think about it much. I doubt most men would choose to be fathers at all if women didn't talk them, or trick them, into it. If so many men want to be fathers why are there so many dead-beat dads? Men should be forced to make a choice to reproduce and accept full responsibility after the choice. Stop making them fathers by default or by accident. It's time to begin the male revolution!
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Hmmm, okay.
If these mens groups are as willing to actively fight for women's abortion rights as they are this measure, I see potential for a cross-gender reproductive rights coalition. Though the logistics of their measure sound a little hairy, legally. But if I were a man and had explicitly told my partner I didn't want kids and she became pregnant and ended up having the child and insisted on my support, financially or otherwise--I'd feel trapped. It's not the same as being forced to give birth but still, it doesn't sit right. So I empathize with this guy's situation and can understand his desire for some kind of recourse. Of course I don't include deadbeat dads in this sentiment, those sh*ts should own up to their responsibilities. But it's here that the logistics get sticky. I'd hate to see jerky deadbeat dads take advantage such a measure.
But ultimately, if these mens groups are only insisting on protecting their own reproductive freedom, I'd wonder why that merits feminist support.
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Bottom Line
The debate over Roe vs. Wade - which was faulty law, and is being tested now in order to strengthen or dismiss it - is a natural correction in the procreative realm. If feminists are going to insist that procreative rights apply only to women, while for men, responsibilities trump any kind of choice, then they will alienate those men most likely to support their fought-and-bargained-for (and not inevitable) procreative "rights." I noticed that, in the original article, the author wrote "father's rights." Would she ever have placed "a woman's right to choose" in ironic quotation marks? There will be a corrective compromise here that brings fairness and involves more freedom for men, or the right to abort will be severely curtailed when enough men decide they are being taxed without representation. And that their support for abortion rights has been exploited to their detriment.
It's like custody law - for too long, women have had unfair leverage over men. On a personal level, I left my impressive career, my friends, my apartment, my comfort level and my country (Canada) to move to New York without papers, when my ex-girlfriend decided to have our baby in the U.S. (and she was not a citizen, she was an Irish immigrant). I pay support, and more importantly, I provide a significant amount of the hands-on child-raising, especially when she leaves the country on a few days notice (for up to 10 days) for her freelance job. It was either do this, or risk never seeing my daughter. Yeah, I made a choice to do that... but what choice did I really have, as a human being - and a father? Women will either prove willing to correct the discrepancies, or lose their only allies in the political sphere. And when it's every interest group for itself, the forces of the right wing will likely reassert their dominance. Choose or lose. While Roe vs. Wade For Men may seem unlikely now, the debate has thankfully been opened, and some increase in the power to choose/decide/opt out for men is inevitable.