Letters to the Editor
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Maybe I have a slightly different take on this
Or maybe it's been addressed later on (I haven't read all the letters). But the vitriol that's been spewed about this man not wanting to take financial responsibility for this unplanned child surprises me.
I DO know women who, consciously or unconsciously, have gotten pregnant "accidentally" in order to keep men in their lives. The guy's ex-girlfriend said a very telling thing--(I quote from the article:
Dubay's ex-girlfriend, Lauren, echoed many critics when she told "Good Morning America," "Everybody knows where babies come from. And it was [Dubay's] choice before the child was even conceived. That was where his choice was."
Excuse me? He thought there was no chance of their getting pregnant because SHE TOLD HIM SHE COULDN'T!!! He was in a relationship with this women. Theoretically, he ought to have been able to trust her when she said "I can't get pregnant". So did she lie to him? If she did, then she did a despicable thing. Did she make an honest mistake and then was overjoyed to find that she COULD get pregnant? In that case, having the baby was her decision, and her decision alone, and he should not be liable for that decision.
The gentlemanly thing for him to do is to pay the child support. Of course it is. He comes across as kind of a weasel for not wanting to do it. But IMO, since it WAS her decision, she should not be ASKING for child support.
(oh, and I am not some embittered man screwed by women at every turn. I'm a single woman with no children. But I've always thought that if I got pregnant accidentally, and the man I was with did not want the child, just as my body is my responsibility, the choice would ALSO be my responsibility, and I would make it on my own--with no need for support from the man.)
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Roe for Men
After reading about the abortion ban in South Dakota and now the NCM suit, my head is spinning. I'm wondering if a man rapes a woman in SD, does that mean he has "reproductive rights" as defined by the NCM? If the woman is forced to carry the child to term, will the rapist be forced to make monthly child support payments from prison, or will the state of SD step in and help with child support? I can't believe that we Americans have to consider these questions.
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To Anonymous
I read somewhere on salon that the tree worst counties for child poverty in the US are in South Dakota. So SD doesn't really care about what happens to children after they're born.
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GO DEADBEAT DADS!
What a crock of crap. If he was the one so worried about having a child, where was his birth control. He shirked his personal responsibility at the time of conception. It is no suprise that he wants to shirk his responsibility now.
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I am with oxymoron on this one
As a mother to a son, I have already started telling him (at age 1 no less) that he should always wear a condom, even if his girlfriend claims to be on the pill or infertile, because if the girlfriend is mistaken, he will be financially responsible for his girlfriend's mistake/lies/irresponsibility for a quarter century.
Dubay's girlfriend TOLD HIM SHE COULD NOT GET PREGNANT. She can't turn around and take the high road and imply that he should have known she could have gotten pregnant. Why are the rights of a woman who lies or misleads her sexual partner considered greater than the partner's?
But let's take it a step further. What about man who wants to raise the child when their wife/girlfriend/random sexual encounter wants to abort? We (in my case rightly) tell him that it isn't his body and his wants carry less weight than those of the woman who will have to carry the growing fetus in her belly for 9 months. So it seems we want it both ways: tell men they have no say in the matter of whether the embryo will gestate and grow into a baby, but insist they are financially liable for whatever decision the woman makes.
I think this is a pro-choice issue and I think that we in the pro-choice movement should be supporting the NCM and men like Dubay. To demand that a man always play the role of financially supporting a child, EVEN WHEN PREGNANCY WAS SOMETHING THE MAN WAS TOLD COULD NOT HAPPEN, quite frankly furthers the notion that women are not nearly as equal in our society and they NEED men.
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For "LeCastrated"
I am sorry you have penis envy and are basically an angry little lady. When you have money, like me, having an agreement is a good thing. Now run along.
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Responsibility for men
This is a ridiculous solution for a serious problem. I heartily agree that men should not be forced to be a parent by the accidental conception of a child. I also believe that men need to take a LOT more responsibility for preventing conception. While women have suffered and some died using dangerous birth control methods such as IUDs and high hormone level birth control pills, men continue to blissfully say that birth control is not their responsibility and are perfectly happy to believe that a condom is going to work every time. While I see commercials many times a day for "male enhancement," I see none for methods for male control over conception. GET OVER YOURSELVES! When products come out that guarantee (in so far as is possible, like the pill) men will not conceive a child, THEN let's talk about their "rights" to say whether they want a child that they have conceived.
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For "No Balls Had" :)
Do you even know what a contract is?! Do you even know what the legal context of all this is?! No, you're just a bitter IT guy somewhere with not enough work to do.
Have you ever heard of "res ipsa loquitur"? Very useful concept. If you are indeed the jetsetting investment banker you say you are, don't you have some work to go do, or get ready for one of those lunches at Jean Georges? What are you doing trolling on Salon with your misogyny? Thus, "the thing speaks for itself," you're not the rich guy you pretend to be.
Anyway, if you actually do make women you sleep with sign these contracts (and i'm not sure what you think they'll protect you from, since meritricious contracts are never valid), then, boy, do you have a way with the ladies! i understand now why only dinner whores will sleep with you.