It was heartening to see the New York Times jump into the reproductive rights fray recently with their editorial questioning whether men actually have any. Answer: Nope. Not really.
If a man accidentally conceives a child with a woman, and does not want to raise the child with her, what are his choices? Surprisingly, he has few options in the United States. He can urge her to seek an abortion, but ultimately that decision is hers to make. Should she decide to continue the pregnancy and raise the child, and should she or our government attempt to establish him as the legal father, he can be stuck with years of child support payments.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/is-forced-fatherhood-fair/
Predictably, feminist website Jezebel responds with compassion and intelligence to a fairly complex conundrum that seems to be inherently biased against men.
Boo fucking hoo. At the end of the day, the only thing the government, and society, requires fathers to do is pay money, which is a hell of a lot easier than raising a child alone, as most mothers who have children out of wedlock are forced to do.
http://jezebel.com/forced-fatherhood-yeah-okay-whatever-513168822
Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon is equally concerned when men’s freedom to choose to be a parent is curtailed:
I have to laugh at her question, “Do men now have less reproductive autonomy than women?”
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/there_is_no_forced_fatherhood_crisis/
But I really think it’s Amanda Marcotte who takes the cake, agreeing that forced fatherhood is indeed unfair, and then summoning her bitchiest bitch tone to claim that for one thing, there are only about three men who have been forced into fatherhood, and men who don’t want to become parents are “dead-beat dad” wannabes and refusing to turn your resources over to a woman you explicitly do not wish to parent with is the moral equivalent of killing your child.
It’s a hat-trick of idiocy!
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/13/fine-would-be-deadbeat-dads-heres-a-suggestion-for-you/
For fuck’s sake, I can’t believe the NY Times gave space to the tedious argument that because women have been graciously granted their right to reproductive autonomy (actually, it’s not even remotely gracious), it’s time to deal with the largely imaginary plague of “forced fatherhood”, i.e. women getting pregnant and carrying pregnancies to term against the father’s wishes, and then suing him for child support. This happens occasionally, though compared to men trying to force women to get pregnant against their wills, it’s so rare that it’s comparable to shark attacks in its frequency.
Well, we dealt with the whole birth control sabotage thing a few days ago, and to the surprise of only me, apparently, sabotaging birth control so women can get pregnant against their male partners wishes is not just frequent, it’s normal.
There are a number of ways that paternity can be established when it comes to women who have chosen to have children without the explicit support of the father.
Voluntary acknowledgement – the father acknowledges that he is, in fact, the father
Administrative – child support agencies contact the putative father and the case proceeds from there
Judicial – the courts contact the putative father and the case proceeds from there
Default – the courts accept the word of the woman and simply names the father
The following report goes into the advantages and disadvantages of these different methods, but there is one chart in particular I would like to draw your attention to: 62% of local child support staff perceive there to be a an advantage in using any method OTHER than voluntary acknowledgement of paternity because it ensures that the correct father is identified.
Now why would that be? Why would the majority of child support workers think identifying the correct father through something other than just “she said it’s true, so I guess it must be?”.
Could it be because the WRONG MEN are identified as fathers rather routinely? It appears that child support workers deal with the “imaginary plague” of women having children outside of an established relationship and seeking child support from men who may or may not be the biological father ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
Imaginary plague, my ass.
http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-98-00050.pdf
Let’s move on to Amanda’s use of the words “paper abortion”.
Focusing on “paper abortions” is a way to soften up an audience to the demands of men who want to foist all the responsibilities of child-rearing onto their exes while still getting to float in periodically to be the big hero who takes the kids to Disneyland once in awhile. If you actually go to “father’s rights” forums and websites, you’ll find lots of paranoia about sperm-stealing, but the men who are on the forum almost all are divorced and are bitter about writing child support checks while not getting the sexual and house-cleaning benefits of having a wife.
Yeah, that’s exactly the topic we are discussing. Amanda has mixed up two very distinct group of men: fathers who are very much interested in being fathers who have been ousted from their children’s lives, and men who are confronting an unintended pregnancy only to discover they have absolutely no say in how that pregnancy proceeds.
The use of the words “paper abortion” is unfortunate, and I hope it is not a common phrase uttered by those who are interested in reproductive rights for men, because it strongly implies that refusing to be a parent by disavowing social and financial responsibility is morally equivalent to killing the child outright.
It’s not.
To equate refuting responsibility with death is disingenuous at the very least. Men are not asking for the right to “abort” a child. The decision to allow a child to live belongs to women, as it must. Men are asking for the same right that women already have:
LEGAL PARENTAL SURRENDER
A woman who gives birth to a child she does want to accept legal or financial responsibility for has the option to surrender that child to the state and simply walk away. The child will be given to someone who DOES want legal and financial responsibility, and the expense to the state is minimal and of finite duration.
https://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/safehaven.cfm
Men should have the exact same right.
Amanda has some caveats she wants to attach to that right. Let’s take them one by one.
He has to sign away all rights before the baby is born. He does not get his name on the birth certificate. The child’s father will be registered as “unknown”. If someone else—say his ex’s new husband—wishes to adopt and coparent the child, he cannot interfere.
Agreed. No problem whatsoever.
The only exception to this is if the mother did not alert the father to the pregnancy beforehand. He should be able to provide witnesses to testify that he hadn’t seen her in at least six months prior to the birth.
Uhm, no. SHE should have to provide evidence. Prove that she DID see him. Prove that a relationship DID exist. The burden of proof should be on the woman who has decided to give birth a child without knowing how she is going to support that child, and not on the man who may not even be aware of a birth control sabotage/failure.
He never contacts the child. As far as his child knows, he’s a ghost. No visits, no toys, no pictures, nothing. He should also not be allowed to contact the mother. If he reaches out to the mother, she has full rights to sue him for child support, using that as evidence that he actually does want a relationship with his ex and his biological child.
How are people who may work together or live in a small community or go to the same school together supposed to avoid contact? This is an unreasonable demand.
This is for life. If you contact the child on her 18th birthday, you owe 18 years of back child support. If you contact the child when she’s 30, same thing: All 18 years of child support, with interest.
Bullshit. This is for 18 years, same as in the case of legal parental surrender. At that point the child is an adult and free to pursue his or her biological origins just as any other adoptee. There is no guarantee that the father who has legally surrendered his child wishes to have a relationship, just as there is no guarantee that adopted children will have an adult relationship their biological parents.
If the court determines you were abusive to your ex, all the above is invalidated and you will pay child support with no visitation rights if the judge so determines.
Oh fuck off. Get out of jail free card, much? Allegations of abuse are routinely lobbed at men, with no basis in fact, other than her word. This caveat invalidates every previous assertion. It’s straight up manipulative bullshit.
While we’re at it, let’s say children who don’t have child support get a special stipend from the government, much like the Social Security payments they’d get if you were dead.
Let’s say not. In the case of legal parental surrender, the state is on the hook for the costs of placing the child with parents who DO want to accept legal and financial responsibility, which then transfers to those parents. You don’t get to make the state your husband because you have made a terrible decision.
It’s interesting that a writer as virulently feminist as Marcotte would even lend her voice to this topic. That says a lot about how far reproductive rights for all has come. It needs to go a bit further, though.
It comes down to understanding that rights come with responsibilities. Women have, and must have, the sole jurisdiction over deciding whether their bodies can be used to create a new life. The right to terminate a pregnancy belongs to the person who is pregnant. But it comes with a responsibility. If you are going to create that new life, you are responsible for it. Especially if you are creating that life against the will of the father.
If you are married, you are responsible for maintaining that marriage for the long run. That applies equally to men and women. If you create a union and bring children into it, only the direst of circumstances gives you the right to dismantle that union.
If you are unwed, and have no social resources, you are STILL responsible for that child, because you exercised your right to bear him or her. You can meet those obligations by being a single mother (bad choice) or by surrendering your legal and financial responsibility. And that SHOULD apply to equally to men and women. A legally surrendered child should be offered to the biological father FIRST. He should have the right to claim sole responsibility, should he so desire.
I strongly suspect it is not babies that daddies don’t want responsibility for. It’s the baby-mama they’re not interested in. That’s just a suspicion, though. According to the PEW research council, the rate of households headed by single fathers is growing rapidly. One quarter of single family homes are headed by daddy. That strongly suggests men are more than willing to step up to the plate to care for their children.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/07/02/the-rise-of-single-fathers/
I suspect 2-3 men will take this offer a year if it becomes law. Maybe even a dozen!
You keep telling yourself that, Amanda. Bring the law in. Equal rights to legal parental surrender.
Who thinks the birth rates for single mothers will collapse? Who thinks the astonishing number of children born to the rich and famous out of wedlock will collapse?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1012762/
It’s certainly worth taking this hypothetical out of the arsenal of “men’s rights” activists.
You won’t be taking anything out of the arsenal, honey. You’ll just be giving men the same weapons that women take for granted.
The right to force men into fatherhood is a right that women NEED to lose. The sooner the better.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
Ahh the hypocrisy of women, they claim they want equal rights, but then absolutely RAGE when you question if the guy should have ANY say in the kids life. ‘Nope’ they answer, its her body her rules after all.
I guess in the words of George Orwell “Some animals are more equal than others.”
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We should also add that if you are in a marital union, a baby is automatically yours no matter what (Given DNA testing to the positive). Marriage is for making babies. An unwanted abortion should also be grounds for divorce with impunity.
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Never understood how those who claim to fight for equality would revert to purely biological realities to enforce an unequal playing field.
Either both parties become responsible for parenthood because ‘it takes two to tango’ or both get the same abandonment rights and ability to walk away from becoming a parent before their time.
I did a few posts on this in the past, used the monopoly get out of jail free card in one of them. How prescient it was. I’m glad to see this is going more mainstream in debate.
Manjaw Marcunt can scream and shriek all she wants.. the tides are changing and she’s in the chair of desperation. Nobody listens to her batshit messages anymore except the loyal kitteh commando’s of hers.
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Congratulations on your hat-trick Amanda. When it comes time to cast a vote for you in the idiocy Hall of Fame, you’ll definitely will get mine.
I think this is a good sign. Marcotte has actually offered to start the negotiations! Not surprisingly, she, being a rabid feminists, negotiates as if she has a gun to the head of the other party. “Here,” she says, “We’ll give you the same rights as women, but if you even approach THIS LINE EVER (contact with your child or ex), you surrender all of your rights and you’re turned into a slave, retroactively.”
Amanda, you’ve proven that you have no understanding of human emotion or relationships and therefore deserve no say in any matter involving humanity. There is still hope. Just learn to identify the hateful sentiments you harbor within yourself and you can begin to actually see men and women as human beings.
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They really don’t want equal rights though. They want free stuff handed to them on a plate. And, like a spoiled child who screams “it’s not fair”, they cast themselves as a victim to achieve this ends.
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I’m not sure on the codification on the laws, but I believe most of them are written with the assumption that if a man is having sex with a woman, he is by default agreeing to support any children from that union.
Really, this could all be solved by people not having sex before marriage.But that solution hasn’t been proposed since the 1950s.
Part of me feels for guys who are saddled with kids they didn’t want to support… But really, if they don’t want to support a kid, don’t stick their dick in a woman who they don’t want a kid with. Same goes for women really, but they do have more options. I don’t think giving men more options will do anything useful other than expand the load on the welfare state.
The whole discussion on this issue is really just a symptom of the total breakdown of the family unit in the West.
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Love this article. Love what the things it reacts to represents as well. The Reproductive Rights debate is going to get a tad hotter in near days I think. Myself, I am taking a “I’m voting Republican *just to mess with women’s reproductive rights*” stance (I’m Canadian, BTW), and when the inevitable outraged reaction comes up, I say something along the lines of “It’s hard to get all worked up about women losing a right men have never had”.
Do I actually think women should lose their rights? No. But I’ll advocate for it all day long if that’s what it takes to finally get women to smarten the fuck up, and I’ll do it by advocating men and women have EQUAL rights.
I’m cackling with glee that Feminists are now being FORCED to address this issue, even in the mainstream press.
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If the surrender of biological father’s rights were to influence mother’s decision in the same direction, there is no shortage of competent couples willing to step in. Especially now.
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This is why we are likely to become a prostitution based society. The only type of woman that a man will trust not to slap him with a paternity suit would be a prostitute. A prostitute would also have a lower standing in court. I’ve seen some evidence that interest in prostitution is trending upwards.
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It comes down to understanding that rights come with responsibilities.
Logical holy water poured over the demon of feminism. Hear the screams of agony!
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An unwanted abortion should also be grounds for divorce with impunity.
Amen.
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Very true, but something has to be done first about the insane, dysfunctional adoption legal system, especially here in the U.S. Ever wonder why so many American couples choose to adopt babies from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, despite the cost and hassle of doing so? Because government “child welfare” [*bullshit*] bureaucracies make it almost impossible to adopt American-born kids here in the Vaterland.
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Yeah, that’s exactly the topic we are discussing. Amanda has mixed up two very distinct group of men: fathers who are very much interested in being fathers who have been ousted from their children’s lives, and men who are confronting an unintended pregnancy only to discover they have absolutely no say in how that pregnancy proceeds.
Of course she mixes them up. Manjaw Mandy lies. A lot. It’s her primary form of argument. That and heavy reliance on the Apex Fallacy. She finds the most outrageous outlier she can and paints it in the most extreme manner she can as representative of all men. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always lies and misdirection to fall back on. (And apparently she doesn’t like people wearing flip-flops in the city and said in a recent column that you shouldn’t wear them. Because she doesn’t like them.)
It comes down to understanding that rights come with responsibilities.
hahahahahahaha! Stop it! I can’t breathe!
The whole point of the three articles you cited is all about feminists’ understanding of responsibilities. And in the case under discussion, all three are quite clear that they understand that the financial responsibility (at least) of parenthood rests with men. Indeed, that’s the only part of the debate they focus on. They ignore, because they must, the part about the decision. A woman’s right to decide to continue or terminate a pregnancy is firmly established, for good or ill. But feminists can never acknowledge that one person exercising a right should not obligate another person with the consequences.
All three feminists focus solely on the hardships of raising a child alone, or the difficulty in some states of obtaining an abortion (which, of course, should further obligate men because it’s “forced motherhood”). Single moms have it rough! Single moms live in poverty! It’s only fair that the dudes should be made to pay because being a single mom is hard!
Well, then perhaps they shouldn’t have decided to be single moms.
But in the end, when you strip away the dross of these feminist arguments, it comes down to one thing. It’s all about the Benjamins. If men have ’em, women want ’em…
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I see Amanda marcotte and I immediately nod off.
I’ll need to nose around here more often. Someone pointed me in your direction.
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Until men begin to give birth and carry the child in their bodies 50/50 see EQUALITY. The woman should have say over everything concerning children, because the women are the the ones who are burdened to have children in the first place. The man’s body does not get messed up over having children.
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If men have no say over anything concerning children, then you have no claim to the contents of their wallets. Though it’s interesting that you consider having children to be a burden…
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“The woman should have say over everything concerning children, because the women are the the ones who are burdened to have children in the first place.”
So by thta illogic she loses that dominance at the momnet of birth. Or are oyu saying that owmen have aproperty claim to their children by virtute of having borne them?
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Funny you drop that quote. I’ve been getting a really creepy Orwellian vibe from feminism ever since I started examining it more closely, and whenever feminists dismiss flipping the genders as “derailing”, that very quote comes to mind.
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Holy f*cktard,Batman! Amanda Marcotte is trying to sound smart again!
Logic is hard!
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I’m sorry, but that is fucking ridiculous. Ok, I’ll just pop the fertilized egg into my uterus, oh wait, I don’t fucking have one,you retarded bitch.
Women’s bodies don’t get messed up fighting for independence from foreign colonial rule because they don’t do it, so I guess you don’t get to vote, associate freely, speak, own property or guns, or be protected from unreasonable search and seizure. Until women win us independence from Britain or the Roman Empire, you can’t have any say over any laws that affect your life.
See how that works? It’s bullshit,isn’t it?
The child would not even be there without the man’s cooperation, so you can’t pretend that men have no RIGHT to be fathers if they want or the same right that women are GRANTED BY MEN to disavow paternity.
The only reason you’re not handcuffed to a rafter being used as a fuckdoll is because men got their fucking asses blown off by cannonballs and musket fire and GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO DO OTHERWISE,AND YOU WANT TO CUT THEM OUT OF THE LIVES OF THEIR CHILDREN?
You ungrateful,disgusting, traitorous little bitch. We die in a fucking trench spurting blood out of a leg turned into bloody ribbons by fucking shrapnel for your right to free speech and you turn around and repay us by using that speech to try to take away the only thing that allowed some of those men to DO THAT?
This is how you treat your fucking friends who suffered godawful atrocities that you can’t even imagine on your behalf?
Fuck you and everybody who looks like you.
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I call BS on the whole tirade. Historically, British women were never more “opressed” than their American counterparts.
And to claim sacrifices of your forebears as your own is ridiculous.
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um… what he was saying was that men sacrificed to free Americans (men and women) from British tyranny. Also, you might note that he was speaking rhetorically to make a point about the retarded things that thecategoricalhousewife said.
He was a little gratuitous with the imagery, but you’re way off on the representation of his meaning.
Nice try though. Keep up the effort. You’ll get there one day.
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So, because women’s bodies ‘get messed up over having children’ they have a say over everything about raising the next generation? When to change diapers? what to feed them? What to wear? What schools they go to? Whether or not and how much the father sees them? Who they love or hate? When to put them on the birth control pill?
Congratulations, you have achieved separation from your emotional connection from half of the human race. You are a model feminist and should be held up as an example of the fine work that feminist have done programming the minds of gullible psychopaths.
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I don’t find this to be “the hypocrisy of women,” just a lot of women. JB is a woman after all, remember? Karen Straughen? Erin Pizzey? Shall I go on? And, no, this isn’t nitpicking.
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he was saying that women can only do what they can because men made it happen, and that to take that ability and use it to remove them from what was the only reason quite a few made it through that process to begin with. wouldn’t you be pissed? sides, if he won’t speak for his forebears, who will?
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how old is amanda? the world will be better when this bitch dies, or becomes incapable of putting her shit out in the world. seriously, fuck this bitch. she’s why i can’t exactly approach relationships like i might have, and it’ll take a bit at this point for me to afford a hooker.
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Where? With clumsy imagery and rhetoric in place of convincing evidence and adherence to facts? Not seeing the point of going there in the first place. For example try to imitate him speaking up in the family courts and see how far would that take you.
Exactly how worse was the situation in other former British colonies at the beginning of XX century, for example in Australia? Once again, I fail to spot any relevance.
Forebears won’t care either. It’s for OUR sakes to learn from their experiences.
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If logic won every argument, we’d be Vulcan.
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I agree.
And a man should have say over everything concerning their own money. Because a man’s body gets messed up earning that money.
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Eric, I agree with you about Karl Marx.
I would love to mix the best of Ayn Rand with best of Karl Marx and then see the product. Not only in a political-economical way but in a philosophical way, too.
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I absolutely agree with ManUpManDown. Don’t generalize about “all women” like that – it’s just so dishonest. As mentioned, look at the efforts of JB and so many other women who go to bat for men’s rights. I can’t help but feel that comments like yours are a slap in the face to them. It’s really shitty. What are you expecting? Women to jump in start making personal apologies to you? Geez. If you really, really need to whinge, next time, just stop and think to replace “women” with “feminists” in your comment.
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Well, it’s
understandable to be angry at first. However, perpetual rage is counterproductive.
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my point being that just about every argument needs a certain amount of emotion. that and rage/anger of that kind is necessary to get through to people like thecategoricalhousewife
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Dude, you’re not helping.
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I think you’re missing the point, here. A woman has a choice to have a baby or not. A man doesn’t. We aren’t talking about who bears the burden of birthing the child. That was a very poor attempt at changing the subject, so I won’t even congratulate you on a nice try. Epic fail.
A free, sentient being should have a choice as to whether their labor (and therefore their body, mind, and resources) should be committed to another person’s benefit, or not. Currently, under existing law, men do not have that choice, if the woman who says that he impregnated her decides to have the baby.
And so, it becomes the WOMAN’S choice, not the man’s, whether the next 18 years of his life will be devoted to laboring for another. This is not right. The very definition of slavery is when a person is forced to work for another against their own will. Care to argue?
Of course, your inevitable response will be “the man gave consent to raise the baby when he had sex with the woman, so he shouldn’t have the option to opt out. If he didn’t want this, he should have kept his pants on”
The logical result of that is the following argument – “the woman gave consent to the baby to use her body for 9 months when she had sex with the man, so she shouldn’t have the option to abort. If she didn’t want that, she should have kept her pants on.”
Did that piss you off? I’ll bet it did. Do you know why?
Yes, you do. It is because it completely dismisses the desires of the woman, and removes her choice from the equation of what to do with her body and her labors.
Sucks, doesn’t it? Because that is exactly what you’re arguing for in return from your side. It completely removes the desires of the man, and removes his choice from the equation of what to do with his body and his labors IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY.
SO are you prepared to accept that you are a hypocrite yet, or are you going to continue arguing with me and show your supremacist stripes? Because there really isn’t any way to argue from your side on this one without being exactly that.
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Thank you. I have been making this argument for YEARS, to pretty much the expected result.
And the thing is, I’m a guy who WANTS his kids. In most instances, I can’t imagine WANTING this right.
However, if I had a drunken one-night stand with someone (never happened, but hypothetically) and she got pregnant, I’m really not sure my financial life for the next 18 years should be in her hands if her PHYSICAL life for the next 9 months (to say nothing of the next 18 years) is ENTIRELY within her choice.
As you say, even if you take abortion out of the equation, a woman STILL has the right in most states to turn over a baby, no questions asked, to the state to find a better home for it. She can in many states (as I understand it) do this without even naming the father or notifying him that he HAS a child. She has ALL of the options. He should get NONE?
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Did you miss the part where it was mentioned that even if she carries the baby to term, she still has the right, unilaterally, to give the baby up for adoption or even just turn it over to the state (in most states) and walk away? In some states without even being required to notify or even name the father?
Yes, women should have the right to control their own bodies and decide on abortions. But once the baby is extant in the world, separate from and viable without the body of its mother, there is still 18 years worth of support and parenting to be done. Why should it be that a woman should be able to get out of that if she chooses, but a man can’t? Why should it be entirely up to the woman to decide what 18 years of a man’s life must be dedicated to supporting when we can’t even bear the idea that a man might even have any input on what a woman’s life might be dedicated to supporting over the course of 9 months?
And even if a father is identified, the mother wants to put the baby up for adoption and the father claims the child, the odds that he’s going to get any child support from HER for 18 years is slim to none, which makes NO sense. If her choosing to keep the baby on her own obligates him, why should not his choosing to keep the baby obligate her?
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Judgy Bitch, I think I love you.
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‘NAWALT!’
Please.
As a matter of fact I have been a LONG time commenter on JB’s blog.
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I’m sorry, there is something I really don’t get here. You make men sound like helpless victims. ‘He didn’t like the baby momma’. Then WHY agree to have sex with her? My views sit with BOTH sexes. I am FIRM believer that if two people have sex, they should always accept the potential responsibility of becoming parents, otherwise they can keep their privates bits well and truly to themselves. Another problem is people having sex with people they are not in a well established relationship with. They think that lust is a perfectly fine and dandy excuse to hop into bed with someone and that a child if it happens to be created is just a mere inconvenience that can be flushed down the toilet. That my friend is called hedonism.
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So no abortion, no adoption then?
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Agreed. How many women will initiate contact with their exes just to make them pay child support?
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I’m not sure you realize this…but in many cases one cannot tell that their future gf/bf is insane and by then it’s too late, you also have chaeting, baby-jacking and plain accidents.
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Double standards you ignorant fool, in America relationships are toxic for men, you could meet a girl, think she’s great, make real plans and find out she is a drunk, abusive etc and be unable to do anything about it, she can assault, accuse or shame with impunity as even in female on male domestic violence cases the man gets in trouble for defending himself if he does.
What you don’t seem to ”get” is that the government has made it so that women don’t need to insert effort into anything, they can be a homeless crack addict with a list of convictions but once she has a baby the gravy train rolls in. A women in many cases can just say a man is the father and that’s him stuck even in cases were it was proved it was NOT his baby.
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Fortunately it isnt ALL women.Occasionally one or two call shenanigans and ALL men arent put on the chopping block.
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I’m going make a website and start a petition. The fight for this right is going to end in 2016.
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It is refreshing to see another woman voice the unpopular idea I’ve been voicing in my own circles (which results in me being called either “confused” or “misogynistic”) for years. Yes, women must be given the right of abortion. But if men get no say (if they want the baby and she doesn’t, too bad….if they don’t want a baby and she does, even if she swore she couldn’t get pregnant or she sabotaged the condom, too bad)…Then at the very least, the man should be able to surrender rights, within a reasonable time frame after paternity is established with no consequences. That still isn’t 100% equitable, but probably as close as we can get, given biological differences.
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I am a woman. I believe that if a woman has the right to abort, the man should be allowed to absolve his parental duties- financial and otherwise. If the mother chooses to carry to term, but doesn’t want to raise the child, the father should be able to decide whether or not he wants to keep the child. If neither do, THEN the child could be put up for adoption. And sorry Feminazis, you can’t control everything forever. If the 18 year old “paper aborted” child wants to have a relationship with the biological father, that is his or her choice, and none of your business! Your kind doesn’t want equality, but female superiority. It’s sad, but I am growing more and more ashamed to be a female because of you people.
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Beautifully put. Check out Women Against Feminism FYI.
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You don’t get to make the state your husband because you have made a terrible decision.
How can it not be clear to all reasonable people that we must disincentivize single motherhood? I grant there might be a short term cost until births to single mothers decreases, but the way we’re going is incredibly destructive, especially to these children. I believe a recent study in the UK showed a quarter of such children, born to single women on the dole, are permanently unemployable.
Btw, your suggestion of some sort of social security payment as if the father were dead, while it’s a good idea for any given child born to a woman irresponsible enough to give birth without have the resources to support that child, won’t contribute much if at all to reducing the birth rate of kids born into the most single mother households. Doesn’t it also make the state the de facto father, something you mention objecting to?
.Btw, if the human right to opt out of forced parenthood where there is no explicit or implicit agreement is going to be won, it’s going to have to be seized. Nothing gets ordinary women frothing, spitting, and seething quite like the idea that any man, anywhere, might ‘get away’ with not paying child support. I suspect there may have to be a tradeoff at some point, if we ever evolve, where at least men who are forced into fatherhood have the option of signing on for joint custody; where joint custody is the default and not something a single father has to lobby for.
It’s interesting that a writer as virulently feminist as Marcotte would even lend her voice to this topic. That says a lot about how far reproductive rights for all has come. It needs to go a bit further, though.
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Marcotte is the Rush Limbaugh of the feminist movement, happy to throw meat no matter how rotten to her brainless fans. I’ve been calling her a “gender-hustler.” It seems to be catching on.
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“Derailing.”
When a feminist uses that word, you know the subject has turned to issues of fairness. After all, how dare you??
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Marcotte demonstrates once again that she’s in feminism because she’s an emotional cripple. Using the matter of Legal Paternity Surrender for men as an excuse to write a column bullying them, pushing them around, and writing crap as nonsensical as ‘the father gives up all rights, forever, even when the child is an adult’ reveals her true colors. What a pig.
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