March 10, 2006
What's Sauce For the Goose...
Mona Charen has an interesting article on today's edition on Town Hall:
A group called the National Center for Men has filed a lawsuit they are calling "Roe v. Wade for Men." Here are the facts: A 25-year-old computer programmer named Matt Dubay of Saginaw, Mich., was ordered by a judge to pay $500 per month in child support for a daughter he fathered with his ex-girlfriend. His contention -- and that of the National Center for Men -- is that this requirement is unconstitutional because it violates the equal protection clause.
Dubay does not dispute that he is the child's father. Rather, he claims that during the course of his relationship with the mother, he was given to understand that she could not become pregnant because of a physical condition. He insists that she knew he did not want to have children with her. The courts, he and his advocates argue, are forcing parenthood upon him in a way that they cannot do to a woman. Here's the money quote from the NCM website:
More than three decades ago Roe vs. Wade gave women control of their reproductive lives but nothing in the law changed for men. Women can now have sexual intimacy without sacrificing reproductive choice. Women now have the freedom and security to enjoy lovemaking without the fear of forced procreation. Women now have control of their lives after an unplanned conception. But men are routinely forced to give up control, forced to be financially responsible for choices only women are permitted to make, forced to relinquish reproductive choice as the price of intimacy.
Charen points out:
The point (and it is not one the feminists will find in their quiver) is that sexuality requires responsibility -- and that doesn't just mean using birth control. It means that if you engage in sex you have an automatic obligation to any child that may result. Pro-choice women have been vociferously rejecting this responsibility for decades. It should come as no surprise that men are inclined to do the same.
What is not being discussed here are men who have a relationship, have children, and then shirk their financial duties toward the kids (as in cases of divorce, abandonment, etc.). What is being discussed are men who unknowingly impregnate a woman (as in the case described above) and then are forced to support the child if the woman decides to have it.
Why is that fair? Don't they get to have reproductive choice too?
I am what's called an abortion moderate. I don't think it should be outlawed completely, but I believe in a first trimester limit (except in cases where the mother's life is endangered), and I also believe it should be a state legislative matter, not a national one. Oh, and birth control? More people should be utilizing it if they aren't planning on having children.
I also think that this whole "it only affects the woman thing" is a big bunch of marlarkey.
The problem here is the double standard. Men are expected to shut up both when the woman decides to abort and when she decides to keep a child. When does he get a say?
Sadly enough, the ones who are really affected are the children. If more people thought about them, perhaps we wouldn't be hearing so much about sexual and reproductive rights.
The feminist reaction? I can't wait to hear it.
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