Choice Rights For Men?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060308/ap_on_re_us/fatherhood_suit
from JoeUser Forums
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer

NEW YORK - Contending that women have more options than they do in the event of an unintended pregnancy, men's rights activists are mounting a long shot legal campaign aimed at giving them the chance to opt out of financial responsibility for raising a child.

The National Center for Men has prepared a lawsuit — nicknamed Roe V. Wade for Men — to be filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Michigan on behalf of a 25-year-old computer programmer ordered to pay child support for his ex-girlfriend's daughter. The suit addresses the issue of male reproductive rights, contending that lack of such rights violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.

The gist of the argument: If a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood. The activists involved hope to spark discussion even if they lose.

"There's such a spectrum of choice that women have — it's her body, her pregnancy and she has the ultimate right to make decisions," said Mel Feit, director of the men's center. "I'm trying to find a way for a man also to have some say over decisions that affect his life profoundly."

Feit's organization has been trying since the early 1990s to pursue such a lawsuit, and finally found a suitable plaintiff in Matt Dubay (pictured at right) of Saginaw, Mich.

Dubay says he has been ordered to pay $500 a month in child support for a girl born last year to his ex-girlfriend. He contends that the woman knew he didn't want to have a child with her and assured him repeatedly that — because of a physical condition — she could not get pregnant.

Dubay is braced for the lawsuit to fail.


So....is this just silliness, or does anyone out there think this is a valid legal issue?
5,459 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top

I think its silly because if they go this route, then they have to also consider allowing a man to keep a child the woman doesn't want.

I am for life, so I think the man who impregnated should pay if the woman doesn't decide on murder.  Or the woman should pay, if the man takes the child.  They both created and are responsible.

Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top

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I think it is a valid reflex action to the fact that men have no rights.  I dont like their premise (no support), but I have to agree until the father has a right in the say of an abortion, they should not be held accountable for the child.

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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Generally, I'm of the mind set that men already have equal choice. They likewise have the right to an abortion in the event of their own unwanted pregnancy.

However, I think a (imperfect) solution to this might be to allow men to sign a legal document upon learning of the pregnancy (like within the first 3 months) stating that they do not wish to be the father of the child.

If the woman carries the child to term, the man's name would not be listed on the birth certificate, he would have no legal rights to the child (ever), and would not be required to support the child in any way. The child would essentially not exist to him.

This would be a burden on the mother of the child, but a burden of her choosing. Perhaps some pro-life groups could come together to reward the choice of the woman in a situation like this and provide her with various forms of aid (parenting classes, monetary help, child care essential items, babysitting, etc.) if she needed it.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
It's a true double standard when women say that they should have a choice, but when they get pregnant they tell men they should have just kept it in their pants.

I don't think either men OR women should be able to walk out on their obligations. I oppose abortion, and I oppose this effort. The defining aspect of both sides seems to be the intent to totally disregard the child. They're a selfish bunch of whiners that can't control their hormones. Evidently it's unfair that life isn't a big romper room with no accountability. We're turning into a society of adolescents who believe it is unfair to have to grow up.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
It does seem totally unfair that men have no say either way when it comes to womens rights, she can abort without him, she can give birth even if he does not want children, then stick it to him with child support for 18 years,

I think the Justice scales need to be calibrated and evened out.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

If the woman carries the child to term, the man's name would not be listed on the birth certificate, he would have no legal rights to the child (ever), and would not be required to support the child in any way. The child would essentially not exist to him.

My problem with this is basically it punishes the child for being born.  If two people have sex and a baby results, they are BOTH responsible for the child.  I don't think you should be allowed to walk away from your responsibility after the fact.  We'd just have a lot more kids in poverty.  And I'm not for that at all.

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
My problem with this is basically it punishes the child for being born. If two people have sex and a baby results, they are BOTH responsible for the child. I don't think you should be allowed to walk away from your responsibility after the fact. We'd just have a lot more kids in poverty. And I'm not for that at all.


I actually agree that ideally, both parents should be responsible for the child. Even with the legislation we have now that enforces child support, many children are punished or get the shaft because the one or both parents is lazy or immature or uncaring.

My sister-in-law was divorced shortly before my husband and I married. She and her ex-husband had two children together. The kids were young...maybe 5 and 8. Her ex-husband was abusive, and they had lots of problems in the marriage. So after the divorce, he begins working using someone else's SSN so that he doesn't have to pay child support.

He actually told the oldest, shortly after the divorce when he was still seeing the children every few weeks or so, "I don't want to spend time with you. Why would I want to spend time with such an ugly kid?"

Kids suffer because of shitty parents even now.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I don't like sounding like a prude, but this whole sad situation is born from the idea that sex is some leisure activity and if we can't do it with whoever and whenever we like without repurcussions then we are wronged.

We've sat back for far too long while that attitude has killed and harmed people with STDs and ushered in generations of children that live in broken homes. Humanity is in danger right now, in my opinion, because we are forgetting the principles that drive nature.
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
I don't like sounding like a prude, but this whole sad situation is born from the idea that sex is some leisure activity and if we can't do it with whoever and whenever we like without repurcussions then we are wronged.


I don't think it's prude, I just think it's kind of unrealistic.

Sex is recreation for most people (you included, I'm assuming, haha). Being responsible about sex is important and should be considered obligation, but is something many in our nation fail miserably at (myself included this time, haha), and so we have these issues.

I mean, how do you stop people from harming themselves with risky sex? Sex is huge. A driving force for many people, and quite naturally so.

It's easy to say what "should" happen...but that's rarely what DOES happen.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
"I don't think it's prude, I just think it's kind of unrealistic."


If you look at a single species, for a hundred thousand or so years out of the billions of years of earth's history. If our species has this flaw that we can't focus on reality because our urges are so great... well, maybe we should start seeing it as a flaw instead of something that only an unfair world would punish us for.

Take smoking. People love to smoke, and we are chemically drawn to the experience. We understand now, though, that it is bad for us. We realize that we responsibly shouldn't make other people suffer for our smoking pleasure when we do opt to do it.

What's so different about sex? If you implant a stimulating wire in a monkey's brain's pleasure center and connect a button to it, he'd bang that button until he died. It would be a huge, driving force in his life. When people can destroy their lives, risk AIDS, unwanted pregnancy, divorce, etc., just so they can have a couple of hourse pleasure, well, something is terribly wrong.

It's like the furor over AIDS. I feel for people who have it, I really do, but I don't understand why people react to it with such a sense of unfairness. It's a disease, no more or less fair than any other, but vastly more preventable. Why does it continue? Because people simply value sex more than their lives, or the lives of their loved ones.

If you think it is unrealistic to believe that a species could choose self-preservation over self-gratification, well, then we are doomed.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Bakerstreet: It's not so much that I think people CAN'T so much as I think they WON'T.

I don't believe I am a slave to my own whims and urges, but I can't speak for anyone else. Perhaps we are doomed as a species. Dunno.

Maybe our obsession with sex is a "flaw" that will be worked out in some sort of evolutionary process. Although, it seems that all the flawed people are procreating at astounding rates, so....hahaha.

I just don't feel comfortable imposing what I know I'm capable of on other people. Does that make sense?
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
Yep, it makes sense, but understand that the effects of what they do are imposed on you. You are the one paying taxes so that their 5 kids with no father can get foodstamps. You put up with the crime that results from the abused and maltreated kids. We are the ones dying of diseases that lack the funding for research while millions are spent on AIDS which would be gone within one generation if people simply changed their habits.

It depends on which you think the greater imposition is. No one is saying that people can't have sex. I'm just offering the heinous suggestion that perhaps monogomy is preferable to the results people keep waving in our face and claiming we need to cure or allow them to abort. Sex doesn't have to be just for procreation, but damn, does it have to be taken as leisurely as window shopping?

I seem pissy, and I am, but not at you. I know where you are coming from, but I think people don't really weigh the problems, they just put them out of their heads and hope for the best. We don't tolerate that with drinking and driving or other unsafe behaviors. Why should we tolerate it with this?
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think what's missing in this case is whether or not the girl told him she couldn't get pregnant in bad faith. I think when a woman acts in bad faith and gets pregnant on purpose, disregarding the wishes of the father, then there should be the ability to opt-out. But, if the girl is acting in good faith, really thought she couldn't get pregnant, then it's not her fault.

I also think if a woman acts in bad faith with birth control that the opt-out of fatherhood should apply. The problem is how hard it would be to prove.

I believe that both the father and the mother of the baby should decide for abortion before it can happen. Actually, I don't believe in abortion at all, but if I DID, that would be what I believed.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
My sister-in-law was divorced shortly before my husband and I married. She and her ex-husband had two children together. The kids were young...maybe 5 and 8. Her ex-husband was abusive, and they had lots of problems in the marriage. So after the divorce, he begins working using someone else's SSN so that he doesn't have to pay child support.


How stupid was this guy? I STILL believe he should be paying for his children, even if I don't believe he has the right to see them.

Children in this country can sue their parents for back child support when they turn 18. My half brother (one of many) did it and won. He won like $36,000 total.

think what's missing in this case is whether or not the girl told him she couldn't get pregnant in bad faith. I think when a woman acts in bad faith and gets pregnant on purpose, disregarding the wishes of the father, then there should be the ability to opt-out. But, if the girl is acting in good faith, really thought she couldn't get pregnant, then it's not her fault.

I also think if a woman acts in bad faith with birth control that the opt-out of fatherhood should apply. The problem is how hard it would be to prove


I don't agree with this at all. IF a woman is deceptive, then the child should suffer? That's like saying if the woman is deceptive the child should die and not be born.

When a man inserts his penis into a woman, be should be prepared for the REALITY a child may result. He should also be prepared to SUPPORT said child for at least the next 18 years.

A woman being deceptive really has no bearing on whether the child should be financially supported. The child shouldn't imo suffer because daddy can't face his responsibilities.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top

How stupid was this guy? I STILL believe he should be paying for his children, even if I don't believe he has the right to see them.

IN the situation she described, I dont think he was denied visitation, he just refused it.

Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
IN the situation she described, I dont think he was denied visitation, he just refused it.


Yeah I got that....but if he said that to one of my kids, he would never see them again. Not that he'd obviously care.

But he still needs to provide for them.