Giving Men the Same Choices Regarding Child Rearing as Women

Giving Men the Same Choices Regarding Child Rearing as Women
 
 
The so-called “Roe v. Wade for men” case, somewhat of a misnomer for reasons to be explained, sponsored by the National Center for Men, raises many serious issues. If abortion is immoral (as I believe it is after the child develops consciousness), neither party should have any say in the matter and the child should be born.  If abortion is moral, both parties should have a say in whether they shall be obligated to raise the child, with its emotional, temporal, and financial commitments.  But abortion cannot be a moral option for women, but an immoral one for men.  This thesis—as women having all the choices and men having all the responsibilities to live with women’s choices is suffused throughout the law, whether it is in terms of the decision to give birth, the decision for paternal equal involvement as the child grows, or the decision as to whether the child should live in some distant locale from the father.  A just society does not impart on one gender all the rights, while denying the other gender all the responsibilities.  That goes to the heart of equal protection.

 
 
One of the weaker arguments advanced by opponents of Roe v. Wade for men is that the father had sex, and that was a decision with consequences.  As many have instantly observed (because it is hit-you-in-the-face obvious), this was the very argument used in Roe, and correctly so, against abortions. Women have the right to control their bodies—not have sex, use effective birth control, or tie their tubes. To allow them to forgo all these decisions and produce a living, sentient human being and kill them has been argued by abortion opponents to be immoral. If men are obligated by their decision to have sex, so should women.  Ironically, women often have a greater ability (and incentive) to lie about whether they are using birth control, which many have argued (and very effectively in courts), should not be a defense.

 
 
The issue is often put in terms of “control over one’s body” and control of one’s autonomy.  By why don’t men have control over their bodies?  Why don’t they have a say in what sperm will turn into children, in the same manner that women have a say in which eggs will be developed?  Does it really just come down to who owns the oven?  If women have the right to control the oven, don’t men have the right to say fine, but not with my cake?

 
 
 
There is one obvious logical fallacy, which is at center of the case.  The mother had many choices: to not have sex, to use effective birth control, (the argument used to strip her right of abortion in Roe), to use a morning after pill, and to get an abortion.  Standing as an impregnated woman, a woman that has already made numerous choices, the woman has yet an additional choice—to abort or keep the child.  The plaintiffs in “Roe v. Wade for men” argues that defendant should not have been forced to abort her child, but that she too should live by the consequences of her decisions and not ensnarl an unwilling father, if the premise is accepted that abortion is moral.   There is a theory in contract law and tort law that one has a duty to minimize losses.

 
 
The obvious dint of this argument is impossible to miss.  If women have choices and autonomy, why don’t men?   The father has no equal right—he cannot say that he prefers to be a father and veto the decision to have an abortion.  In fact, he may even believe that by seeking an abortion, the mother is murdering his child, which is a byproduct of his body.

 
 
That women should have all the rights and no responsibilities is repeated over and over and over again in our law.  What do anti-feminists (who ironically call themselves “feminist”) that oppose gender equality have to say in the matter?  One gender has all the choices (the woman) and one gender (the man) has all the responsibilities.  Consider this:

 

• Women have the right to have sex and use ineffective birth control without consequences—they have the right to abortion.  Men have the responsibility to care for that child. 

 

• If the couple separates or divorces, the mother has the right to have no obligation to provide the father with an equal opportunity to raise his child, but the father has a responsibility to pay child support. 

 
 

• As a consequence of living apart, even when men have joint legal custody, fathers are denied the right to make major decisions regarding the child’s life, while the mother influences the child’s religion and shapes the child in her own moral sense. 

 

• If the mother wants to move after having a child, she has the right to move away from the father, and the father has the continuing responsibility to pay child support. 

 
 

• If a woman moves in with a man, and the man acts as a father figure for a period of time, the mother has the right to do anything she wants with the child, the father has become a “defacto parent,” and now has a responsibility to pay child support. 

 

• If the mother commits paternity fraud, the father has responsibilities to raise the argument soon enough or pay for a kid that is not his, and the mother has the right to collect child support. 

 
 

• If the couple is arguing, the mother has the right to get a restraining order and evict the father, and father has the responsibility to comply with the order, often usually without any corroborating evidence that what the mother is saying is true.

 

• If a mother decides to have a child she obviously cannot afford, she has the right not only to keep the child, but to have the government provide her with an apartment and financial support.

 
 
And what may be the ironic legacy of Roe v. Wade for men? If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, which it stands a great likelihood of doing, states that were not inclined to make abortions illegal would make them illegal.  Some may argue that women should be able to engage in behavior without consequences—but this option would be welcome with less open arms if the states knew that fathers would have the right to avoid becoming an unwilling father.

 
 
 
But the argument does not end at the decision to not have an abortion. Suppose the woman believes that abortion is murder or simply waited to long to have one.  Women have the right to put the child up for adoption (often against the fathers’ wishes in certain circumstances) or drop them off at an emergency room after birth (often without paternal consent or knowledge).  (In this sense, “Roe v. Wade for men” is a misnomer since there is the issue of post-birth adoption, which is on the table.)  And that is what makes the argument for the men stronger than that of the women—their decision to not be a father need not result in the death of sentient, unborn human-being.

 
 
What is basically being argued is that women should have the right to engage in a number of decisions without consequences:

 
(1)   to not abstain from sex,

 
(2)   to not use effective birth control (or use birth control at all)

 
(3)   to not have an abortion,

 
(4)   to not drop off the child at an emergency room after the child is born, and

 
(5)   to not put the child up for adoption. 

 
 
After making five major decisions, all without apparently triggering any responsibilities or consequences, mothers have the right to decide:

 
(1)   whether to have a child,

(2)   whether the father will have equal access to the child and have shared parenting,

 
 
(3)   whether she will live in the same location as the father.

 
In many instances, once child support is ordered, the entire career of the man is dictated.  He cannot choose a lower paying job which enjoys greater safety, greater personal fulfillment, is closer to home, or has better hours—he will be forced to work the higher paying job because child support will be set so high due to imputed income, he effectively becomes an indentured servant.  Child support is often so oppressively high, men must work odd jobs just to stay alive.

 
 
And what happens when fathers complain when they have no say in the fundamental choices of procreation and child rearing—they are labeled as not being responsible.  Just send the money honey and stop complaining.

 
 
And how do these women that want all these rights phrase their concerns?  As “doing what’s in the best interest of children.”   These women aren’t selfish.  They are not controlling.  They are not greedy.  They aren’t in it for the money.    Whether it is raising a child they cannot possibly afford, giving a child away without the father’s consent at an emergency room or through an adoption agency, removing a father from equal involvement in a child’s life, or just plain moving across the country so that the father can not have any involvement, they characterize their position as “protecting children.” 

When women have rights—it’s about their autonomy, self-control, and the protection of children.  When men want rights, it is about selfishness and an interest that is inimical to the child’s well being. 

 
Nor is their position self-evident.  Raising children in welfare homes in the projects (instead of the adoptive homes of the middle class) is hardly self-evidently in the child’s interest—this is more about the mother’s rights.  Nor does circumscribing a father’s role in child’s life seem self-evidently in the child’s best interest—this is about maintaining the right to child support.  When Western Massachusetts Legal Services appeared before the Massachusetts Joint Judiciary Committee, they did not even attempt to disguises this point—they said that shared parenting is bad because women might not receive as much in child support. 

 
 
And that’s the way their argument will be played out.  Women have “inalienable rights.” Father’s have none, and when they claim otherwise, they are indifferent to the needs of children, of whom mothers are the “true protectors.”

 
 
 
Feminism is about the equal treatment of men and women, and the end of typecasting stereotypes of the roles of both.  These women who attack the rights of men to be treated equally as women and have the same choices as women are worthy of some choice epithets, but not the appellation “feminist.”

 
Rinaldo Del Gallo, III

Spokesperson of the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition

Practicing Family Law Attorney

79 Nancy Avenue

Pittsfield, MA 01201

(413) 443-3150

rdelgalloiii@aol.com

 
DATE WRITTEN: March 21, 2006

 
WANT TO JOIN THE BEST FAMILY LAW/FATHER’S RIGHTS NEWSLETTER ON THE NET?

 
GO HERE:

 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Berkshire_Fatherhood_Coalition/

 
 
OR JUST SEND AN E-MAIL TO:

 
Berkshire_Fatherhood_Coalition-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

 
 
Who are we and what do we do: Go to http://www.BerkshireFatherhoodCoalition.com

 
 
We hope that you decide to join this newsletter of the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition.

 
Produced by Family Law Attorney Rinaldo Del Gallo, spokesperson of the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition, it contains news articles from around the world regarding family law and father’s rights.