Here’s where I may lose some of you. Up to now, I’ve kept to myself those thoughts on gender topics that I know are not going to be popular. As such, some of you (such as the person with whom I had lunch yesterday who said we needed to stop discussing this subject) may want to skip over this post. Go ahead and close the window or tab, we’ll wait to get started until you’re gone.
Ok. I first saw this story a couple days ago and bookmarked it as something I might write about. As I said though, I knew what I had to say would not be popular among some (if not most) of my friends. When it got brought up at lunch yesterday, I tested the waters and discovered that, sure enough, my thoughts on the matter are not going to make me any friends. Later that day I then read this post and decided I should go ahead and put my own thoughts out into the world.
In case you’ve not checked the story, the short version is that a guy is suing to be released from his responsibility to pay child support because, he claims, he did not want a child and his now ex-girlfriend knew that. A men’s rights group is funding the case because, they say, the current system violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Leaving aside the validity of this particular case and the question of whether or not the status quo (which, to my knowledge, requires all men pay child support; if that’s not so, please chime in) violates the equal protection clause and even whether or not the law should be changed, I still think the case points out one of the many irrational double standards in our society.
Two unmarried adults choose to have sex. As a result, the woman gets pregnant. Three courses lay open at that point: abortion, birth and child rearing, or birth and adoption. Taking it as a given that a woman is the only one who has say over her body, if she chooses abortion, the man has no real recourse, nor should he, if he did not want the abortion to happen. I think we’re all on agreement there. It’s options two and three where I see my opinions diverging from the world at large.
If the woman chooses not to have an abortion - as she should be free to do, the forced abortion is just as abhorrent to me as the forbidden abortion - and chooses to keep the child, current thinking is that the man is then required to pay child support. Each makes the first choice, to have sex, only the woman, as I think is right because it is her body, makes the second choice of whether or not to abort, but then, current law says, only the woman’s choice about whether or not to keep the child (and thus assume financial responsibility for it) is valid. My point is not that a man should not be financially responsible for his child, but that the law (and society) should respect his choice in the matter as much as it respects the hers.
It’s because that third choice, whether or not to keep the child and take on the financial responsibility for it, exists that we have a problem. If adoption were not a possible option, then the choice to have sex would be the one and only point where a man can choose to take responsibility for a child if one is conceived. In such a world, I would agree with requiring him to pay child support. However, adoption provides a second point of choice.
If a woman decided to give a child up for adoption, should she be required to pay support money to the parents who chose to keep the child? Of course not. So if a man chooses not to keep the child, and of course loses all rights to said child, including visitation, why should he be required to pay child support to the woman who chooses to keep the child?