Roe v Wade for men

[likearock 1]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/08/fatherhood.suit.ap/index.html

Male activists want 'say' in unplanned pregnancy

Lawsuit seeks right to decline financial responsibility for kids

Wednesday, March 8, 2006; Posted: 9:23 p.m. EST (02:23 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- 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 of Saginaw, Michigan.

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.

"What I expect to hear [from the court] is that the way things are is not really fair, but that's the way it is," he said in a telephone interview. "Just to create awareness would be enough, to at least get a debate started."

State courts have ruled in the past that any inequity experienced by men like Dubay is outweighed by society's interest in ensuring that children get financial support from two parents. Melanie Jacobs, a Michigan State University law professor, said the federal court might rule similarly in Dubay's case.

"The courts are trying to say it may not be so fair that this gentleman has to support a child he didn't want, but it's less fair to say society has to pay the support," she said.

Feit, however, says a fatherhood opt-out wouldn't necessarily impose higher costs on society or the mother. A woman who balked at abortion but felt she couldn't afford to raise a child could put the baby up for adoption, he said.

'This is so politically incorrect'

Jennifer Brown of the women's rights advocacy group Legal Momentum objected to the men's center comparing Dubay's lawsuit to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling establishing a woman's right to have an abortion.

"Roe is based on an extreme intrusion by the government -- literally to force a woman to continue a pregnancy she doesn't want," Brown said. "There's nothing equivalent for men. They have the same ability as women to use contraception, to get sterilized."

Feit counters that the suit's reference to abortion rights is apt.

"Roe says a woman can choose to have intimacy and still have control over subsequent consequences," he said. "No one has ever asked a federal court if that means men should have some similar say."

"The problem is this is so politically incorrect," Feit added. "The public is still dealing with the pre-Roe ethic when it comes to men, that if a man fathers a child, he should accept responsibility."

Feit doesn't advocate an unlimited fatherhood opt-out; he proposes a brief period in which a man, after learning of an unintended pregnancy, could decline parental responsibilities if the relationship was one in which neither partner had desired a child.

"If the woman changes her mind and wants the child, she should be responsible," Feit said. "If she can't take care of the child, adoption is a good alternative."

The president of the National Organization for Women, Kim Gandy, acknowledged that disputes over unintended pregnancies can be complex and bitter.

"None of these are easy questions," said Gandy, a former prosecutor. "But most courts say it's not about what he did or didn't do or what she did or didn't do. It's about the rights of the child."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[happythoughts 0]

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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.

1- Sue for fraud. $600 a month.

2- In a "wrongful death" suit, someone drives over a relative/parent and you sue for loss of the projected earnings.

Sue for "wrongful life". The life of that person now threatens your financial health. Sue the child for $700 a month.

3- Negligence. The mother said that she was unable to have children. Sue the mother for negligence in the area of birth control.

Whatever is done. Keep it in court for 18 years and keep her legal fees at $800 a month.

[n23x 0]

ERRRRK. Wrong.

It sucks, but this is one point where 'm gonna disagree. If you have unprotected sex, you shoulder the possible burden of supporting a child, as simple as that. Even if your partner fradulantly tells you that it's ok, don't assume that it is.

If this was one of the cases where a woman saved semen from a condom or something else to later impregnate herself, that i might be more inclined.

But if YOU HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX, even if you THINK it's safe, you are responsible for any resulting birth.

.jim

"Don't touch my fucking Easter eggs, I'll be back monday." ~JTFC

[micro 0]

must............................ resist.................................................... from............................................................ posting............................................................. can't....................... hold out.....................................much ................. longer.............................

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[happythoughts 0]

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. If you have unprotected sex, you shoulder the possible burden of supporting a child, as simple as that.

I just hate it when people say that. "...as simple as that"
It's like allll the discussion is over. All the facts are not there and the Truth has been made apparent.
Not.

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Even if your partner fradulantly tells you that it's ok, don't assume that it is.

If someone lies to you, that is fraud. Now you have a responsibility to give them $500 a month for 18 years?

Would you have a different opinion if they used a gun to steal the 108 f-ing thousand dollars? $108,000 for lying to you ?

For $108K in a robbery ? That's 20 years in jail. No reward for the moral lapse.

I believe that the liar should figure out how to take care of this issue themselves. Their life may suck for a while. That is the way things should work.

If anyone posts the, "...but what about the baby" stuff, mom gets to explain it to the baby. Sorry.

And then she could make Community Service speeches to teenagers that start out with "My Life Sucks because..."

[Keith 0]

Men do have rights. They have the right not to stick it in, and if they absolutely Have to stick it in, they have the right to use contraception. Problem solved.

edited to add: Men should not have the right to shirk resonsibility for thier own lack of judgement, and should NEVER EVER have the right to tell a woman what to do with her body.

Keith

Don't Fuck with me Keith - J. Mandeville

[ViperPilot 0]

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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

This is a pretty interesting argument here. In an unplanned pregnancy case where both the guy and the broad didn't want a kid, it's always up to the final say of the broad what happens...kind of does seem unfair to the dude. I'm sure situations happen all the time where there's an unplanned pregnancy and the girl just decides to have the baby anyways to either hook the dad in, or at least force him to pay child support for whatever reason. I'm not saying all chicks think that way, but I'm sure it happens a decent amount in cases like this...in which case that's bullshit and the dad should have some recourse and some say.

[JohnnyD 0]

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Sue for "wrongful life".

Denny Crane

[happythoughts 0]

Maybe she should have her name put on the Sex Offenders website for her state. Sexual Predator.

Hmmm... has sex to intentionally commit fraud...
Sounds offensive to me.

[dontbounce 0]

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If someone lies to you, that is fraud. Now you have a responsibility to give them $500 a month for 18 years?

Yes. Don't think you won't because if you do, you are deluding yourselves. Consider yourself lucky if you only pay $500.00. I pay $1,032 a month for one little persistent sperm that was a "hard charger".

Yes, thats $222,912.00 over a period of 18 years. What the hell, it makes me feel like a real stand up citizen knowing the little guy isn't wasting away or eating leftovers out of the dumpster behind the Kentucky Fried Chicken. At least his mom could have named him "ferarri" or "lamborghini" or something cool like that...

Want some advice? Stay away from tequila and wear a rubber, you horny bastards!

[n23x 0]

Keith,

well said.

.jim

"Don't touch my fucking Easter eggs, I'll be back monday." ~JTFC

[kelpdiver 2]

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Men do have rights. They have the right not to stick it in, and if they absolutely Have to stick it in, they have the right to use contraception. Problem solved.

edited to add: Men should not have the right to shirk resonsibility for thier own lack of judgement, and should NEVER EVER have the right to tell a woman what to do with her body.

so more simply put, no sense of equality here. Or do you wish to argue that the burden of carrying children to term entitles women to additional rights?

in the worst scenarios, the mom is content to collect child support, but to not allow any sort of visitation because she didn't want to have a child with the father, she just wanted to have a child (and to have him pay for it). Hell, she even petitioned the court to raise the amount because he failed to get a nice big raise during the dotcom bust.

It's a bit of a cheap shot, Keith, but is this a case of you voicing an opinion from the safety of the sidelines? Sort of like men who are content to say no women should be allowed to have abortions?

[n23x 0]

If you stick it in, and she gets pregnant, and that is not the result you wanted:

YOU DONE FUCKED UP.

Is it shitty that you formed a child, even though that's not what you wanted, even if she lied to you about he possibilities of pregnancy? Yah, it is. BUT, if she chooses to carry that child to term, and have it, then it becomes partly your responsibility.

There is no way you should have a say with regard to the "child" in between the time you fire of the salmon until the kid comes flying out of there.

And I say abortions for everyone!

.jim

"Don't touch my fucking Easter eggs, I'll be back monday." ~JTFC

[rasmack 0]

Fuck that.

This is not about the thickness of the father's wallet. This needs to be about the welfare of the child. End of story. You take part in putting a child into this world, you support it. That is all there is to it.

I realize there are many "degrees of personal responsibility" ranging from the guy who impregnates his wife and takes off with the secretary, to the woman who wants a child and just needs a "donor". These nuances do not matter to the child. It needs the same amount of food and clothes.

HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
“I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
- Not quite Oscar Wilde...

[Tink1717 2]

Then again, every time I read something like this, it makes me GLAD to be invisible to women.

Skydivers don't knock on Death's door. They ring the bell and runaway... It really pisses him off.
-The World Famous Tink. (I never heard of you either!!)
AA #2069 ASA#33 POPS#8808 Swooo 1717

[RhondaLea 3]

I'm of two minds about this.

If the condom broke or the birth control failed, I do see it as being the responsibility of both.

If she really lied and said she can't get pregnant, I don't know.

The welfare of the child is paramount, but if a woman uses a man as a sperm bank, I'm not sure she should be able to use him further.

But how is that decided? Because people do lie--both about their ability to become pregnant and about whether the baby was planned for.

I knew one man who changed his mind several months after conception, and he thereafter told people the woman had tricked him. But this was a couple that had actually been trying to get pregnant for a year before she conceived, and everyone who knew them was aware of it. So what did he think he had to gain by re-characterizing the pregnancy as a trick?

Maybe the answer is to abstain from sex with someone you don't want a child with. Or have a vasectomy. Or be very careful of your sexual partners.

I just don't know.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb

[lawrocket 3]

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Men do have rights. They have the right not to stick it in, and if they absolutely Have to stick it in, they have the right to use contraception. Problem solved.

This is actually what the lawsuit is saying - and your argument supports this legal reasoning. Women have these same rights, only women have an additional right of contraception. In essence, women have post-coital contraceptive rights that men do not. Hence, no "equal protection."

Nice in theory. Ahem, in theory...

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Men should not have the right to shirk resonsibility for thier own lack of judgement

But women do, which is by having an abortion. See? It's the choice that left out of men's hands.

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and should NEVER EVER have the right to tell a woman what to do with her body.

And therein lies where this discussion is off on a tangent. It ain't about a woman's body. It's about a child. A child who was in a perfectly happy place as a spiritual being in another stage of life, until mom and dad decided to fuck and bring it's ass down here.

This kid didn't ask to be born. Therefore, it is up to the mother AND FATHER to support the kid. It's that simple. It's not about a woman's body. It's about a child, which is why the lawsuit is fucked up.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[BIGUN 1,053]

Well said. I'd have a lot more respect for this suit [nicknamed Roe v. Wade for Men ] if it was about a woman exercising her "choice" to abort and the man was exercising his "choice" to be responsible.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[lawrocket 3]

Yeah. And there are people who wonder why my opinion of men is so low. It's because of suits like this.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[brierebecca 0]

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and should NEVER EVER have the right to tell a woman what to do with her body.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


And therein lies where this discussion is off on a tangent. It ain't about a woman's body. It's about a child. A child who was in a perfectly happy place as a spiritual being in another stage of life, until mom and dad decided to fuck and bring it's ass down here.

I agree with you in general on this issue. However, I don't see Keith's point as going off an a tangent. It's a linked issue. If the court decides in this case that yes, the man does have responsibility for a child that he didn't want to concieve, then it may follow that he may have some kind of right to have a part in the discussion of whether to terminate the pregnancy. That's a scary thought. Because what happens if, down the road, a suit comes up with a woman who wants to terminate, but the man, arguing that he would have to support the child in the future, sues on the ground that he has clear interests in the birth of this child, and survives a summary judgment motion. The judge issues a stay, and in the intervening discovery period, the woman has the child and the case becomes moot.

Just a thought. Personally, I wouldn't have the abortion, but if I were in a situation where I wanted to have one and the man didn't, I could definitely see him using this precedent in his favor. I know it's a weird argument - using a case where the man didn't want the baby to support a man who now does - but if the court says that the man has some obligation to support the child, that obligation could certainly turn into whether the man should have some say about whether this obligation comes to fruition or not.

On the other hand, the precedent in this situation seems to say that the man has to take care of the child because it's the lesser of two evils - the man should take care of it before the state would have to....not sure how one would get a moral obligation out of such a monetary argument. Feel free to talk me out of it.

Brie

"Ive seen you hump air, hump the floor of the plane, and hump legs. You now have a new nickname: "Black Humper of Death"--yardhippie

[lawrocket 3]

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However, I don't see Keith's point as going off an a tangent. It's a linked issue.

Sure it's a linked issue. We find tensions between rights all the time because of these links. Think about the tension between equality and freedom, i.e., racist speech in the workplace. Some may view banning racist speech as an unjustifiable prior restraint, while others may view it as a necessary thing to maintain other rights. This tension is irreconcilable, and decisions must be made as to which right wins.

The rights of the children, are in tension with the rights of the mothers. The rights of the mothers are in tension with the rights of the fathers. Adn the rights of the fathers are in tensions with the rights of the children.

It turns out that the rights of the mothers trump the rights of the fathers before birth. The rights of the mothers trump the rights of the children after conception and up to the third trimester (the childrens' rights slowly catch up through pregnancy). The rights of the children trump the rights of the father before brith.

After birth, the rights o the children trump those of the mothers and fathers. Despite some anecdotes to the contrary, the rights of the fathers and mothers are fairly equal after birth.

Thus, in the tensions, the rights of men lose out every time. Many men have gripes about this. In my legal, political and philosophical opinion, "Suck it up, cupcakes. You did the fun part."

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what happens if, down the road, a suit comes up with a woman who wants to terminate, but the man, arguing that he would have to support the child in the future, sues on the ground that he has clear interests in the birth of this child

Well, a man DOES have a clear interest in the birth of the child. It's a solid argument, but in the balance of interests, the woman's rights have won out for the last 30 years. Put simply, the woman's rights control over a man's responsibilities.

For many years, there has been a movement to recognize men as merely "sperm donors." THis is a movement that has come, surprisingly, from both ends of the political spectrum. Many feminist organizations want it because of fear of just the situation that you speak of. Many men's organizations want it because they want to shirk any responsibility.

Frankly, I get upset that the interests of the children take a back seat in these political discussions. "Men's rights" v. "Women's rights." Well, the kids always suffer most in bickering between parents. Let's take this bickering to a national level, eh?

Putt the kids' interests on top. Fathers and mothers are both EQUALLY responsible for putting children on the planet (except for donors to a sperm bank, for whom many states already make an exception). Therefore, both should share in the responsibility of the care of the children.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[livendive 8]

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I realize there are many "degrees of personal responsibility" ranging from the guy who impregnates his wife and takes off with the secretary, to the woman who wants a child and just needs a "donor". These nuances do not matter to the child. It needs the same amount of food and clothes.

In the latter case, if a woman wants a child and just needs a "donor", so she tells a guy she's had a tubal ligation, shouldn't SHE already be financially capable of raising the child by herself?

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[rehmwa 2]

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Therefore, both should share in the responsibility of the care of the children.

Can't argue with the "should" part here, nor that it's the right choice to make.

This isn't about that how people SHOULD act. It's about whether the government forces it under law vs leave as voluntary.

It's easy to sympathize with many of the scenarios available to underpin the case - as well as the scenarios that oppose it. I don't think a generic law either way is a good solution, the specific cases will vary so much.

If the woman has the ultimate decision without any input from the father, then she HAS to also have the total responsibility too. Not aligning authority with responsibility is the first step to abuse of power.

But the father "should" do the right thing and support the child, voluntarily. However, the woman also chose the man as her sex partner. This all predicated on voluntary intercourse scenarios....

We're not talking right or wrong, we're talking legal vs illegal. That's different than the 'sum it up' off the cuff comments above. Even though I agree with them, they aren't the issue.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[funjumper101 15]

Funny how equal rights means different things to different people.

As of this writing, in most states, a woman can get an abortion on demand if she has the cash to pay for it. She can do so without consulting with or getting approval of sperm donor. The donor can not force her to NOT get an abortion.

I personally am against abortion. I saw enough irresponsible people in the seventies use it as a form of birth control. There a lot of moral issues involved as well.
I am also pro-choice. It comes down to personal freedom and personal privacy. It is not my place, or society's place, to interfere with a woman's decisions on these matters. I have advised female friends that were dealing with the issue to NOT get an abortion. I have advised male friends to step up and take responsibility. Adoption or single parenthood is far preferable to abortion, for me. Ultimately they made the decisions themselves, as it should be.

I fully believe in the concept of "emotional and financial abortion" for the sperm donor. If the donor decides to NOT participate in any way with the support and upbringing of the child, that is the flip side to the woman's rights described above. To me, equal rights are equal rights. Women can't have it both ways.

Pro-choice should be for both parties, not just one of the two. That just isn't right.

[rasmack 0]

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In the latter case, if a woman wants a child and just needs a "donor", so she tells a guy she's had a tubal ligation, shouldn't SHE already be financially capable of raising the child by herself?

Morally yes. Legally I just can't see the rights of the parents enter anywhere in the equation once the child has been born. I think I'll just stand back and have lawrocket make my points for me. In this case I agree with him 100%.

I feel so dirty. Agreeing with a lawyer...

HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
“I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
- Not quite Oscar Wilde...