The right to abandon your child (aka - Roe v. Wade for Men)

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/colu...10/189321.html

The right to abandon your child
Mar 10, 2006
by Mona Charen

This is one of those moments when you want to grab liberals by the lapels
and demand, "Well, what did you expect?"

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. -
The feminists may well be stumped by this argument. After all, they've based
their abortion advocacy as a matter of women's reproductive rights. Is it
logical to claim that women have reproductive rights that men lack? Yes, a
woman has to carry an unplanned pregnancy for nine months and give birth.
But Mr. Dubay, and many other men, are saddled with 18 years of child
support. That's a pretty substantial inhibition of one's "reproductive
freedom."

Imagine that John and Jane learn that she is pregnant. She has full latitude
in the decision-making. She can decide, over his objections, to abort the
child or to raise it alone (he'll be lucky to get generous visitation), or
to place the child for adoption (in which case he can object, but only if he
wants to raise the baby himself).

The National Center for Men could argue that since a man cannot oblige a
woman to carry his child to term, neither should she be able to demand 18
years of child support from him. (The NCM has other complaints, too, and
it's amusing to see the tables turned. They whine, for example, that men
tend to die an average of eight years earlier than women, and that the
overwhelming majority of the homeless are men. True. Is it the fault of the
matriarchy?)

But the gravamen of the men's complaint is unwanted fatherhood. These poor
fellows who have sex with women they do not want to marry or have children
with are persecuted in this Brave New World we've created. When the only
frame of reference is a competition of rights, both sexes strive to outdo
one another in selfishness.

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.

Roe v. Wade and the sexual carnival we've encouraged in this country ever
since have planted the idea that men and women have some sort of
constitutional right to enjoy sex without consequences. Mr. Dubay and all of
those similarly situated (including women who use abortion as emergency
contraception) should look into the faces of their sons and daughters and
explain that it's nothing personal.