Should there be something analogous to Roe v. Wade for men?

Question

It seems to me the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection clause would necessitate something along those lines.

If I have a one-night stand with a woman, and then get a call two months later informing me I am to be a father, shouldn't I have the same right that she does to decide my parenthood status?

Women maintain they must have the right, POST-CONCEPTION, to decide whether they wish to become mothers. I maintain I should have the same right to disassociate myself from her and the baby and face no financial responsibilities for either if I find them inconvenient.

My guess is our pro-choice friends won't like this "choice". Am I wrong?

k: I find it unbelievable that some wome have no problem killing their unborn children too, but it happens everyday.

dsl: is that what i said? I asked why I shouldn't have the same right to decide post-conception whether I accept the responsibilities of parenthood.

elway: at least you're honest about your double standard. A woman should have a right post-conception which should be denied a man. Brilliant reasoning.

Answer 1

I understand your arguement, but you have to understand that if the mother chooses to keep the child both parents should have financial liability to it, just as in the case of children after divorce.
I think the problem that comes in is that often the choice to keep the child is made on the basis of religion and the mother may have otherwise aborted it. I guess that would be pushing her religion onto you and that would not be fair.
The only semi-solution I can see would be:
-If the mother chooses to carry the pregnancy through but can't support it, adoption arrangements must be made.
-If the mother chooses to carry the pregancy through, can support it but you don't want to deal with it, some legal matters would have to be set up first. Mostly, your lack of any rights regarding the child but giving the mother the right to obtain medical records from you because they could effect the child.

Answer 2

Heh. Must not think your half of the species has enough privileges already.

I am with you, however, in giving men who are deemed competent more say in keeping their baby if the mother plans to have an abortion. A man does, of course, bear a round half of the responsibility for making a baby. And child-support laws are rather unfair and sexist, but it's also rather unfair and sexist that a man can very easily disappear during his baby's nine-month gestation period and never return to help out with the kid again. ('Cause kids are a LOT of work. And such male disappearances are and always have been very common. Women have to stay because ... they're physically attached to the thing.)

One problem is that plenty of men are really not that competent to take their babies and would leave the kid with their drug-addict, child-molesting families. And a mother, after carrying a baby for nine months and then birthing it in hours of painful labor, is going to have some attachment. Giving the baby to its father does not make it go away; it's still out there somewhere. It'll want to know who its mother is (funny there aren't more kids who want to know who their fathers are). There are still concerns and questions and responsibilities and a million other things.

Anyway. Though I'm rabidly pro-choice, men deserve more credit and respect for parenting, and need to be considered just as good parents as women, which they are.

Answer 3

Your logic fails miserably. If she decides to have an abortion the man has no responsibility to even pay for that abortion. If she has the baby and the man doesn't like it you think he shouldn't have to support his child. All that accomplishes is further freeing men to go around screwing anything that moves without fear of any responsibility at all. How nice for them. When you have the equipment that makes it necessary to actually carry a child to term and go through labor and bear the real responsibility for that child, as many men have to be chased down for diaper money while they're continuing to spread their seed around town, then you might have a leg to stand on.

EDIT: You are comparing two rights which are not equal in standing. That is where the reasoning should intrude.

Answer 4

I'm pro-choice and I disagree with you.

It creates too many legal issues, and also gives the more 'slimy' guy the go ahead to not use protection ever, because then he can contest his responsibility in court.

Then again, sure, go for it. Then you never have any right to your child. You will not have visitation rights, you will just be a stranger to your child unless the mother chooses so. I find it highly unlikely that a father would want to do that.

Answer 5

Your responsibility is to wear protection when you are having sex. You know what the risks are if you don't. You know if she becomes pregnant, you will be financially responsible for the child for at least 18 years and you will pay child support. If you decide to anyway, then you must live with the consequences.

Until you grow a uterus, carry and give birth to a child, you have no say in the womans right to choose.

Sometimes when you dance with the devil, the piper must be paid......child support is your payment.

Answer 6

So, since men don't have a right to abortion, then the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment means that women shouldn't have the right either?

Answer 7

I'm pro-choice and I agree with you.