Men Rights Activists challenge Child Support Laws

[Sythe]

Men's rights activists in the US are to argue in court that fathers do not have an obligation to pay money towards raising a child they did not want.
The National Center for Men is fighting the case on a behalf of a man who says his ex-girlfriend had his child after telling him she could not get pregnant.

Activists say men should have the same rights as women in dealing with the consequences of unintended pregnancy.

Women's and children's groups have criticised the planned legal challenge.

Leslie Sorkhe, of the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support, said a child "needs the emotional and financial support of both parents".

"The child is entitled to his or her equal protection under the law," the website of The Detroit News quotes her as saying.

I'm trying to find a way for a man also to have some say over decisions that affect his life profoundly

Mel Feit
National Center for Men

Matt Dubay, the man at the centre of the case, said he did not expect the court to rule in his favour.

"What I expect to hear is that the way things are is not really fair, but that's the way it is," he told the Associated Press news agency.

"Just to create awareness would be enough to at least get a debate started."

'Roe v Wade for men'

Mr Dubay says that his former girlfriend became pregnant with his child after assuring him she had a physical condition that prevented her from conceiving.

He says she went on have the baby, despite knowing that he did not want to have a child with her.


Mr Dubay says his constitutional rights are being violated

He now wants the court to free him from his obligation to pay $500 (£287) in child support every month.

The National Center for Men is filing a case on behalf of Mr Dubay at a court in the US city of Detroit.

The centre's director, Mel Feit, told the Associated Press news agency: "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.

"I'm trying to find a way for a man also to have some say over decisions that affect his life profoundly," he said.

The centre has dubbed the case "Roe v Wade for men" - after the landmark US Supreme Court ruling that gave women the right to have abortions


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4789090.stm

[True_Moose]

That's an interesting situation. At first, my reaction was "you're kidding me, right?", but he does make a pretty good point. I don't really see a problem as long as the burden of proof remains on the father - ie, he has to prove that prior to conception, he took all possible steps to prevent conception and also offered the woman the option of abortion. It should be a heavy burden, but that should take care of a lot of the post-birth hindsight cases.

I think that Roe v. Wade is a little extreme of a comparison, but of course hyperbole runs rampant in these sorts of cases.

In conclusion, Mr. Dubay, when in doubt double-wrap it.

[Lucern]

lol Moose. I only have one exception to your post if I understand you, just in case anyone does this. Double-wrapping 'it' is riskier than one time around in my understanding, unless that's a metaphor for using multiple birth control methods.

[True_Moose]

That's what I meant. I've heard many terms thrown around, but ultimately, yeah, that's what I meant. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Morgeruat]

It does make sense to an extent, after all if the woman decides to put the child up for adoption the father (if they aren't married) has no say in the matter whatsoever. It seems to me to be more of a case of each side needing to bend, but taking an extreme position so that they can reasonably hope to get at least their reasonable demands. basically politics as usual, I've seen the same sort of thing from the lumber industry vs. ecology groups...

[pritchke]

What about abortion? If a man is willing to raise the child on his own should the woman be allowed to abort. The man has no say even though if the shoe is on the other foot he would have to cough up plenty of dough. The abortion issue has caused the woman activist to shoot themselves in the foot. Abortion should only be allowed for extreme circumstances like rape, or danger to the mother everything else is just cosmetic issue as they can put it up for adoption. All these issues are about responsibility if you don't keep your dick in your pants or your legs closed than you need to be held accountable for your actions if accidents happen. They should put the child up for adoption or in the case were a parent wants to keep there mistake pay child support. But equal rights should be given to both sexes, and the child should have a right to live if it is the result of irresponsibility of the parents, and no one else's life is threatened or no crime has been committed. The above story has turned me off of a woman's right to abort under any circumstance even more.

[ 03-23-2006, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[Thoran]

He doesn't have a chance in heck of going anywhere with this but it has raised the issue, and that is a good thing IMO.

I think that he's trying to deal with the law as it exists today, and today women have numerous choices regarding how to deal with pregnancy. They can be responsible and abstain or use one or multiple forms of birth control. If a pregnancy happens, either by accident or as a result of irresponible behavior (hey... most of us have been guilty of it on occasion), a woman has day after pills, abortion, adoption, abandonment with no risk of repercussion, and finally she can choose to keep the child.

And the folks who are most adament against choice for men invariably come back to the lame "he should have kept it in his pants" and seem to think that option (along with our ONE form of birth control... condoms) is somehow equivilant to the dozen or so options women have pre and post conception.

What it comes down to is that once conception occurs men have NO choices. While women have total control of what happens to their bodies over the next 9 months, men have ZERO control over what happens to their bodies for then next 22 odd years. If you average out the number of hours a father will spend working in order to pay a child support obligation he will put in the equivelant of around 9 months of 24 hour days at work to pay for a child he may not even have wanted. Folks who like to dismiss the complaints of fathers as just "being greedy" need to realize that it's not about money, it's about equality and the right of self-determination. The current law says that a fetus is not above the right of a woman to decide how her body will be used... it's patently against the equal protection clause of the constitution to deny men that same right.

As long as abortion remains legal, men should have the same choices regarding the fetus as women do (when not in conflict, if self-determination is the order of the day then men should not have any rights that would impinge on a woman's rights... but the opposite should ABSOLUTELY also be true).

[Timber Loftis]

Lots of good issues here. Men really get the shaft on the abortion decision. Men watch women kill children they badly want, give them up for adoption, or choose to have children the men don't want and suck them into 18 years of child support payments.

With all that going against us, it's pretty bleak. The law focuses on the "good of the child" in these cases -- funny that it doesn't do that when it's her making the decision to terminate.

[edit] *Recommendation regarding domestic violence removed and censored upon request. If you'd like to know what text has been removed, feel free to PM me.*[edit]

[ 04-06-2006, 10:17 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Nightwing]

Sounds to me like men and women need to get to know each other and how they feel about raising children before they have sex. It is irresponsible of any man to abandon any child if he conceved it, choice or not. He made the choice to perform and act that created a life, step up and take responsibility for your actions and stop whining about it.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Nightwing: It is irresponsible of any man to abandon any child if he conceved it, choice or not. He made the choice to perform and act that created a life, step up and take responsibility for your actions and stop whining about it.

And why should we not say the same thing to women and simply make abortion illegal?

Giving one gender the choice while not giving it to the other is pretty unconstitutional under every analysis I know of, but the courts always ignore this where abortion is concerned.