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Jewish World Review
March 24, 2006
/ 24 Adar, 5766
The obligation of unwanted fatherhood
By
Jeff Jacoby
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Real men — good men — take responsibility for the children they father. If they get a woman pregnant, they do the right
thing: They stand by her. They support their child. They don't try to weasel out of a situation they co-authored. They shoulder
the obligations of fatherhood, even if they hadn't planned on becoming a father.
Once upon a time, men confronted with news of an unintended pregnancy knew what was expected of them. More often
than not, they married the woman who was carrying their child; for those tempted to behave irresponsibly, society devised the
shotgun wedding. Women, too, knew what was expected of them. They tended to be very careful about sex. If they didn't
always wait until they were married, they waited for a relationship that seemed to be marriage-bound.
It wasn't a perfect system and it didn't guarantee perfect happiness, but on the whole it was realistic: It recognized that sex
has consequences. It bound men to the women they impregnated and made sure that children had dads as well as moms.
But the old code was swept away by the Sexual Revolution. With the Pill and easy abortion came the illusion of sex
without consequences. Pregnancy could be avoided or readily undone. Men didn't have to marry women they impregnated;
women didn't have to reserve themselves for men who were committed or whose intentions were honorable. With the
devaluation of sex came the devaluation of fatherhood. Men got used to the idea of sex without strings. So did women, many
of whom also grew accustomed to the idea of motherhood without husbands. Government got involved, too, mandating
welfare benefits for unmarried moms, and child-support checks from "deadbeat dads." With the incentives for marriage weaker
than ever, more and more children were born out of wedlock. In 1950, just 4 percent of births were to unmarried mothers. By
1980, the rate was more than 18 percent. It stands today at nearly 36 percent.
All this is bad enough. Comes now Matt Dubay with a proposal to make things worse.
A 25-year-old computer programmer in Michigan, Dubay wants to know why it is only women who have "reproductive
rights." He is upset about having to pay child support for a baby he never wanted. Not only did his former girlfriend know he
didn't want children, says Dubay, she had told him she was infertile. When she got pregnant nonetheless, he asked her to get an
abortion or place the baby for adoption. She decided instead to keep her child, and secured a court order requiring him to pay
$500 a month in support.
Not fair, Dubay complains. His ex-girlfriend chose to become a mother. It was her choice not to have an abortion, her
choice to carry the baby to term, her choice not to have the child adopted. She even had the option, under the "baby safe
haven" laws most states have enacted, to simply leave her newborn at a hospital or police station. Roe v. Wade gives her and
all women the right — the Constitutional right! — to avoid parenthood and its responsibilities. Dubay argues that he should have
the same right, and has filed a federal lawsuit that his supporters are calling "Roe v. Wade for men." Drafted by the National
Center for Men, it contends that as a matter of equal rights, men who don't want a child should be permitted, early in
pregnancy, to get "a financial abortion" releasing them from any future responsibility to the baby.
Does Dubay have a point? Sure. Contemporary American society does send very mixed messages about sex and the
sexes. For women, the decision to have sex is the first of a series of choices, including the choice to abort a pregnancy — or, if
she prefers, to give birth and then collect child support from the father. For men, legal choices end with the decision to have
sex. If conception takes place, a man can be forced to accept the abortion of a baby he wants — or to spend at least the next
18 years turning over a chunk of his income to support a child he didn't want.
All true. But it is also true that predatory males have done enormous damage to American society, and the last thing our
culture needs is one more way for men to escape accountability for the children they father. Dubay wants more than the
freedom to be sexually reckless — he wants that freedom to be constitutionally guaranteed. Truly he is a child of his time,
passionate on the subject of rights and eager to duck responsibility.
The culture used to send a clear message to men in Dubay's position: Marry the mother and be a father to your child.
Today it tells him: Just write a monthly check. Soon — if this lawsuit succeeds — it won't say even that. The result will not be a
fairer, more equal society. It will be a society with even more abortion, even more exploitation of women, even more of the
destructiveness and instability caused by fatherlessness.
And, in some ways saddest of all, even more people like Matt Dubay: a boy who never learned how to be a real man.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.
Jeff Jacoby Archives
© 2006, Boston Globe
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