Who's Your Daddy? Paternity and Rights Pro-life or pro-choice?

This is the question I want to spend some time not talking about. The questions surrounding the personhood of the fetus eclipse the ignored issue of how the arrival (or non arrival) of a child can effect the mother and father. This is the area that I will devote my attention to, namely: should a father be able to yield both his rights and his responsibilities to his future offspring? I believe that he should. Starting from the assumption that men and women should have equal rights I will show , at the very least, that the question of paternity and rights has not been scrutinized sufficiently. The major assumption I will be making to support this claim is that 'men and women deserve equal rights as far as practically possible' Clearly these claims need some unpacking before the force of the argument is evident. The situation as it stands in most of the western world was put succinctly by Melanie McCulley: the female has several options. She may choose to carry the child to term and retain custody of the child. She may carry the child to term and terminate her rights in the child so that the child may be adopted. Finally she may terminate the pregnancy through abortion.1 [emphasis added] This three tiered summary throws to light an option that I believe is rarely considered for men. The option of aborting parental rights and responsibilities. Although this is not the prettiest of phrasing, it accurately describes what happens when a woman chooses to put a child up for adoption. This has led me to ask, even assuming the man cannot/should not play any role in the physical abortion decision, what is there to stop him from aborting both his rights and responsibilities? So with this third option on the table, the two premises seem quite obviously to follow from one another. Women have the right to terminate their rights and responsibilities, and therefore so should men. The question still remains: What stands against this? I do not have space to deal with all the counterarguments to this position so I have chosen to briefly critique two: Firstly, the the most common and, secondly, the most powerful. The most common argument that I have heard is a pragmatic one, and goes roughly as follows: If men could terminate their rights and responsibilities to the fetus then this would cause an undue burden on the state - as they would unfairly incur the financial cost of raising the said child. Due to space I can only dedicate a few sentences to this argument: Firstly, it begs the question as you assume that the man has a obligation from conception which is part of the question that we are trying to discuss. Secondly, it seems to imply that men are desperate to abandon respectability enmasse, rather than deserving the right to decide if they are emotionally and financially able to support the child. If we look at both the philosophical and the actual reasons for physical abortion the 'financial or emotional effects' of children on the mother is paramount, with social and personal reasons accounting for 93%2 of the reasons women give for abortion. Again it seems unfair to assume these burdens do not apply to men. There is a more potent argument: this concedes that a change in policy is needed but denies that men should have the right to give up their paternal rights and responsibilities. Proponents argue that the legislation should be changed to allow women to be forced to pay reparations to men who choose to be single fathers, thus reassessing womens rights rather than elevating mens options. I will spend the rest of this essay arguing that this would not be sufficient to allow the man to feel that he has gender equality in the case of

paternity. Whist this may superficially appear to enforce equality, when looked at In the context of the other legislation in the area the results would be far from fair. My first objection is that women still have the option of abortion, still a way out of the financial situation, an option men are denied. Under the current law many abortions are made for financial reasons (over 25%)3. This would mean that the proposed new legislation would only apply to the women that do not believe that you should not have abortions for financial reasons. Furthermore the father currently has no right to know about the pregnancy and so responsibility can easily be circumvented at the birth: I don't know the father Secondly the argument omits the possibility that the woman may decide to make herself pregnant against the mans wishes. This point has been made masterfully by Ruth Jones in her paper Inequality from gender-neutral laws: why must male victims of statutory rape pay child support for children resulting from their victimization?. It is understandable if you feel the need to sigh, snigger or scoff. And I will admit that the cases of male rape are few and far between, but the reader must admit the ridiculousness of the mans position in the above case. The more shocking fact is that unwanted contraception may not take the form of rape; with the most common form of protection being the pill, many men place their trust in women to be honest about their fertility. The statistics on this are truly shocking as the BBC reports in a survey of women conducted by women stated that around 25% of women would allow themselves to get pregnant without the fathers consent.4 This to me shows the clear need for some recourse where a man can avoid the financial consequences of what can only be described as fraud. There is obviously much more to be said on the issues I have raised, and other arguments that have been omitted. But what is to be done, where will we go next? This is where my point is subtly different to that of Melanie McCulley whilst she argues that there are three options and that men are denied the second of those potential options, I dont believe it is about taking door 1,2, or 3. We should be looking at how, given the indisputable fact that men and women are biologically different, how men can have something that approximates as closely as possible the emotional and financial decision making that women are rightly given. Honestly, I never expected to definitively solve this issue in the two pages I have been given. The complexity of this issue ensures that would never happen. The real purpose of this essay is an attempt to get people asking questions and hopefully provide some compelling ideas to insight discussion in the area. Whilst I firmly believe that the argument provided shows that there is not equality in the treatment of men as regards paternal rights, I understand that what form change should take will be a matter of interpretation. There Is no need to tell the reader that other, more oppressive things happen in this world than those stated above. I do however hold a firm belief that oppression needs to be looked at from the perspective of all peoples. This issue, and others in the field of mens rights are 'off the radar' for the majority; that is what needs to change.
References: 1. McCulley, M The Male Abortion: The Putative Father's Right to Terminate His Interests in and Obligations to the Unborn Child," HeinOnline -- 7 J.L. & Poly 54 (1998-1999) p.1 2. Finer, L, et. al, "Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives" Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, Vol. 37 No. 3 (2005) p.110. 3. As above 4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1513729.stm & http://www.sudocrem.co.uk/blog/lying-to-get-

pregnant-the-shocking-tactics/