Child Support, a Man's Rights, a Woman's Rights, and the Rights to Choice

In a world in which the "me" as applied to social concerns is taught to be the ultimate cornerstone in personal development and in which we are coerced to consider how things in our lives are affecting us personally I am going to take that very literally and do exactly that. I am going to use my position as a man and question where my rights have gone and why we as an enlightened society permit anyone to usurp those rights with the narrow mindedness which our society looks upon fatherhood and his right to choose. I question the right of choice and suggest that choice as it is presently applied is not an equitable concept unless all the factors of that choice are duly considered and legally recognized...which, they are not.

This is an issue that has long been stuck in my gumline; that nags at my soul; that feels like a constant thorn in my side and to remain silent on this issue is no longer possible as well as no longer an option. I am no longer content with where and how as a man my right to choice has been defined and decided. I have been listening to women rant and pedal their belief that they have a right to choose whether or not they want a conception to grow and come to full term. I have been listening to how they do not want decisions about them being made by men, laws, and by others in general. It is their body that is at stake in the pregnancy and they want all decisions regarding that to be their's and their's alone. We men have been stood down. We are not an ultimate factor in that decision making process unless she chooses it. It belongs solely and completely to women. The choice to allow our seed and their egg to live is up to women. It is their decision, it is not ours, none of it, not any more to be recognized than the woman wills of it. No concern we have is any more than a mere suggestion we might make and she is under no legal obligation to consider us in her decision making process. That is perilously dangerous and it is time we begin to speak of it in that context and make the condition fall into the light of honest and open dialogue. Men are being jailed, arrested, having money taken from their paychecks, being held accountable for pregnancys and parenthood they did not want for which they had no voice in. And further, there is no system of accounting and checks and balances that those monies are being used by the recipient mothers for the care and betterment of the lives of the children. Many of the women who receive those funds simply do not use those monies for anything that benefits the children at all.

If she decides to kill the product of conception then she has by legal definition excersized "her" rights and any suggestion from the male counterpart as a parent, assignee, or concerned party regarding the matter will either be or not be heard entirely based upon, legally, her discretion to do so or not. No thing regarding the matter from the male perspective will, legally, receive any more merit than that of a mere suggestion or that of any other dis-jointed opinion aside from the matter. The matter being her right to choose, hers alone and no other's business or affair.

That is by it's very nature an extremely un-natural, lopsided, cantilevered, and deviated condition for the male member of the issue. He is in truth and in every sense of the word going to be at least equally impacted by that preganancy and very affected by the outcome of those decisions and that pregnancy. In spite of this, legally, we are as man, men, father, parent presently considered non-entitys. To allow ourselves to remain legally in a position in which we are not recognized until the birth of the product of conception does not represent the good of the product of conception or the resultant child, the mother, the parent/father or the society as a whole. It breeds an extremely onesided environment that is irresponsible by its very nature and diminishes the concerns of the man as a parent and concerned involved person down to nothing more than a meaningless un-connected bystander. That is our legal condition in the pregnancy that we are going to be held accountable to for the duration of our lives if she decides to allow the product of conception to become recognized by the law as a person; if she decides to have the baby. In such an environment it is no wonder that so many "fathers" are disconnected and dis-jointed from the lives of their off-spring. It is as it stands a law structure that is contemptible and it breeds a dis-unity of the family and of the parent child connection/relationship as well as it fosters contempt among men for the burdens placed upon them by the law for a decision in which he had no active role in.

There exists a perfect legal evacuation of all of the man's rights, including those rights to choose. We as men have had our rights usurped by the concept that a woman's right to choose is hers and hers alone. It is in-alienable. That is a crock of horse dung.

What we are being told is this: If a woman elects thru choice to have sex with a man and she becomes pregnant, then, depending on her decision, which is solely hers and hers alone the man she used to become pregnant will pay her for 18 years as a result of her decision. He, me, you, will pay her money for the thing she did with her body and her decision and her choice for eighteen years and arguably forever.

If she makes a "mistake" and becomes pregnant she has a right to recognize the error and terminate that living product of conception and extract herself from the responsibility for her bad decision. What right does a man have to extract himself from a "bad" decision in which an unwanted pregnancy occurs? If a man does not wish to be a parent yet the pregnancy occurs, how does he excersize his right to choice?

We do indeed have a bona-fide interest in the "choice" yet we have no thing to say in that choice which is legally recognized until society is dealing with a legally recognized human being-at which time no choice again is valid or recognized. We simply 'are' the father and we will pay. No recourse is offered to the male member of the pregnancy. Is it or is it not a mutual thing or is it the woman's decision alone. I say it is not the woman's decision alone and that it is time we men all begin to say so.

There is no thing in this issue that is legally equitable for a man. If a woman wishes to have a penetration and an orgasm she can go out and get one and not be held accountable via her right to choice. It is hers, not ours; not man's. If that same man is out on that same evening and he becomes the man she chooses for that sexual encounter he will be given no choice, no rights and no consideration for his willingness to either be or not become a father. If he were to even go so far as to tell the woman he does not wish to parent a child and she lies to him and claims inability to concieve he will still be held accountable for LIFE for a decision that was not his. He will either have to see a product of his conception be killed, be born, or not based solely upon another person's right to choice.

I do not see that "right to choice" as a right at all. I see it as a method thru which women have extracted with a surgical precision thru law much of the responsibility for their decision from themselves and super-imposed that reponsibility onto the male counterpart in which he has "NO" thing to say. It was a legal manuever that was selfish, mean-spirited and by design very one-sided and inequitable. It does not stop there either. In the event that a man feels that the termination of the life is unconscienable he still has no recourse to her decision to terminate his product of conception because legally, it is not his but hers and hers alone. Not equitable by any measure. None, no measure whatsoever would find that acceptable under intense scrutiny.

Why do men allow themselves to bear the full grunt weight of another's rights? Some things about human nature will baffle me forever, but I do know that we do not have to if we do not want to. Men can rise from this smouldering cess-pool of iniquity and demand an accounting. If it is a woman's choice, then we as men should hold the women in our society accountable for that as they have demanded. No longer should we allow them to have all of the rights and we as men bear a resulting burden. And, if we are going to be held accountable for the resulting child's welfare, then we must demand an equal voice under the law. No. Just plain no more. Legally I might not be treated fairly, but, the nice thing about "legality" is that it could be changed when the iniquity of it's machinings is exposed. It is hereby exposed. Have a look into this mean spirited posturing by women and you will see a vast ugliness.

Ladies, it may be time to get your guns out, because this is a coming movement in full accountability. A decision that is yours to make should be made in light of all the concerns. Your ability to extort a man legally may be on it's way to a close.

Men, we must start considering this in light of what it is. We have had our natural rights stripped from us thru the machinings of law and women who used that system and thought to remove us from the full picture of their pregnancys. They have said it now for years. It is "their" pregnancy. They have made it indelibly clear. We have an obligation to hand that truth back to them in it's non-distorted form and allow them to see what it means to make a decision and to have a choice, and why no choice such as that is theirs and theirs alone. And we must demand that full accounting in the eyes of the law. We are being ridden over rough-shod by this horrendous injustice and it is ruining lives and breeding a society of women who are not held accountable. An environment in which the cost is being shouldered by men. We as the underdog in this must rise to it and insist on our rights...or, at the least, force a rightful decision that if it is their decision...then ALL of it is, monetarily as well as the right to become a parent/mother.

I would like to think there is a balance that could be struck that would result in equitable and fair treatment under the law for all, the mother, the father and the child. A balance that would promote an environment in which the voice of the man could be as weight bearing as that of the woman. I suspect that this posturing would be met with much conflict and a general lack of understanding, but in the end when honesty is the paving material the road will lead to that which is better. I can envision a balance that would ultimately lead to much more responsible fathers as well as mothers and by that a much more responsible society. It is simply time now for this imbalance to be visited and addressed fairly and with an absence of the man-malice from which it sprang.