Dads: No Cash for Unwanted Children

In lawsuit, activists argue if women have right to decide fate of fetus, fathers can decline financial role:

A national men's rights group plans to file a federal lawsuit this morning in U.S. District Court in Detroit, claiming that fathers have the legal right to opt out of the financial responsibilities of supporting a child they didn't want -- in a claim they dub "Roe v. Wade … for Men."

A Troy lawyer for the New York-based National Center for Men said he will file a long-shot lawsuit on behalf of 25-year-old Matt Dubay of Saginaw that seeks an order declaring the Michigan Paternity Act unconstitutional. Dubay recently was ordered to pay support for his 8-month-old daughter.

In 2004, Dubay, a computer technician, began dating a woman who worked in cell phone sales. He said she told him she couldn't get pregnant -- because she was using contraception and had physical conditions that prevented her from getting pregnant.

After three months, they stopped dating -- but soon afterward, she told him she was pregnant.

"It's just not fair. She has options in this. As a man, I have no options and am forced to live with her choices," Dubay said Wednesday night. "I was up front. I was clear that I didn't want to be a father and she reassured me that she was incapable of getting pregnant."

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My Comments:
On the one hand, I sympathize with the sense of powerlessness that men feel when it comes to reproductive "choices". The regime of Roe v. Wade has created an untenable situation whereby ONLY the pregnant woman has the power of choosing life or death for an unborn child. If the father wants to keep the baby, but the mother doesn't, baby dies. If the mother wants to keep the baby, but father doesn't, father pays. It seems clear to me that there are considerable Equal Protection constitutional problems here.

On the other hand, I have absolutely no sympathy for a guy who is man enough to have sex with a woman, but isn't man enough to take responsibility for the results of his sexual intercourse. Sex is for making babies. Period. Always has been, always will be. So, don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Nevertheless, I believe this lawsuit will serve a public good. It will, of course, be unsuccessful, and rightly so - we don't make children suffer because fathers are unwilling to pay for their "mistakes". But by bringing to light the inequities of a regime whereby an unborn child receives "personhood" at the whims of its mother, this lawsuit could spark additional debate over why our society tolerates such an inequitable (for the child) situation.


UPDATE (10 March 2006):
Head over to Fumare to read about an Ave Maria Law Review article from 2 years ago that predicted just such a case.