It's high time runaway dads were stigmatised and the full force of shame was heaped upon them. They should be looked at like drink-drivers, people who are beyond the pale. They need the message rammed home to them, from every part of our culture, that what they're doing is wrong; that leaving single mothers, who do a heroic job against all odds, to fend for themselves simply isn't acceptable.Demonizing men who are unwilling to be fathers against their will is not new, but this is a little over the top. It sounds like these men would be beaten in the streets if the PM had his way. The idea that all single mothers are heroes and the fathers deadbeats is ridiculous.
Does the PM know the circumstances surrounding each of the men he wants to stigmatize? Many men are made fathers against their will. Here’s an example:
After dating a woman for a few months and before we started to have intimate relations, I told her I did not want to have children. But after telling me she was unable to have kids, she got pregnant, had the baby over my objection and sued me for child support.Many, including the lawyer responding in that Q and A, would dismiss this man as cheap or irresponsible, but they miss the point. Maybe he should have been more careful. Maybe he shouldn’t have trusted his lover’s word. But surely this woman is no hero.
Nor are the numerous other women use their children for financial gain. If the PM would like a local example, here’s a case of British woman lying to increase her child support bounty.
Then there are the manipulators. Women who use the legal system designed to protect them as a weapon to manipulate or hurt men for personal reasons:
Atlanta Falcon Chris Owens says his ex-girlfriend filed a restraining order against him to exact revenge for refusing to continue their relationship, according to court documents. Latia Terry told Owens he will "never see his baby again" and promised to "ruin him," according to documents filed in Gwinnett County, Georgia, on Thursday.
Has the PM, or anyone else who cries about the “responsibility” of men who are made to be fathers against their will, ever been in such a situation? It’s not a good feeling. Just ask the man who set himself on fire last week because he was tired “being bullied for being a man.” Our American child support system had made this man’s life unbearable.
I don’t wish to imply that all women are golddiggers or manipulators, I only seek to defend men against those who are. Surely the circumstances that lead to child support and single motherhood run the gamut. In some cases, of course, irresponsible men are to blame. But in many other cases, ethical men make it clear that they have no interest in being a father, and a woman defies their wishes and has a child without their consent.
I’m not suggesting that a man should be able to dictate a woman’s decision on whether to have an abortion, or whether she gives her child up for adoption, but since these are not his decisions, should a man be held accountable for them? Maybe partially, for the initial act of sex, but surely not equally, since there are many subsequent decision points where he has no say.
Morally, how is such an unwilling father any different than a sperm donor? Do those who label these men as “deadbeats” feel the same way about sperm donors? Maybe they do. This young man wants to track down the man who donated the sperm his mother used to conceive him. Perhaps some people believe this man should be legally obligated to comply.
