“You trapped me into becoming a father!”
Some men don’t want to be dads, and don’t have the choice of abortion.
By Scott Dunlop
Pic: Shutterstock
Article originally in
Parent24
We came across a discussion on Facebook: A woman, ‘A’, made the following status update, and then defended her position:
“You tried to trap a man with a baby. He told you he aint ready to be a daddy. On Fathers' Day you bash him on your status update. No. Some men don't want to be dads. And unlike women they don't have the choice to abort.”
What about condoms?
The first response? Not an unfair one, in which a reader says (to paraphrase)
- “Men have the option of wearing a condom. If he decides not to, and a pregnancy comes, he is responsible!"
‘A’ replies:
“So you and your boyfriend decide to dispense with the condom. You assure him you are on contraceptives. And you're lying. I'm talking about men who get trapped by women. Not men who change their minds. I still think it's unfair that they are forced to support a child a woman would have aborted if she had not wanted it.”
Fathers who aren’t dads
That’s reasonable, right? So what about the next respondent’s challenge:
- “And then you get fathers who make babies with every woman they with and forget and neglect the ones they had previously.”
Replied ‘A’:
“If women were also more particular about what they allow in their vaginas they wouldn't be in a position they often find themselves in. Yes men must take precautions too. But when a woman has not taken precautions she has the choice to NOT have a baby meanwhile a man is at the mercy of the women. As a woman I have huge problems with people who are constantly bashing men online because the man has not turned out to be that knight in shining armour.”
‘A’ concludes:
I applaud a woman who doesn't say; "He must pay maintenance for his child even if he is not part his child's life" because it means the woman is taking responsibility for choosing to have the child. There was a conscious decision to have the baby even though she knew the resources might be stretched. I'm not advocating for men to abscond from their child's lives; I'm just saying that those who do honestly not want to be shouldn't be forced by sexist laws and women's whims.”
[Editor’s note: Some of the comments were edited for reasons of space.]
What do you think?
Should a biological father, even one who said before the pregnancy that he never wanted to be a father, be held accountable for a pregnancy which resulted from the mother’s actions in deliberately trying to fall pregnant against his wishes?