Posted on 08/08/2002 4:58:13 AM PDT by victim soul
John Stachokus, the Pennsylvania would-be father who lost his bid to block his ex-girlfriend's abortion, has found himself in a position familiar to millions of American men: He has a large personal stake in a decision in which he is not allowed to take any part. His wishes are irrelevant.
When it comes to reproduction, in America today women have rights and men merely have responsibilities.
When a woman wants a child and a man does not, the woman can have the child anyway -- and demand 18 years of child support from the father. This remains true even if the father had made it clear that he did not want to have children, and even if the woman had previously agreed to respect his wishes.
For decades, leading feminist organizations such as the National Organization for Women and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League have argued that women should have reproductive rights because nobody should be able to tell them what to do with their own bodies. Thus the slogan "My Body, My Choice."
But the sacrifices required to pay 18 years of child support should not be discounted, either. The average American father works a 51-hour work week, one of the longest in the industrialized world. It is men, overwhelmingly, who do our society's hazardous jobs.
Nearly 50 American workers are injured every minute of the 40-hour work week. On average, every day 17 die -- 16 of them male. Couldn't men who work long hours or do hazardous jobs -- and who suffer the concomitant physical ailments and injuries -- argue that their bodies are on the line, too? Where is their choice?
NOW and NARAL were legitimately concerned that the Pennsylvania anti-abortion injunction, which was issued on a temporary basis last Wednesday and dissolved the following Monday, could have established a precedent for giving men and the government control over an important aspect of women's lives.
But when a woman forces a man to be responsible for a child only she wants, is she not exercising control over his life? And when the massive government child-support apparatus hounds the reluctant father for financial support, takes a third of his income and jails him if he comes up short, isn't the government exercising control over his life?
Advocates of reproductive choice for men -- the right of an unmarried man to sign away his parenting rights and responsibilities upon learning of an unwanted pregnancy -- have a legitimate claim, based on the same arguments that feminists have used to support their case for choice for women.
When the situation is reversed and the woman does not want to have a child and the man does -- as is the case with Stachokus and his ex-girlfriend, Tanya Meyers -- once again, women have rights and men do not.
A woman who doesn't want her child can terminate the pregnancy against the father's wishes, or put their child up for adoption, sometimes without the father's permission. In some states, she can even return the baby to the hospital within a week of birth. More than 1 million American women legally walk away from motherhood every year.
Perhaps, as some have argued, Stachokus was using his legal maneuvers as a way to exercise control over the ex-girlfriend who broke up with him. More likely he was simply a proud papa-to-be. Maybe he imagined his child to be a little daddy's girl, or a son he would proudly raise to be a man. Or perhaps he is just a stand-up guy who wanted to live up to what he sees as his responsibilities.
Even if Stachokus had persuaded Meyers to have their child, he probably would not have been allowed to be a meaningful part of his child's life. Meyers does not want to marry or stay with him. Legal precedents -- and a stubbornly held but baseless cultural notion that children fare better with their mothers -- suggest that, even though he was willing to take full or partial custody, he would have had little chance of getting it.
Many unwed and divorced fathers face a difficult struggle to remain a part of their children's lives.
Custodial mothers frequently violate fathers' visitation rights, and courts do little to enforce them. Some custodial mothers move hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their children's fathers, and it is frequently difficult for these dads to maintain regular contact with their kids.
Stachokus may have ended up like the hundreds of thousands of American fathers who love children they are not able or allowed to see, and whose suffering is ignored by a society that seems capable only of denigrating fathers.
John, whatever move you made, you never had a chance. Welcome to modern American fatherhood.
(Glenn Sacks writes about gender issues from the male perspective. Diana Thompson is the founder and executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children.)
Oh, please! While I admit to the injustice to men depicted by the author, and I think this guy and the baby were gravely wronged, I have to question if a "stand-up guy" helps to conceive a child out of wedlock.
This is something that should be addressed by the legislatures, not the judiciary. You really don't want that can of worms opened up.
The man is not forced to conceive the child. He should keep it in the pants or get sterilized.
That can of worm is already open. Already, courts can comple a man to support a child to term, and in many cases when he can prove it isn't his. And a man protesting a woman's decision to abort doesn't even have standing to go to court, or he is virtually guaranteed to lose.
The legislatures are made up of politicians worried about being reelected and percieve they need women's, like you, vote to achieve it. 
Is conceiving a child out of wedlock somehow better than conceiving a child within wedlock and then breaking wedding vows and getting divored? Either way, the child ends up without a complete family. The divorded couple just add a layer of dishonesty to the matter ('till death do we part', etc.).
But this guy had standing to go to court--or at least he thought he did--and he got a court order that compelled her to carry the child to term, at least for a few days. A man who wanted to compel a woman to have an abortion would have the same standing--which is, of course, a wad of legal papers, the filing fee and service fee and an amenable judge who'd hear the case. You think an activist judge in a liberal jurisdiction wouldn't hear this case and issue an order compelling an abortion? The lawyer (or lawyers) would use the same common laws this guy's lawyers did, only from a pro-abortion standpoint. Whether the judge grants the order or denies it, it gives them a toehold in the court system.
Of course this guy lost eventually and a man who sought an order to compel an abortion would lose eventually. But it gives them standing to appeal.
Not only that, but in some states, a man cannot legally obtain a paternity test to prove he is not the father. If the woman claims it is his child, the court simply accepts that. These antiquated statutes come from the days when it was considered to sully a woman's honor to suggest she was sleeping around.
Whoop-de-do.
A man who wanted to compel a woman to have an abortion would have the same standing. . .
So? A woman can get an abortion on her own now and the court supports her. Notice (in reference to your earlier statement about it being a legislative decision) that there is no written law giving her this "right", just court precedent striking down all state laws to the contrary.
You want the court to be frontloaded in favor of a woman's "choice" and at the same time are against abortion? I think they call that "unintegrated values". The "family" court system already stinks with that particular odor, you are evidently happy to note.
Those were the same days when a man could physically restrain a woman for several things including "going about in lewd company". We threw that balancing part away and left the part you mention. Kind of like importing kudzu without its natural antidotes, which decision was made by brothers in spirit with the ones that decided to junk half the precedent that make up the common law while leaving the other half in place.
My brother is divorced, and it is a struggle to stay part of my nephews' lives. But he is making the effort because his divorce was between him and his ex-wife, not him and his children.
As for unwed fathers, I can sympathize up to a point, for some of them are serious about caring for their children. However, all of them brought the situation upon themselves - if they had kept their pants on they wouldn't be in the situation at all. Now they have to decide which is more important: their personal, temporary pleasure or accepting responsibility for their actions. I get tired of the whining - of both men and women - who refuse to accept that pregnancy (and the resultant children) is 100% preventable!
Don't put words in my mouth.
I had asked when paternity can be established. On this thread, Green says paternity can be established prenatally:
To: Catspaw
Can paternity be established by DNA testing in the first trimester?
Yes it can. There are two different prenatal methods for determining paternity. One can be done in the first trimester between the 10 and 13 week which is referred to as Chorionic Villi Sample and the other method (amniotic fluid) can be done early in the 2nd trimester anytime during the 14 to 24 week.
60 posted on 8/6/02 9:08 AM Central by Green
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This means, if this guy has his way, paternity can be established as early as the first trimester. This also means that custody can be established--at least legal custody, because, prenatally, he cannot share physical custody (actual physical custody would have to wait until the child is born). It also means that the courts could also set child support and payment of medical and hospitalization expenses from the late first trimester onward. Now I'm sure the vast majority of men would do this willingly, if not gratefully, there may be a very few men that would protest payment of support and health care expenses, but the child support agency would insist, backed by a court order.
Waiting for marriage to live together and have sex...what a foreign concept.
These two are poster boys and girls for abstinence.
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