Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Forced to be a Father?

I have been reading a lot about father's rights, in the context of custody and adoption. While searching on the web for articles about father's rights, I came across what is going to be on the Dr. Phil show tonight which is "forced to be a father". The premise of the show is whether or not a father can sign away his paternity rights and therefore escape any responsibility to a child born out of wedlock. Some people believe that engaging in sex puts you on notice that you could be fathering a child and therefore you have knowledge that you could potentially be responsible for that child. Men who don't want that child often feel like victims because they are being forced to be responsible for a child that they didn't want. Perhaps its the child that is the victim in this circumstance. Attached to all of this is the notion that men don't have any rights in the abortion debate. Generally speaking if a woman becomes pregnant and does not want that child, there is absolutely nothing that the father can do to legally stop the woman from having the abortion. The woman actually is under no obligation to even tell the father that she is pregnant. Is this fair? Some people would argue that it is, some people would argue that it isn't. Either way it adds one more element to the paternity and abortion debate. I'm interested in anyone's thoughts on this subject and/or comments on the Dr. Phil show on this issue.

Dr. Phil Show: http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/1150

3 comments:

miss carolyn said...

i think that men should have the same rights as women. I have a husband whom is forced into this same situation. we are forced to pay a large amount of our income to a bastard child he created while drunk one night. we recieve threats from the mother have even had property damaged by her and are still forced to give her large amounts of money with no accountability. the child is filty all the time

Forced to pay! said...

I think men should have the same rights as well.
Just as Miss Carolyn said my husband is in the same position. We are forced to pay, but we cannot afford to see (even if we wanted to)them because she lives 10 hours away. Of course she knows that, so she is taking advantage of the child support system and milking us for all she can. Getting an easy paycheck for not a lot of work is a dream for her. She gets the child support check, WIC, and food stamps which she is titling herself a 'single stay at home mommy' bull crap if you ask me!

Alyssa said...

I think men should have the same rights as well.
Just as Miss Carolyn said my husband is in the same position. We are forced to pay, but we cannot afford to see (even if we wanted to)them because she lives 10 hours away. Of course she knows that, so she is taking advantage of the child support system and milking us for all she can. Getting an easy paycheck for not a lot of work is a dream for her. She gets the child support check, WIC, and food stamps which she is titling herself a 'single stay at home mommy' bull crap if you ask me!

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