Fathers Pay for their Rights
By Phillip C. Otiss Brown,
South Londonderry, VT Blindinkotiss@yahoo.com
In the American legal system a father is liable for eighteen years of financial obligation by virtue of his role in the conception of his child. While at the same time, he has no rights to attempt to save his unborn child’s life, an obligation by virtue of the same role of conception in his child.
The United States Supreme Court in Danforth vs. Planned Parenthood declared that even the best of men were to be stripped of their rights to protect their own pre-natal baby daughters and sons from death by abortion. Justice William Rehnquist wrote, “since the state cannot prohibit abortion the state cannot delegate to any particular person, even the spouse, to prevent abortion.” It is no small irony that the federalization of child-support collection was instituted exactly one year before the Danforth decision. The American courts have consistently decided that a woman’s right to an abortion cannot be vetoed by her husband, her partner, or her ex-boyfriend and that a woman does not have to even notify them that she intends to have the abortion.
A nation that tells its fathers not to protect their daughters and sons is a nation that is telling their fathers not to love their own children. Such a nation as America is engineering its own social collapse with its change in its moral character over the last four decades. Abortion is destroying America and it is the ultimate cruelty to the mother, to the child and to the other victim, the father.
Thanks to ultrasound technology, we now have full motion movies of adorable prenatal babies sucking their thumbs, sleeping, stretching, reaching out and etc. Thanks to the same technology, we have full motion videos of babies being dismembered until they are dead: abortions, the most unspeakable violent way to terminate the lives of innocent babies. Over one and half million of these babies will die this way in America this year.
Abortion is viewed is viewed as a woman’s rights issue and totally avoids the issue of men involved. An abortion is not exclusively about women, nor does abortion treat a woman very well. It is an act against nature itself, the act of the abortion and the abortionist themselves cause the harm. The lack of information and the anonymity cause future harm to the woman and the father. In our society a woman can get an abortion, for any reason, anonymously. The woman does not even have to tell her husband, even though the baby is as much the father’s as hers. In America, in a marriage, it takes both signatures for loans, applications, and even federal taxes. Why not an abortion? What if the father wanted to keep the child? Should he be allowed to keep the daughter or son and the mother walk away right after the birth?
In our country the father has no say in the child that he created, except financially. The anonymity of the abortion process creates problems for research to have been done about the long lasting medical and psychological effects on the mother or the father. The anonymity breeds a secretive nature in the woman that teaches her not to tell anyone about it. As I was looking for websites, I could not find a government site that told of the health risks associated with abortion. I did run across some individual sites that listed complications such as cervical lacerations and uterine perforation. The National Women’s Health Information Center, the main government site, gave only abortion advocate viewpoints. To have an abortion a woman has to put harsh chemicals into her body, or the cutting away of tissue has to be done. There has to be a health risk involved? A woman who has had an abortion can have post traumatic stress disorder as a result of guilt or secrecy. These clinics are businesses that do these killings and their concern is their pocketbooks. They do not always concern themselves with the mothers’ best interest with after abortion care.
Abortion has many victims; the mother, the child and the forgotten victim, the father of the child. By the law the father has no right to stop the abortion of his own child. On the other hand, the father who wants to defend the life of his child is accused of meddling in something that is not his business and if he attempts do anything he could end up in jail. Our laws have gotten all twisted up, it says the father has no rights in the decision, but then it says on the other side of the flipped coin he has responsibilities. No rights, but all the responsibilities. In other words, he cannot stop the wrong decision, but he has to pay for it.
The same laws that protect a woman’s parental choice also will allow her to either deprive a man of his right to become a father, or force him to become a father against his will. For example, one morning your wife or your girlfriend wakes you up to tell you the birth control had failed and she’s pregnant. Later in the day she decides she’s not prepared to become a parent. That’s OK; society will tell her she can get an abortion. Later in the day you come home as happy as you can be. You are going to become a father. She tells you no, she is going to have an abortion. Does this decision to abort affect you? Medically we are told that some women grieve for years after an abortion. So I guess the man’s grief somehow is not as real? For the woman can do what ever she wants and if she aborts your child you be will be left to mourn for the child you had dreamed of having.
Now, let’s change the story, what if the woman decides to keep the baby. She is excited; she is going to become the mother of your child. This time you feel like you are not financially prepared. You are not old enough to be a father. How would society react? They would say, “You should have thought of all that before getting into the situation. You now have to keep those child support checks a coming in or we’ll throw you in jail.” Then there is always the possibly that it was just a one night stand and now you will be paying for 18 years of child support to a woman you don’t even love and who doesn’t love you. You will be forced to have an ongoing relationship with this woman for years because of one night or even less. Again, she can do what ever she wants under the law and you do not have any say or rights.
I would not want to see any man dragging a woman off to get an abortion against her will, just as I do not want to see a woman forcing a man to care for a child he does not want. If the woman does not want the child, then give it to the father to raise, no questions. If the man does not want the child, the woman should take the child and raise it herself and the man gives up all his rights to the child and has none in the future.
It is time in America that the people and the courts give serious thought to the rights of the father, who is abused by the process of abortion, just as much as the woman.
One-half of every child that is conceived is the biological and genetic product of the father. Then he should have at least 50% of the decision of the life of his unborn child. Rights and responsibilities should be the same.
In American our rights were paid for with blood in 1776 and many years after. They are still being fought for today against terrorists; by soldiers; men and women in Iraq and other parts of the world. There are fathers that may want to see their sons or daughters learn to throw a football or watch them learn to play a piano. They are most likely paying for it anyway.
Fathers in America need their rights in deciding if they want to be a father or not, just as the woman. They need their rights in deciding to raise a child alone just as the woman. Fathers need the right to be able to be more than just a check in the lives of their kids.