Thursday, January 12, 2006

Financial abortion for men

John Tierney write in the NY Times:
If the pro-choice side adopted a gender-neutral policy, then either the man or the woman would have the right to say no to parenthood. I don't know of anyone advocating that a woman be required to have an abortion, but there's another right that could be given to a man who impregnates a woman who isn't his wife. If the woman decided to go ahead and have the child, she would have to notify him and give him the option early in the pregnancy of absolving himself of any financial responsibility for the child. ...

But there's no reason that it couldn't be a little fairer. As Alito ruled, it's not an undue burden for a wife to notify her husband before an abortion. And it's not unfair, as Goldscheider proposes, for a single woman expecting child support to be required to tell the father as soon as she decides to keep the baby. If men are going to pay to play, they should at least know the score.
The column generated 7 hysterical feminist letters, including this from Tufts gynecology professor Steven J. Ralston:
In my professional experience, it is men who are least likely to be responsible when it comes to birth control and the least likely to use the form that they have the most control over: condoms.
What does he mean by this? His professional experience consists of examining women, and he says men are the least likely to use condoms? Are his female patients using condoms?