Who Pays For The Baby?

Who Pays For The Baby? Over the past four decades, women's advocates have successfully made the case that it is wrong to force a pregnancy on an unwilling mother. Despite the backlash against Dubay, hopefully his lawsuit will result in a greater societal awareness that it is also wrong to force a pregnancy on an unwilling father. Glenn Sacks & Jefferey Leving

Someone made the following rather interesting post at the end of the article; so I pinched it ...

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We need to get beyond the red herring argument of who is responsible for birth control and deal with the reality of what should be done once conception has occurred. We all know the heat of passion is not a clear thinking time even for the most rational humans, people lie to and mislead each other all the time when sex is involved, birth control often fails to be 100% effective regardless of who is responsible for it and, quite simply, mistakes happen even in the best of circumstances.

I offer, what I think is, an outline for a rather simple solution to the problem of who is financially liable for children once they are conceived. If the two parties are not married and, thus, already legally bound to financially support the child, the two parties involved could file a notarized statement with the courts as to whether they want to have the child or not knowing and, therefore, assuming all the legal and financial responsibilities of raising that child. If they both wish to go forward, there is no problem and paperwork is already on file from both parties accepting legal and financial responsibility for the child.

If one party wants to have the baby and the other doesn’t, the baby must be carried to term and the one who wants it must assume all legal and financial responsibilities of the pregnancy and for raising the child once it is born. The other party is released from any and all legal and financial responsibility for the pregnancy and the raising of the child. If neither party wants it, a negotiated settlement must be made between the two parties to terminate the pregnancy or hand the child over for adoption. If the decision is made to terminate, the two parties split responsibility for the costs involved, including any post operation medical expenses and psychological counseling fees, for up to a year after. In the case of any personal adoption set up by either of the two parties, the entities(s) doing the adopting assume all legal and financial responsibilities from that point forward. If State adoption is the preferred choice, the case is turned over to the State, the child becomes a ward of the State and the State assumes all legal and financial responsibilities from that point forward.

For the record, I do believe that whether or not to terminate a pregnancy should be a personal choice. Therefore, such a solution would never force a woman to terminate a pregnancy against her will. At the same time, though, the choice is not hers alone. If the man is equally involved in the legal and financial responsibility of raising a child, then the man must be equally involved in making the choice. Thus, the woman would not be able to terminate a pregnancy against the will of the man if the man wants the child and is willing to assume all legal and financial responsibility for that child. I acknowledge, therefore, that such a solution as I offer allows for cases where a woman might be required to carry a baby to term that she doesn’t want. At the point of birth, though, she can give the child to the man and her responsibility in the matter would be over. If a woman chooses to go forward with a pregnancy despite having no commitment of legal and financial responsibility from the man, she assumes all legal and financial responsibilities herself. She cannot force a man to financially support a child he does not choose to have.

I know this sounds unbelievably simplistic and there are a lot of details that would need to be hammered out about how, precisely, such contractual agreements would be executed in reality, such as how to handle any number of mitigating circumstances such as rape and incest. However, I think there is a workable outline here that seems pretty fair. It levels the playing field as much as possible given the, as yet, unchangeable biological realities we have to deal with and would go a long way towards solving a hugely controversial problem.

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