MovieChat Forums > Nine Months (1995) Discussion > Men should have the right to opt out of ...

Men should have the right to opt out of parenthood


No matter how many birth control methods you use, no method is 100% except abstinence. Since we can't really expect everyone to stop having sex, there's always the chance of an accidental pregnancy. If a man isn't ready to be a father or never wants to be a father, he should have a right to refuse to be a father, just as a women has the option to terminate her pregnancy, give the child up for adoption, etc.

I know this is a lighthearted comedy, but it's based off the predominant idea that if your girlfriend has an "accident" as a man your job is to "step up and do the right thing" (marry her and raise the kid). I feel this is incredibly unfair to men who aren't ready to be fathers. They should have a choice to be a parent, just as woman have the choice to be parents.

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Don't have sex with anyone you are not willing to marry. Sex=consequences! Men, if you don't feel like you're ready for kids, then don't have sex. If you don't want kids at all, then make sure you marry someone who feels the same way and BOTH of you get permanent birth control. If you divorce your spouse because you don't want more children, then don't remarry at all! New wifey will either later want her own kids and start to resent the kids you already have or hate the kids you already have because she never liked nor wanted kids.
It takes two to tango and Men should realize that they have to bear the same burden of the consequences of sex as a woman. My guess is that the OP also resents his hard earned taxes going to WIC, and food stamps. He (fairly certain he's a man)probably doesn't realize that if more men stepped up and took care of their responsibilities then there would be less people needing these resources.

"The end of the shoelace is called the...IT DOESN'T MATTER!"

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Nope, I'm a woman. And no, men shouldn't be expected to just "not have sex". That is a completely unrealistic solution. What men SHOULD have is the legal right to opt out of parenthood. Even if a man gets a vasectomy, he could still get a woman pregnant. Since he had obviously taken measures to avoid parenthood and presumably told his sexual partner that he has no interest in having kids, if she gets pregnant he should NOT be obligated to pay for/raise the children.

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Yes! Men should be expected to just "not have sex" if they are not ready to be fathers because that is what our society tells women. The argument for Refusing to allow concessions for pregnant women in the workforce, not giving them paid maternity leave and limiting their access to pre/post natal care is always "she should have thought of those problems before she opened her legs." Before men "unzip their flys" they should first think "Am I ready for the potential lifelong consequences that could happen, despite taking all precautions, if I engage in this encounter?".

"The end of the shoelace is called the...IT DOESN'T MATTER!"

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Men need to decide before January 21st if they want to be a parent at some point in their lives. If they truly feel that fatherhood is not for them, then they need to get a vasectomy as soon as possible. Permanent birth control may be illegal by this time next year. Woman need to make the same decision and a get a hysterectomy. Any other procedure they may be forced to overturn, but a uterus can't be put back in.

"The end of the shoelace is called the...IT DOESN'T MATTER!"

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I applaude you for your post. This is something rare that society refuses to speak of.

I currently have a close friend that just became a father to his second baby a month ago. Though he loves both babies immensely, it was the works of his heavily depressed wife that they even exist.

At first they had both decided for an abortion, they are married and had no plans on leaving each other, so waiting didn't seem like a difficult choice.

But the honeymoon stages were passing and slowly the wife started getting back to her depressed self. Fearing that her husband would leave her because of the increasing fights between them, she made a u-turn and vowed to keep the baby. Without his consent ofcoure.

I, ashamedly, stood with my friend and tried convincing her to not keep it, to give it some more time. That's when she said something that made me cold all over. She looked at me and said that it doesn't matter if he stays or not, but if she has the baby, she never ever needs to be alone again. Her eyes looked so incredibly hollow.

I believed for a while that it was her sole reason, but with her increasingly odd behaviour, and another child on the way(forcing her to repeat the pattern of behaviour from the previous time), it was becoming very clear that her main purpose was to not be alone, sure, but it was also to keep her husband with her for as long as possible.

Now they have the most horrible fights where she has stabbed him repeatedly with a cocktail fork and also has choked the father with an electronics cable right in front of the baby.

This is a severe instance, but I've heard similar stories from my sister and girlfriends, which I honestly thought they were exaggarating until I was in the midst of my friends drama.

I'm sure that there are way more bad fathers than bad mothers, and I'm sure that the majority of awful things to happen in this world are the works of men, but that does not mean that there aren't any atrocities commited by women.

For true equality, we must put both genders under the same light .

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This is really just a romantic comedy about impending parenthood, just like "Knocked Up" or "Father's Little Divident". It's not a 'message movie', per se.

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What a jerky thing to say. If a man is big enough to impregnate a woman, he is big enough to be a father.

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1) in most states a woman can't give a baby up for adoption without the biological father signing off on it.
2) Men can legally sign away their rights as fathers. That means you have no legal obligation or say in what happens to the child. Most guys just either don't know they can do that or just don't want to completly cut ties from their child forever

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You can sign away your rights, but you can't sign away your responsibilities. You gonna be paying child support.

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[deleted]

You're suggesting legalizing child abandonment. There are enough deadbeats as it is, no need to make it legal. In your perfect world, men could just knock up however many women they want and then refuse to support the children they helped create, leaving the taxpayer with the bill.

No thanks.

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Men who don’t want fatherhood can be abstinent or use the myriads of sex toys meant for men. Condoms are more effective than other birth control methods.

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