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Roe v Wade For Men?

Via Overlawyered, I came across this article at The Y Files.

In a nutshell, a guy is suing to not be required to provide financial support for his child, on the grounds that the mother mislead him as to her fertility, and on the grounds that Roe v. Wa…

As a family law attorney, I have heard countless tales of woe from male clients about the inequities of child support proceedings and financially oppressive child support payments. I also hear the occasional “she trapped me” story. These men do have reproductive choice; they exercise that choice every time they have sex and rely on their female partners to provide the birth control. If men do not want children, they have three options: (1) abstinence; (2) condoms; or (3) vasectomy. As I tell my clients, “you play, you pay.”

Family lawyers should be familar with this case.

DOE v. BOLTON, 410 U.S. 179
(1973)
In Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, the Court said:

“Without doubt, [liberty] denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”

The Georgia statute is at war with the clear message of these cases – that a woman is free to make the basic decision whether to bear an unwanted child. Elaborate argument is hardly necessary to demonstrate that childbirth may deprive a woman of her preferred lifestyle and force upon her a radically different and undesired future. For example, rejected applicants under the Georgia statute are required to endure the [410 U.S. 179, 215] discomforts of pregnancy; to incur the pain, higher mortality rate, and aftereffects of childbirth; to abandon educational plans; to sustain loss of income; to forgo the satisfactions of careers; to tax further mental and physical health in providing child care; and, in some cases, to bear the lifelong stigma of unwed motherhood, a badge which may haunt, if not deter, later legitimate family relationships.

Duqlaw98,

If that is the honest position you hold, then you are at least one of the following:

-sexist
-hypocritical
-pro-life

The argument you just gave is EXACTLY what many pro-life groups have been saying, some of them for CENTURIES (long before the abortion debate). Apparently, we’ve (well, the SCOTUS, anyway) decided that standard no longer applies… to women.

Care to identify which of the above you are?