She lied about contraception, now she is taking me to court for child support.

I wish I could give the encouragement you seek. But I can't. The reality is you will be ordered to support the child. I'm not sure what state you're in, but most jurisdictions follow what's known as the dual income model. Basically the state attempts to maximize a child's "economic well-being" - whatever that means - by providing the child and its "household" (i.e. the mother) with a standard of living as if you two lived together, even if you don't. It also sounds like it bestows upon the household nearly all the material benefits of a marriage or co-habitation. Sounds inequitable to me, but whatever.

In any event the legal reality is that the expansion of a mother's fundamental liberties related to parental choice and procreation (Roe; Casey) has effectively absolved them of the natural and probable consequences of their actions. Child support laws treat a Father's choice to have sex as either a waiver of his fundamental liberty or almost like a constructive assignment of such rights to the mother - basically. In either case the law still expects a man to be beholden to the natural and probable consequences of his actions.

There's no precedent which expresses this idea. But that's effectively how it appears to work. No one apparently has the guts to tell men their fundamental liberties around procreation is absolutely meaningless in relation to a woman's reproductive rights.

"You should have kept it in your pants" is what society typically says. That we used to vomit this same bigotry to woman before their rights exploded is never mentioned. But again, whatever.

I'm not aware of any jurisdiction which allows for a father to waive both their parental rights or responsibilities. A woman has almost 1.5 years to decide if she wants to be a mother 1) the period before viability and 2) the period following the birth which a single mother can surrender her child at a designated location - and once again avoiding any adverse consequences of child abandonment.

Men can choose to have sex, or not. That is the extent of our choice. Whether we want to have sex without risking pregnancy is immaterial and unimportant. The state will even conscript your parentage even if you aren't the biological father - again, men are beholden to creating reliance in a woman but the reverse does not hold true.

We're men, and no one is going to let us just have sex with someone and get away with it.

/r/MensRights Thread