Reproductive Rights

and wrongs

    Two court cases set side-by-side conclusively illustrate an egregious shortcoming in the status quo of reproductive rights. In Pennsylvania, John Stachokus and his girlfriend Tanya Meyers found their selves in a predicament beyond Tanya’s pregnancy. She wanted to terminate the pregnancy and he did not. A few years later in Michigan, Matt Dubay and his girlfriend found their selves in similar circumstances but with the roles reversed. Mr. Dubay could not see fatherhood in his immediate future whereas Ms. Wells was ready to knit booties. Perhaps because Ms. Meyers had prevailed against Mr. Stachokus in Pennsylvania, Mr. Dubay knew better than to seek an order from the court compelling Ms. Wells to have an abortion. Instead he sought relief from his obligation to support the child he jointly created with Ms. Wells. Mr. Dubay rolled the same set of snake eyes as had Mr. Stachokus. The obvious questions arising in this comparison is how can these two ruling coexist? If the woman’s choice in whether or not to carry to term a baby that she half-created excludes the man that did the other half-creating, how can he be obligated to financially support said child?

    To better understand how these distinctions are made consider that there are two categories of protection and privileges under the law: those furthering the best interests of society as a whole and those intended to prevent the individual’s rights from being trampled by the majority. Laws requiring seat belt usage, though beneficial to the complying party, are really for the benefit of society as a whole. As the rate of seat belt usage increases, the rate of injury and death (and the additional expenses to society via insurance and medical costs) decreases. The constitutional right to petition the government is moot to the majority that elected that government, but to the individual at enmity with the government’s actions this is a sacred right.

    Just as in requiring seat belt usage is in the best interests of society as a whole, so too is the onus placed upon a man to provide support towards the children he helps create. Placing the burden on society will not be tolerated as evidenced by the state assuming such an active role in the collection of child support (see sidebar). Similar to the second example above, though the decision to terminate a pregnancy will not be made by the majority of Americans, the right to make this decision is inviolably the woman’s. A woman’s reproductive rights are sacrosanct in all 50 states since the decision in Roe v. Wade. Thus in Mr. Dubay’s case, a man is assigned the obligation of supporting children he helped create in deference to society as a whole and he is excluded from exercising a choice. Mr. Stachokus too is excluded from exercising a choice because this would infringe upon Ms. Meyer’s individual right to control her reproduction. So it may appear that despite a little analysis and hopefully some understanding of the rationale involved with the two examples, the dilemma for men may be unfortunate but it is acceptable. I would disagree insomuch that to allow the status quo to continue unchecked is illogical, unreasonable and by disallowing men equal protection under the law, unacceptable.

    Other than cases of forcible and exploitive rape, the women via consensual sexual relations has tacitly consented to share all rights and responsibilities for the potential pregnancy with her partner, if not legally then logically. After all, if a woman only wants fertilization for an egg, there are doctors with easy access to sort of S & L’s where withdrawals can be made for this purpose. But because the woman has chosen the intimate over the clinical and involved another human being, they are each half-creators of the child and have roughly equal investments in the child. There is no denying compensation is due for those nine months that the woman carries the child, especially the last six weeks or so. For this sacrifice there should be compensation available.

Yes, this appears to be leading towards a reigning in of a woman’s sole discretion over her reproductive rights, but it is not. Because we only have two parties and a binary decision to either carry the pregnancy to term or not to, there are only four possible outcomes and half of these are nullified by the parties’ agreement. If both the man and woman agree, regardless if it is to see the pregnancy to term or not, there is no conflict to be resolved. The only two possibilities for conflict are: (1) the woman wishes to terminate the pregnancy and the man does not, and (2) the man wishes the pregnancy to be terminated and the woman does not. The solution in the first case is simply that the woman’s decision must trump the wishes of the man since we cannot reasonably expect a woman to bear a child against her wishes. However, as a countering to the woman having the final word in matters of both parties’ reproduction, in the second case a man can no longer be obligated to support a child resulting from a birth he would choose to terminate.

This of course places a great burden on that not so elusive entity (which in this case is each and every taxpayer) we have called society. But Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer cannot have it both ways in offering rights without responsibility to women while at the same time requiring responsibility of a man and denying him rights. More than 30 years ago, by a majority vote, the appointed of the Supreme Court placed a fat thumb on the scales of justice. Now comes the time for elected legislators to either push that biased thumb away or put a little ballast on the other side of the scales. To be sure, any attempts at leveling the playing field are bound to fall short of perfection, but we will be at least closer then we are now.