Fatherlessness And The Lack Of Male Reproductive Rights

Fatherhood is not something that is valued in modern society. This is demonstrable from observing the treatment of fathers in family court, the efforts of ex-wives to alienate their own children from their fathers, the mockery and disregard for fatherhood in popular culture and the mainstream media and the rhetoric and actions of feminist politicians and feminist lobbyists, such as Harriet Harman in the United Kingdom for example.

Why would men want to father children in a society that does not value fatherhood or protect fatherhood under the practice of law in family court, especially in a culture of rampant no-fault divorce? They wouldn’t. That is the reason why a growing number of young men including myself, are opting out of fatherhood and starting a family. There are two aspects to this decision. One of them is personal. Men develop a parental bond to their own children which is equivalent in strength and value to motherhood. The prospect of being alienated from your own children and the personal psychological devastation that would result from that, is simply too great a risk to take for many men. Indeed many divorced fathers commit suicide as a result of being forcibly alienated from their own children. The other aspect that factors into men’s decision to opt out of fatherhood and starting a family, is the knowledge of the devastating impact of fatherlessness on any potential children they might have.

Many men are well aware of what fatherlessness can do to children and a number of them come from fatherless households themselves. The statistics on the impact of fatherlessness on children’s health and general well-being, has been well documented and they paint a very disturbing picture. See the video at the very bottom of this article or look at the picture at the very top of this article, that covers these shocking statistics. Aside from the impact of fatherlessness on life outcomes, there is also the psychological distress a child is put through by being alienated from their own fathers. When men take into account the potential consequences of fatherlessness and the risky prospect of modern marriage and family life for men, the bottom line is that for many men it just does not seem worth it anymore. In fact if you are a man, fatherhood in modern society seems more akin to playing high stakes gambling with your own life and that of your potential children.

We live in a society that has decided that because women function as an incubator for nine months, that creating life is the sole domain of women. Yet it is a biological fact that men and women create life together and that men are as much the creators of life as women are. Men make women mothers. The “golden uterus” has no value without men. So before some bigots rush to the conclusion that women are the creators of life and some divine higher life-form, we might want to reflect on the fact that without men, motherhood would not even be possible and children would not even come into existence. It is time for a much needed reality check. Motherhood is a gift men give women, it is not an entitlement that men owe women. If there is no respect for fatherhood, then why should men make women mothers? We do live in a society that has decided that fatherhood according to some commentators, is nothing more than a social construct. Yet if we used the same simplistic line of reasoning, the same could be said about motherhood following gestation. We live in a society that ignores the overwhelming body of evidence that fatherhood is more than just a social construct, but actually an essential biological role that is important to the proper neurobiological and physiological development of children. In a meta-analysis of research, Dr. Warren Farrell found more than 30 areas of a child’s psychological development, health, well-being and future prospects, which benefit specifically and in a unique way from fatherhood. These include everything from educational performance to mental health and even physiological development during puberty. He discusses many of these areas in depth in his book, Father And Children Reunion.

The reality of the situation is that fatherlessness and the epidemic of single motherhood, is slowly eroding the social cohesion of society and will eventually lead to the socioeconomic collapse of the West. When you look at the negative impact fatherlessness has on education outcomes, crime, mental health, economic growth and so on for our youth, all you have to do is extrapolate the long term trends when these children become adults and the result is the collapse of modern civilisation. That is not just my own opinion by the way, many people have voiced the same concern, including Erin Pizzey, the founder of the first battered women’s shelter and an antifeminist.

There is no high ground or shaming language that is strong enough to propel men like myself, to father children in a modern climate that holds fatherhood in such disdain. I suspect much of the reason behind why fatherhood has been the subject of attack over the last 40 years, is because of the lack of male reproductive rights. When someone asks me about men’s reproductive rights, I respond by asking what rights? Men have next to no reproductive rights. The consent to have sex with a woman, is the consent to potential parenthood for a man. Women have enjoyed a monopoly on reproductive rights and favouritism in family court for decades. Once a woman is pregnant, men have no say in whether or not they want to become a father. Should a woman divorce, the family court will nearly always award her primary or sole custody of the children. Women essentially control the role of men in parenting and men are marginalised in the process of reproduction and family life. Women are the sole arbiters over whether or not men become fathers and how involved they become in the raising of their own children.

I often hear of the slogan, “Her body, her choice”. I have no qualm about women choosing whether or not they want to keep the baby. I am pro-choice (although I respect the position of people that are pro-life, debate on abortion is beyond the scope of this article). However what seems to be conveniently ignored, is the fact the unborn fetus in a woman’s body contains the man’s genome. What about his wallet, his choice? His sperm, his choice? His child, his choice? Or what about her choice, her responsibility? Men have the right to determine whether or not they become fathers. It should not be a woman’s decision to make, or something women can use the state to force upon men. Fatherhood is one of the biggest life changing events in a man’s life. The sense of entitlement to make men’s choices regarding parenthood for them, speaks volumes about how little respect society has for men.

The notion that men are as responsible as women for pregnancy, is categorically false. Again if it is her body, her choice, then it is her choice, her responsibility. Women have far more numerous and effective options when it comes to birth control and contraception and only women have the option to abort the baby or keep it. As soon as a woman becomes pregnant, women have the sole power to dictate what happens and therefore women are more responsible for their decisions when it comes to pregnancy. Responsibility comes with power and with respect to pregnancy, it is women that have the power and thus they should bare the responsibility. That is of course unless we allow men to actually have a say in whether or not they become fathers. Then men should be held equally responsible for their role in fathering offspring.

Karen Straughan had a brilliant solution to this problem, legal paternal surrender (see adjacent videos). If women become pregnant, they can choose to abort the baby, give up the baby for adoption or keep the baby (and other alternatives) etc, but men should be given the option to decide whether or not they wish to become a father. Should they choose not to become a father, all they would have to do is sign a legal contract surrendering their rights as a parent. As a consequence, they would no longer have any parental rights to the child, but they would also have no parental obligations or responsibilities to that child. Another avenue to further male reproductive rights, would be the development of a reliable male birth control pill and the provision of a more effective and diverse range of male contraception. At the moment sexual abstinence, a vasectomy which results in virtually permanent sterility (a reverse operation is possible, but is prohibitively expensive and has limited success in restoring fertility), or a condom which is just a barrier device and not entirely effective, are men’s only options. The state of a male birth control pill is actually highly advanced, but it is being kept back from the public for several reasons. Please see this article to find out what those reasons are, it makes for interesting reading. With respect to family court, the default position should be joint custody and equally involved parenting in the event of family break-up and divorce. That means equal time and custody between the mother and father. I do mean authentically equal, not legalese that means something entirely different in practice.

Something else that needs to be looked at, is mandatory paternal DNA testing for fathers who request it and want to make sure the child is theirs before investing their lives in raising a child, or paying a dime of child support. Right now there are men parenting children that are not theirs, without the man's knowledge or consent and even men paying child support to single mothers for children that are not even theirs. This is paternity fraud. It is truly outrageous that the legal system does not protect men from paternity fraud and can also be used by welfare queens to financially exploit men for child support, even when they are not the father. This is how low things have descended to. There are even boys in some places in the US, that have been raped by older women and have been forced to pay child support to their female rapists once they became adults. Read this article if you don’t believe it! This is how far men’s reproductive choices, fatherhood and men’s legal rights have been marginalised. These injustices need to stop.

It is a reality that some women wish to control men through controlling reproduction and fatherhood. It is clear that some women are forcing men into fatherhood against their wishes. It is clear that men are being exploited by some women in family court and through the absence of male reproductive rights. Therefore it is clear that until measures are taken to address the lack of male reproductive rights and the extreme bias against fathers in family court, men should abstain from fatherhood by choosing very carefully with whom, how and when they have sexual intercourse. Pregnancy is being used as a weapon to financially entrap men and men need to take precautionary measures. If you are a man and go out, it is best to keep your identity and personal details to yourself if you are simply just looking for casual sex. Personally I would avoid that scene entirely. From my personal perspective, there is very little benefit and a lot of risk with casual sex, including women making false allegations of rape. If you enter into a relationship, be very careful with what woman you get into bed with and in what circumstances. Total sexual abstinence for men is also an option. Yeah that's right, for some men sex itself and relationships are now simply too risky an activity to warrant investing any time in at all. For men, hooking up in modern society can wreck their lives. Despite what some people think, most men won't do anything for sex. Sex does have a limited value for men and it is far from being the number one thing on our minds.

Now often there is this shaming rhetoric about deadbeat dads from some women and feminists, who wish to deflect and derail the conversation on the lack of male reproductive rights and the marginalisation of father’s rights. Firstly there are a number of so-called “deadbeat” dads, who have actually been forcibly alienated from their own children by their ex-wives in family court. There are thousands of fathers in prison for failing to pay exorbitant amounts of child support and alimony exceeding their own incomes, while their layabout ex-wives sit at home and don’t lift a finger. Secondly there are a number of young men now in our society, that have grown up without a male role model or a father figure. Some of these men get a woman pregnant and some of them become fathers. Many of them have no say in the matter, many of them have a poor concept of fatherhood because they themselves had no fathers and many of them have grown up poorly educated, are poorly employed or are engaged in criminal activity because of growing up without a father. In other words, fatherlessness enforced through family courts and single mothers, generates households that produce deadbeat fathers. This then becomes a self-reinforcing cycle that feeds itself.

There is another aspect though to so-called “deadbeat” fathers, that has nothing to do with men or family court. Women have the sole decision on whether or not their male partner becomes a father if they get pregnant. They can abort the baby or keep the baby and force the man to become a father whether he wants to or not. I am of the belief that women are adults. As adults women are responsible and ultimately accountable for their own choices. Given the fact it is the sole domain of women to choose whether or not a man becomes a father, women are partly responsible for “deadbeat” fathers. Any woman can choose who they partner up with and any woman can choose through birth control, abortion and so forth, which man she is involved with will become the father of her child. If a woman chooses to make some directionless unemployed drug addict criminal a father, then she is responsible for that choice. Secondly, it is a reality that some women force men to become fathers against the interests and wishes of the man. It is a fact that some women use their monopoly on reproductive rights and the bias in family court, to milk men of their finances like a parasite sucking blood from its host. It is a natural consequence that some men who are forced to become fathers against their will and interests, will become “deadbeats”. Here is a question for the reader, why don't we ever discuss and shame "deadbeat" mothers as a society?

It is a reality that women are partly responsible for creating fatherlessness, by using the family court system to forcibly alienate fathers from their own children, forcing men to become fathers against their will, fuelling a generational feedback loop of parental alienation and by choosing deadbeat men in the first place. I am certainly not saying that all single mothers entrap men or exploit them, but there are financial parasites that do. The simple reality, is that we don’t live in a world where men have an equal amount of power with respect to reproductive rights and parenthood. We cannot expect to improve the upbringing of our children and restore the nuclear family, which is the basis of civilisation by the way, without recognising the extreme gender inequality that exists with respect to reproduction and parental rights. It is not just men like myself that think things need to be changed, some women are also coming forward and calling for reform. Please have a read of this brilliant article linked here, written by fellow Hubber Ambercita04 for one such example. We need to make changes for the benefit of men, for women, for children and for the sake of future society.

I will not become a father for the sake of my health and well-being and for the sake of a society which is falling apart because of enforced fatherlessness. I would also like to spare the as yet unborn, from the trauma and negative impact of being raised in a world without a father. Instead I will devote my time and energy on advocating for men’s rights, until society wakes up and realises that men are not going to support a society that does not respect or support them. No amount of shaming, guilt trips or mockery is going to suddenly change men’s minds. You want men to father children and have families? Then start respecting masculinity, men’s reproductive rights and fatherhood. It is pretty simple.

Now I will end this article by asking the reader to perform a simple thought exercise. Let’s reverse the genders for a moment. Imagine if we lived in a society in which men had a monopoly on reproductive rights and a heavy bias in their favour in family court, in which men got primary or sole custody most of the time. Imagine if men decided whether or not women became mothers, with or without the women’s consent. Imagine if men used the family court system to financially exploit women, alienate women from their own children and even imprison women who did not earn enough of an income to pay exorbitant alimony and child support payments to their ex-husbands. Imagine if men lied to women about who the mother was and made women mother and raise children, when they were not the biological mother. Imagine if men made women pay child support for children that were not even theirs. Imagine if adult men raped girls and then forced them to pay child support once they became adults. Could you imagine the shear outrage if women were put in men’s place? The feminist temper tantrum would last for centuries! Yet suddenly when we talk about men, the denigration of fatherhood in our society and men’s lack of reproductive rights and choices, it does not even register on people’s minds. When we talk about men as fathers, it is mocked in the culture and somehow made into a lesser station than motherhood and is disposable on the whim of women in family court.

That thought experiment shows you just how little society thinks of about men and fathers and that is precisely why I and so many other young men are now boycotting marriage and fatherhood. The reality is the costs and risks of fatherhood and marriage for men in modern times, substantially outweighs the benefits and opportunities. Men are weighing these things up and finding that fatherhood and marriage in modernity, are no longer worth the investment. If some women want to complain about men opting out of the fatherhood and marriage track, then perhaps they might want to put themselves in men’s shoes for a change.

How about walking a mile in men’s shoes and turning that finger pointing and shaming inward, with some much needed introspection and personal accountability.

It is time for a long overdue reality check!