The Male Abortion: The Putative Father 's Right to Terminate His Interests In and Obligations to the Unborn Child

dreadandmalice · 2026-03-16T00:09:43+00:00

This has been the standard for forever in the Netherlands where I live. Here you do not become the father unless you voluntarily tell the city you want to recognize the child as yours.

McIntosh812 · 2026-03-15T22:10:28+00:00

While there are clear positives to this concept, it would eventually become a bureaucratic mess

Mr_Richard_Parker · 2026-03-16T17:23:02+00:00

Right because the fertility crisis is not bad enough. End hookup culture. Get people married off in early 20s. Make divorce hard.

akmvb21 · 2026-03-16T00:22:07+00:00

Hard disagree, but I’m pro-life so I don’t believe that women have that right either

Future-Stretch-401 · 2026-03-16T06:50:34+00:00

I’m not sure how many people are actually going to read the whole paper rather than just respond to the title. Some good points are made, so I’ll try to summarize what seems clearly correct versus what remains questionable.

1) There is an important issue not addressed here. There is a third party to this issue, not just the parents. If the public is to incur costs in supporting the child then there is an interest in balancing the rights of not just the two parents but also the rights of the men (and women) who‘s taxes will be used. However little obligation the father might have it is in almost every case greater than that of those that are not the father. This is the justification for government involvement, to ensure that responsible parties pay child support before burdening others.

2) The concept that marriage binds the father to his parental obligations seems logical, provided his access to proof by testing is guaranteed. The issue of the husband not being the father doesn’t seem to be addressed.

3) I agree also that in cases of statutory rape the father should be able to terminate his parental rights, since he clearly could not consent. This brings up other situations in which the father is deceived into conception, which I’ll discuss in the next point.

4) I don’t think you should be able to excuse yourself from all consequences just by telling the woman you won’t be responsible for any future conception. Accidents happen and if you want to mitigate that risk you need to find an acceptable way to do that; like buying insurance. If you don’t insure yourself you have to be responsible for the consequences just as in any other area of life. Reasonable exceptions would be in the case the mother behaved in a fraudulent or reckless way (lying about birth control for example).

5) Similarly offering to pay for an abortion is not a reasonable or moral alternative to parental responsibility. This is no different than forcing a woman to have an abortion. You can’t buy your way out of responsibility at a massive discount (actually no real cost since the abortion would be free to low income women).

6). I do agree that women should be able to enter into binding agreements to accept full parental responsibility, and that judges should only have the right to nullify such an agreement if it can be proven that the woman was incapable of understanding the agreement.

The two points where I have a major disagreement with the proposal are I think ones where no US court could possibly uphold them, and there is no chance that any constitutional amendment could be passed.

benevolentwalrus · 2026-03-16T12:36:00+00:00

This only works if women have unrestricted access to abortions (which they should)

Title	The Male Abortion: The Putative Father 's Right to Terminate His Interests In and Obligations to the Unborn Child
Author	Rare-Discipline3774
Upvotes	156
Comments	17
Date	March 15, 2026 9:03 PM UTC (4 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1rupqtt/the_male_abortion_the_putative_father_s_right_to/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/the-male-abortion-the-putative-father-s-right-to.1575586 https://theredarchive.com/post/1575586

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