If you are prevented from achieving what will make you happy, because of a problematic legal precedent or societal issue, you should absolutely advocate for the necessary systemic changes. In the meantime, you should take it upon yourself to curb your risk. You will probably never be able to decrease your risk to zero. However, statistics do not take into account choices.

A lot of young people today are reluctant to get married and have children. Many young people today do not want to have sex. This is partially because of child support and alimony.

Alimony is a problem. If the lower earner initiated the divorce, the higher earner can be forced to pay monetary support to their ex-spouse, even though the higher earner never wanted the divorce.

Child support is also a problem. If a woman gets pregnant, the father wants the mother to abort and she gives birth against his wishes, the mother can take the father to court and demand child support. If the mother gives the child up for adoption, the father could get custody of the child and demand child support from the mother. This is particularly problematic with the overturn of Roe v Wade, as now a lot of states are enacting abortion bans.

What needs to be done about alimony? This is simple, abolish alimony.

What about child support? Here it gets a little more complicated. Roe v Wade should be codified to protect women’s abortion rights. Child support laws should be rewritten so that you are only forced to pay child support if you choose to be in your child’s life. Once the child is born, the mother can sign her name on the birth certificate if she wants to raise the child. The father can take the issue to court and demand custody of the child if that is what he wants. If the mother wants the father to be in the child’s life, there is no need to take the issue to court in the first place. If the father wants nothing to do with the child, he can sign some paperwork stating that. When he does this, he surrenders his right to sue for custody. If the mother would rather not be responsible for the child, she can give the child up for adoption. If the father wants the child, he is first in line for custody. However, because the mother never wanted the child in the first place, she is not responsible for child support.

Until the government makes the systemic changes that need to be made, we need to take it upon ourselves to do what we can to avoid falling victim to the issue. Here is what you need to do.

How to avoid alimony.

Get a prenuptial agreement. Make sure the agreement specifies that no alimony would be paid in the event of a divorce. Before you get married, talk to a lawyer and make sure that there is absolutely no way that the prenuptial agreement can be voided.

Believe it or not, there are ways for a prenup to be voided. Talk to a lawyer and make sure none of those apply to your situation.

How to avoid child support.

There are two different versions of this issue, one where you never want to be responsible for a child at all ever under any circumstances and one where you might want to be a parent, but not now. With the latter it could be that it is an inconvenient time or it could be that you have not yet found the right person.

If you never want to have children, the solution is to undergo a vasectomy or tubal ligation surgery.

If you might want to be a parent someday, but that day is not today, here is where it gets a little more complicated. This is what you need to do;

First, do not have casual sex. Take the traditional approach of getting to know someone before having sex. This might be a radical stance, but I believe that anyone, who intends to have casual sex, should undergo permanent sterilisation. Here is why I believe that. Humans (especially females) naturally connect sex and love. That is primarily (though not exclusively) because we understand that sex carries with it the possibility of procreation. Everyone has this instinct, but the reason why females are particularly inclined to think this way is because they are the ones who carry the babies.

Second, discuss your opinions about reproductive rights with someone relatively early in the relationship.

Discussing politics, especially with someone who you have not known very long, can be awkward. However, it is what I would recommend. The other person may have certain values that conflict with your intended lifestyle or vice versa. If you have a gay friend and you are looking for someone who would be your date to the gay friend’s wedding, then it would pose an issue if the other person is homophobic. If you smoke marijuana, you likely would not want a partner who believes that possession of marijuana should be illegal. If you want to consent to sex without consenting to parenthood, you would likely want a lover who is in favour of your right to do that.

You do not necessarily need to have that conversation on the first date, but you definitely want to talk about it before you have sex.

Build into the discussion a little. Say something like this;

To me, it is important that a partner hold the same values as me. Some of these values (a lot of these values) are connected to politics in some way. Would you mind if I discussed some of those values to see if we are compatible? I am all about equal rights. In my view, homosexuals should be allowed to marry and adopt. Trans women should be allowed in women’s restrooms.

After having that discussion, get to the topic of reproductive rights, a slightly touchier issue.

You tell the other person that you are in favour of the right to opt out of parenthood. That means that a woman should be able to abort an unwanted pregnancy, and also if a woman chooses to remain pregnant, the man should not be financially responsible for the child if he does not want to be. You tell her that.

If you are on a date with a good woman, who supports equal rights for all, she will agree with you that it is completely unfair to let women opt out of parenthood while men are afforded no such right.

If, however, you are on a date with a feminazi who views reproductive rights as a female privilege, then she will look at you like you have 15 heads and she will scream at you about what a bad idea that is. That is the time to cut and run.

This advice is important for women too. Before you have sex with a man, talk to him about what you would do if a pregnancy resulted from the sex. If you are not ready to be a mother and you would abort, tell him that you would abort. If you are not willing to abort and do not want to have sex with him unless he would support the child, then tell him that. If he says that he disagrees with your intended course of action, do not have sex with him. If you would keep the baby in the event that you got pregnant and he says that he would want you to abort, then do not have sex with him. If you would abort in the event that you got pregnant and he says that he is anti-abortion, then do not have sex with him. If you feel that he should pay for half the cost of the abortion and he says that he is unwilling to do that, then do not have sex with him.

It is a well known fact that men think about sex more than women do. However, that does not mean that it is all a man wants from a woman. Besides, if you tell a man that your desired course of action, in the event that you were to get pregnant with his baby, differs from what he would want you to do, that is almost guaranteed to make a man stop thinking about having sex with you.

Discussing your values with someone before you have sex can be a great way to figure out if someone is narcissistic. Sadly, there are a few masters of disguise out there, but they are the exception. Most narcissists wear their pompous attitude on their sleeve, because they are proud of it.

Report being raped. You can be forced to support a child financially, even if the pregnancy resulted from rape. There have been reported instances where women have raped men, gotten themselves pregnant and sued the men for child support. There have been reported instances where male rapists have successfully sued for custody. In most cases, that I have heard of, the court ruled that the victim had to pay child support and/or share custody of the child with the rapist, because the rape was not reported in a timely manner. If you report the rape in a timely manner, that might male a difference, I am not sure what legal precedent states. Also, this increases the chances that the rapist will go to prison. Even if filing the report does not result in an arrest, filing the report has other benefits. This gives the police helpful information to use when conducting future investigations. The realisation that the police are onto them might deter them from committing a crime in the future.

It is not fair that you should have to do this. In a perfect world…

  • Everyone would be able to opt out of financial responsibility to an unwanted child.
  • If a woman got pregnant and chose life despite the father wanting her to abort, the financial obligation would fall on the shoulders of the person who chose to give birth.
  • If a woman gave the child up for adoption and the father got custody, the mother would not have to support the child financially since she did not want the child.
  • All of this would apply, even if the pregnancy resulted from consensual sex.

However, if you sit around and wait for society to change, you may be old if not dead by the time the social progress that needs to be made has been made. If you access the risk, figure out what you need to do to curb your risk and you go ahead and do what you want to do, despite society trying to prevent you from doing so, you increase the chances that the system will change positively. If you take the course of action recommended above, you will inspire others to act the same way. If others act the same way, they are likely to think with your mindset. If others think with your mindset, they will likely vote the same way that you vote and advocate for the same things that you advocate for. What better way to affect society for the better than leading by example?