The Double Standard of Reproductive Responsibility

I saw a TikTok recently that featured a woman showing a series of text messages from a man who is seemingly the father of her child. The messages were very heartbreaking to read, in summation he was telling her to go with "her" baby and leave him alone because he told her he didn't want the child. What was more heartbreaking was opening the comments and most of them defending him for abandoning this woman who is carrying or has carried his child. The first comment stated "Hot take: If he told you he didn't wanna be involved and you proceed then you're on your own". What's even more shocking and infuriating is this comment was written by what appears to be a woman. At the time of writing this, the comment has over 28,000 likes. Another comment asked "Why do you keep texting him?". This comment at the time of writing this has over 44,000 likes and was also written by what appears to be a woman. The original TikTok has about 82,500 likes. This signifies that over half of the persons who liked the TikTok also liked the comment. Society seems to be setting a very dangerous precedent for reproductive responsibility.

If parents can be prosecuted and jailed when their child is seriously harmed because of proven negligence, then why should a father be exempt from criminal liability when he knowingly and seriously abandons an existing child who is dependent upon him? Once a child exists, parental responsibility is no longer simply a matter of personal preference, it is an obligation owed to the child.

A man telling a woman who he willingly slept with and impregnated that he does not want a child with her, after he has impregnated her, is absolutely unacceptable and should attract some form of punishment deter these inhumane behaviors. However, criminalizing abandonment is a much more complicated feat than establishing child-support obligations in society. Not to mention that putting an impoverished father in jail doesn't necessarily make the child or mother better off. 

If he was not forced, coerced or sexual assaulted, then he should not be given the opportunity to opt out of being held accountable. He does not get to tell her after the fact that he does not want the child. It also does not absolve him of his paternal duties to his child. A person cannot and should not engage in the only act that creates children and then when those children are created, they place the blame on the other person and back out of the situation. Even if the father were to take responsibility like he is supposed to and support the child financially, that still should not be seen as good enough in the eyes of society because money cannot raise children by itself. Children are raised with direct involvement of a community in which money is only a fraction of the puzzle.

The other talking point of men impregnating women, telling them to have an abortion and when the woman refuses he uses that to absolve himself of paternal responsibility is also a practice that needs to be criminalized. A woman should not be pressured or coerced into putting her body through something as life-changing and dangerous as an abortion because a man does not want to stand up to his responsibilities. Not every woman believes in the practice of abortion. Once a child is conceived, responsibility cannot become optional for either parent simply because one of them changes their mind about parenthood or their feelings change about the other parent. There is also a case of women being blamed for having children with married men and somehow the woman should bear the brunt of the blame for that. As if the man who is married was not aware that he is married and tethered to another woman before he engaged in sexual activities outside of his marriage.

It is also very ironic that in many countries a woman can and will be prosecuted for getting an abortion but there is no law against men abandoning their children after willingly creating them and perpetuating the cycle of broken homes. All in all this conversation simply boils down to whether a responsibility can be voluntarily discarded after an irreversible consequence occurs between two consenting individuals.

The link to the TikTok is as follows:

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS4mtogwt/