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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think if a man doesn't want a baby he should make it his business to wear a condom

434 replies

JaffaMyCake · 15/07/2013 11:57

A friend of mine has got pregnant off a casual FWB situation. She's ok with this and intends to keep the baby even though she isn't in a relationship with the father.

However the father has gone absolutely ballistic, called her a bitch etc and demands she has an abortion. He's adamant he doesn't want the baby or to pay child support.

The situation regarding contraception is that it was just never discussed and they continually had unprotected sex for about 3 months. He never asked if she was on the pill and she never told him she was.

So AIBU to think if he so adamantly did not want a baby with this woman he should have bloody well used protection, regardless of whether she suggested it or not?

OP posts:
StealthPolarBear · 15/07/2013 20:25

Clouds - do you care about the unfairness of pregnancy on women?
no man has ever died in childbirth. Few 50-something men have stress incontinence. It's not faaaaiiiiiiiirrr! How do we even this out?

revealall · 15/07/2013 20:25

Clouds - It is perfectly easy for men to "waive their rights and responsibility" If they aren't married to you they don't have to be on the birth certificate.
The only recourse for a woman is the CSA which wasn't designed to be a father catching service. You a proper name and date of birth as starters (so a ONS has a fair chance of never needing to bother)

needaholidaynow · 15/07/2013 20:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

StealthPolarBear · 15/07/2013 20:37

And neither is it the women's fault that they either give birth or have an abortion. Nature. Affects both men and women unequally and in different ways. yet the cries are only ever about the unfairness to the poor men.

StealthPolarBear · 15/07/2013 20:38

reveal, what was the CSA actually meant to be?

MyHumpsMyLovelyBabyBumps · 15/07/2013 20:38
Shock ((backs away slowly to FWR))
TheFallenMadonna · 15/07/2013 20:42

My attitude is simply that men should take responsibility for the entirely forseeable consequences of their actions.

You have sex, pregnancy could follow. You choose not to use a condom, that's more likely to happen.

I think most men get that, actually.

foreverondiet · 15/07/2013 20:43

This is a hard one. Of course he should have asked but equally can see why he assumed she was taking pill etc if it wasn't mentioned.

StealthPolarBear · 15/07/2013 20:45

why?? no one has actually answered that?

StealthPolarBear · 15/07/2013 20:46

Could she have safely assumed he'd had the snip?

revealall · 15/07/2013 20:48

Stealth - it was based on the US model as a way of recouping money for the government. Unfortunately that didn't translate well over here but was adopted as it fitted in with a Conservative agenda of penalising feckless fathers in their wallet. So essentially they are a money collection service.

If you can present them with a "father" who is within the system they can take his money. If he is not in the "system" or you don't have information about him he's home free.

Tellingly you can only backdate till the date the CSA find him. So if that's 12 years later then hey ho he doesn't have the responsibilities of a father for the first 12 years.

ApocalypseThen · 15/07/2013 20:49

Or that he wanted her to get pregnant?

The only option that anyone seems to engage seriously with is that his unspoken assumptions were legitimate, the ones she may have had were not and now she should fix it all up for him, all nice and smoothed over.

StealthPolarBear · 15/07/2013 20:49

Oh I see thanks.

TheFallenMadonna · 15/07/2013 20:50

So many women think the default responsibility for contraception lies with the female partner!

Where is individual responsibility now?

SarahAndFuck · 15/07/2013 20:51

Clouds - the point at which a man gets to decide if his child gets born or not is actually the point at which his child gets conceived or not. Which he can control as much as anybody can by having protected sex.

Thereafter, he has no right to what goes on with the woman's body but can take it up again with the courts but NOT through waiving his financial responsibilities to his child.

Nature has made things this way, and yes it is a fantastic thing to be the one that carries and gives birth, but it can also go badly wrong. If I'd been born in another country or another time, pregnancy and childbirth would have killed me. Not everyone comes out of pregnancy well and terminations can be just as risky.

A woman can't waive her risks in the way you think a man should be able to waive his responsibilities.

And if you bring the law into it, you get the nightmare scenarios like the one happening in Texas, where woman might be forced to carry babies so ill that they have no chance of life once born, and where tampons are confiscated. In Texas, if they get their way, they would have let me die.

Do you seriously think that the only men to waive their responsibilities will be these poor tricked innocents that are just waiting for the right woman to have a child with but fell into the trap of some money grabber first?

Or do you think there's the slightest chance that some nasty git will dump his pregnant girlfriends, time after time, while screaming to the courts "It's not fair, she tricked me! Again!"

"And if we can't have equality then we could at least make it fairer by allowing men to waive their rights and responsibilities. Things would still be more in favour of women when it comes to children if we did that, but it would mean that people of both sexes were encouraged to be responsible for their own lives as individuals."

Being held responsible for your own actions doesn't seem to work with some men at the moment does it, so why would they get any better with your get out of fatherhood free card?

It shouldn't come as a surprise to any man to realise that if he has unprotected sex that results in a pregnancy, he may have to face up to his responsibilities to his child, including financially.

Which brings us right back to the point. If he doesn't want to do that, he should not leave the responsibility of contraception to everyone but himself.

I don't understand what you find so difficult or objectionable about that.

IfNotNowThenWhen · 15/07/2013 20:55

They are both idiots. I have been shocked by the fact that the few men I have been sexually involved with in the last 5 years have all wanted to have condom-free sex, and none of them have asked about my contraception.
I have said, when they are clearly wanting to have sex sans condom-"I would love another child, but you do realise that would mean 18 years of child support for you, don't you?
They also don't seem concerned about whether or not I might have HIV/chlamydia/ genital warts/herpes etc etc.
Baffling.

StealthPolarBear · 15/07/2013 20:55

But won't someone think of the men?!

ApocalypseThen · 15/07/2013 20:58

Oh their mothers are preparing them to be self centered and walk away from any responsibility towards their children, so phew! Someone is thinking of the men!

CloudsAndTrees · 15/07/2013 21:01

Clouds - do you care about the unfairness of pregnancy on women?

Not women in this country, no. I think we are lucky to have the amazing experience that is pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. If we get pregnant by mistake and we decide not to take responsibility for that mistake, the law protects us.

Clouds - It is perfectly easy for men to "waive their rights and responsibility" If they aren't married to you they don't have to be on the birth certificate.

Fair point. So does that mean a man can't be chased for money if he is unmarried and hasn't agreed to be on the birth certificate? If so, then that makes me feel a bit better about the whole thing.

yet the cries are only ever about the unfairness to the poor men.

You're kidding right!? You have seen the whole topic that is FWR haven't you? Grin

IfNotNowThenWhen · 15/07/2013 21:02

And everything that DOinmecleaning has said. He had a choice. He chose an unwanted pregnancy.

IfNotNowThenWhen · 15/07/2013 21:05

Clouds, the I was never married to the father of my child, and he is not on the birth cert because registering ds coincided with a family emergency (his).
He has never paid much child support, but if he didn't have to pay any for that reason then his child would be even worse off than he already is.

MyHumpsMyLovelyBabyBumps · 15/07/2013 21:05

Well stealth, tbh I assumed there may have been some massaging of the truth as it had ever occurred to me that men would be so incredibly stupid as to not ask, ever.

They are both idiots. I have been shocked by the fact that the few men I have been sexually involved with in the last 5 years have all wanted to have condom-free sex, and none of them have asked about my contraception

ifnotthensthenwhens post is fucking shocking to me tbh. I can definlty believe there are men willing to go the whole pull out and hope for the best method but it never occurred to me that any would just assume. I find easier to believe that there are people out there (of both sexes) who lie about being on the pill or having vasectomies or poking holes in condoms than those who don't want to have children not asking . Confused Just because someone consents to condomless sex doesn't mean they've consented to you spunking up them. Again I find it amazing that two adults who are old enough to have sex can't discuss this with each other.

GreenSkittles · 15/07/2013 21:06

CloudsAndTrees is female? Oh dear... I hope you don't have daughters.

MrsHoarder · 15/07/2013 21:06

Women get an extra get-out because they have extra risks. Legally you cannot have an abortion in the UK for purely financial reasons, only for reasons of concern about physical and mental illness (which isn't difficult when you consider what pregnancy does to women).

Once a child is born they have an absolute right to support from both their parents even when those parents would rater have fun.

MyHumpsMyLovelyBabyBumps · 15/07/2013 21:07

Fair point. So does that mean a man can't be chased for money if he is unmarried and hasn't agreed to be on the birth certificate? If so, then that makes me feel a bit better about the whole thing

you really are a loon