- Gabrielle Blair is a New York Times bestselling author.
- The following is an adapted excerpt from her book “Ejaculate Responsibly.”
- She says men can walk away from an unwanted pregnancy that’s a result of irresponsible ejaculation.
The following is an adapted excerpt from Gabrielle Blair’s book “Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion.”
If a man ejaculates irresponsibly and causes an unwanted pregnancy, he faces zero consequences. He can walk away at any time, and our current culture doesn’t really do much — or anything? — to discourage it.
It’s all on the woman
If the woman wants to take Plan B to prevent a pregnancy, it’s on the woman to procure it and pay for it — from her own funds, or by asking for money from someone else.
If the woman decides to have an abortion, the man may never know he caused an unwanted pregnancy with his irresponsible ejaculation — and it’s still on the woman to make arrangements and pay to get one (again, from her own funds, or by asking for money from someone else — and that’s assuming she can get herself to a state where it is legal).
If the woman decides to raise the baby but doesn’t tell the man, or relinquishes the baby for adoption, he may never know that there’s now a child walking around with 50% of his DNA.
If the woman does tell the man that he caused an unwanted pregnancy and that she’s having the baby, the closest thing to a consequence for him is that he may need to pay child support. But our current child support system is well known to be a joke.
Men are responsible for almost all child support
Men make up 85% of child support providers, and only 43.5% of parents report receiving the full amount of child support due. And an estimated $10 billion in child support payments go uncollected each year. In cases where men won’t pay to support a child, theoretically, women have legal recourse and can force a man to pay child support, but, again, the system makes it extremely hard. It is up to the mother to pay to prove paternity, pay a lawyer, and fight for child support in court.
Keep in mind these court battles are unreasonably hard to manage for someone who just had a baby — a baby whom they are trying to feed and care for. And ultimately, even if she puts in the time and pays the years of legal fees, most women never collect all the money anyway. If she does manage to collect, the average child support order is $400 a month, which is obviously not even close to what it takes to house and clothe and feed and educate a child — to say nothing about the temporal, emotional, and physical costs of raising a child.
Our society is set up to protect men from the consequences of their own actions. Our laws and policies could not be better designed to protect men who abandon the pregnancies they cause.
I had a conversation with a long-time social worker about this, and she listed eight ways that men face no consequences and are not held responsible for their ejaculatory actions.
1) There are no laws that require the father to pay child support without a court order. It’s not automatic.
2) In many states, credit scores are not affected by failure to pay child support.
3) Fathers aren’t fired from their jobs for impregnating a woman.
4) Fathers are not billed for any medical expenses for the pregnancy or the child. In at least two states, fathers can be legally required to pay for at least 50% of pregnancy-related medical costs.Â
5) Fathers don’t have to take unpaid weeks or months off work for pregnancy complications or childbirth.
6) Fathers don’t lose a cent in wages for impregnating a woman.
7) Fathers aren’t generally required to pay any funeral expenses for a deceased child. At least two states consider it the responsibility of both parents to pay.
8) If fathers choose to walk out at any point — before or after the child is born — there are no societal consequences for abandoning the child.
There are little to no repercussions for skipping out. So, many men keep going along, causing unwanted pregnancies with irresponsible ejaculations and never giving it a thought. When the topic of abortion comes up, they might think: Abortion makes me uncomfortable. Women should not choose abortion. And they never once consider the man who caused the unwanted pregnancy.
Excerpted from “Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion” by Gabrielle Blair. Workman Publishing © 2022.
