And there is a logical reason for the discrepancy. Most woman who really truly DON'T want a child have MORE options to them than do their male partners. If a man does NOT want to become a father, once conception occurs, he has no choice in the matter. A woman, however, who is truly not "on-board" with the idea of getting pregnant (at that time, with that partner) will be:
a. MORE proactive in her reproductive decisions, including skipping casual sex, skipping sex during at-risk times of her cycle, insisting her partner use a condom, and also using her own birth control. Frankly, I have many professional woman friends, and all got through long single years, some more than a decade past HS or more, without any accidental pregnancies.
b. Adoption (and abortion) are options that no man can exercise for her. If she is truly against the pregnancy, and her partner also not ready to parent at that point, certainly adoption is a viable alternative. Any woman who is against the idea, was likely never truly negative about the idea of having the baby in the first place, whereas her partner may still be. And there are too many young woman who actually SEEK a pregnancy, without giving a flying **** whether the father wants this at all.
Personally, I think more babies should be created by choice (of BOTH partners) rather than chance. It IS possible to NOT have so many accidental pregnancies occurring. If both use birth control the odds are very low of failure. Even lower if one skips such encounters with partnersto whom they are not "committed".
And yes, because woman should have a more vested interest in what happens to their own bodies, and in when they have children and with whom (it is the single most important choice we make for our future children) we SHOULD be the contraceptively MORE proactive partner. I certainly would NEVER leave the decision of birth control or risk of exposure to STDs up to my partner. Any more than I'd let him decide if I should protect myself by wearing a seat belt, or a helmet when biking. As the person potentially most affected by failure to protect, it is MY responsibility to make sure decisions that greatly reduce risk are enforced.
Then, once the child is born outside a relationship, there are all sorts of legal barriers to the father which impact his bonding process and interfere with him having a normal father/child relationship. A father cannot start bonding during pregnancy in the way a woman can, he needs to experience of parenting to develope the same bond the mother may. And we have all sorts of laws that cut him out of the normal process of parenting his infant.
NO woman who did not actually adopt a child has EVER been made to pay CS for a child not biologically hers, but we force men to pay for kids after their wives cheated that are not theirs. Yet if a man discoveres later he was lied to about being the bioparent , we financially reward the person who lied, rather than then making the actual biodad the financially responsible party because we CAN, not because it's right. We do no such thing to women, only men.
