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Friday, August 04, 2006
Men's Rights Denied Again
The case some were calling the "Roe v. Wade for men" has been heard and decided in the lower court. No surprise here: the man lost. I must say, this guy really wasn't the best test case to create some of the limited rights I argue for here.
Hat-tip: Reader Bart Motes via Alas. I guess now that I've just had a baby of my own, I'm not following the news cycle very carefully. I missed this story by a few days.
Posted by Ethan Leib on August 4, 2006 at 11:06 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
Really interesting case. I think the plaintiff may have erred in phrasing his position in terms of Roe, though. I've always understood that case as animated by a refusal to permit the state to require people to undergo involuntary invasions of their bodies. Cf. Rochin v. CA. That's not really what's going on here. What paternity statutes like this do is raise (for men) the costs associated with sex. The law, as interpreted by courts requires men to bear the prospective burdens of raising a child to majority any time they have sex, regardless of the precautions they take to avoid pregnancy.
So this seems to me more like an Eisenstadt/Griswold case, where the concern was that laws banning the distribution of birth control impermissibly burdened marital rights--or, more bluntly, the costs associated with having sex. Same with paternity laws. If courts tell men that even having oral sex might result in paternal liability (as I believe one court actually did hold), then it's not implausible to imagine that men might become far more reluctant to have sex in circumstances where they don't want to become a father.
It's not clear to me whether this is an interest courts would want to recognize, especially as a constitutional matter. The EDMI judge who decided Dubay likely wouldn't give it any weight. There's an almost punitive tone about the opinion, as though the judge thinks any guy who sleeps with a woman without wanting to have kids deserves the financial burden and social humiliation of a paternity suit. But in any event, it seems to me more a matter of sexual/intimate association rights and not bodily integrity.
Posted by: Dave | Aug 4, 2006 3:31:00 PM
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