Should a man be obligated to pay child support if he doesn't want the child?

As soon as the pregnancy is detected, the male should be required to either consent to paying for the child or decline to pay for the child. It should also be an option that the man can decline to pay for any future children prior to the pregnancy.

That way, irresponsible women will not be able to use helpless children as financial hostages against men and society at large. You can always abort or give the child up for adoption (and if you can't because of some law or another, your highest priority should be changing that law, moving, or accept that that option has been denied to you by forces outside your control). I'm okay with the man being forced to pay for it if the child is a byproduct of his committed rape but I don't see a convicted rapist having much money for that anyway.

And I know my viewpoint angers a lot of people - especially women, but all I'm doing is holding women to as high a standard of responsibility as men. Some women like fooling around with deadbeats and as soon as the negative consequences of that show up - they immediately play the victim and demand everyone else bail them out. No....you're not a victim. You were irresponsible and the child has to pay the price for your irresponsibility.

I'm all for taking responsibility for your actions, but that's too simple a question to get valid responses from.

A man and women are 50% responsible for creating a child, but currently in society, it is not an equal decision, and it depends on where you live and mainly comes down to money. (Men currently have more decision power in less than democratic societies {i.e, they still own women}, but have less decision power in more democratic ones, barring wealth.) I think it should be equal for everyone all the time. No more treating women as chattel, but no debtors prison for child support either.

But go ahead and apply the societal differences (that are real world examples) to all the following more involved questions. What about rape? Incest? Affairs? What about if an older woman gets pregnant from a minor boy? What if a DNA example is not determined until after the child is a few years old? (Divorce, Adultery, Adoption, or as it has happened in real life, fathers have been forced to pay or even chosen to pay even though the child is not genetically related.) What if the pregnancy prevention methods didn't work (I'm assuming both consenting adults engaging in sexual activity didn't want a pregnancy and were actively using one or more forms of birth control) and afterwards the woman decides that she wants to keep the child, but the man doesn't, or even can't afford it? What if that situation is reversed?

What if the participants are not actually knowledgeable about sex, or birth control? That happens in even modern societies.

There are too many real world variables for this simple question to accurately answer it in a poll, and none of them have simple answers.

This isn’t a simple yes or no, but in general when a man and a woman have sex, there is always a chance of pregnancy. If you choose to have sex with someone, then you must accept that a pregnancy may occur and you have to take responsibility for that action. Since, as a man, it’s not his body going through the changes it’s up to the woman to decide to keep the baby or not. Now if a man was raped, (it has happened) should he be responsible? Then what if the man wants the baby and the woman doesn’t should she be forced to continue the pregnancy? You see it not that easy.

If we're talking about two consenting adults having sex, they both bear a responsibility to the child. The child is the innocent party in all this who did not get to choose who his or her parents were going to be. We all know that condoms break and birth control pills sometimes don't work, and while both of those things reduce the chances of pregnancy, we all know that they are not 100%, and any act of sex could result in a pregnancy. This is why I personally believe that sex should only occur in a committed relationship where both parties are open to having children. If that's not the case, a man should go into the situation understanding that he doesn't get to tell a woman to have an abortion and that if he's going to have sex he better be prepared at the absolute minimum to feed, clothe, and shelter any child that results from such a sexual union. Furthermore, we as a society should hold him responsible for doing so, and stop having this double standard where women need to "be careful" while men can just run away from our responsibilities. Sex is a reproductive act. If you don't want children, and aren't willing to accept the inherent risk of having sex, don't perform reproductive acts.

Maybe we should handle it like car insurance. You can't go into a singles bar/join Match.com/etc., etc. unless you can show proof of Daddy insurance or Mommy insurance as the case may be. If you have an "accident" because you were drinking, you get your license to have sex taken away (maybe you get a big ugly stamp on your forehead and an ankle monitor or something). A "hit and run" (have sex with her and then disappear before she wakes up) will get you jail time if you've impregnated her, followed by fines and restitution. Maybe that would make the most sense if people are going to continue to have sex in non-committed relationships.

A man should practice safe sex if he does not want a child. If it can be proven that the woman inseminated herself against his will, he should not have to pay child support.

So long as a man has voluntarily had sex then yes, he is morally responsible for the resulting child - if one occurs. Even if he has used every form of birth control aside from a vasectomy. Now if he can prove he did get snipped before hand and there was no scientific way he could be the father - then no.

CA law - last I checked - gave an alleged father a very short time frame to change the idea that the child was his - ridiculously short enough that in some cases men who have been able to prove genetically that the children were not theirs have still been on the hook for child support until the child reached majority. In most of these cases the man did not even know the woman was pregnant until the state notified him that he was being punished for failure to pay child support b/c the woman left or the couple broke up and he was never informed that a child was on the way.

So there are times and circumstances where the man should be excused from the responsibility of paying child support, but those depend on proving that he is not the father. IF he has dropped his pants then he has taken on the responsibility of paying for the possible kid - all the way through graduate school these days. So guys - please think before you drop your pants....do you really want to get a night of pleasure at the price of 20 years of economic responsibility?

I think if we could drill that idea into teenager's skulls we might have fewer teen pregnancies. ...... maybe...... I hope.....

seriously? would you really have a child and abandon them? even if your not married to the women you had a child with, that's just being an irresponsible human.the only way i can see this working is if the mother wants nothing to do with you but this probably still means you are a terrible person anyway.

No. This would cut down on women whose sole goal by having children is to be supported.

I voted yes, but the same should be for women as well. I have known too many men with outrageous support bills, and my stepdad raised his four children by himself with no aid after his wife walked out on them/moved out of state when the oldest was ~4.