Do Men Have A Right To Choose By Elizabeth Brake Summary
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In the journal Fatherhood and Child Support: Do Men Have a Right to Choose, Elizabeth Brake seeks to argue that men who “impregnate women unintentionally…having taken preventative measures, do not owe child support to their children as a matter of justice.”(pg. 55 P.1) She does neither discuss cases where there was reckless or intentional procreation, only cases where it seems like the non-resident out of wedlock fathers did everything in their power to not impregnate the woman.
Brake argues this by referring to the same principles of responsibility that have been used to defend abortions; specifically those in Judith Jarvis Thomson’s paper. For instance, if women’s partial responsibility does not obligate them to support a fetus through the use of their bodies, then men’s partial responsibility for pregnancy does not obligate them to support the resulting child. (pg. 56, P. 2)…show more content… It may become unfair when a man used contraceptives, disagreed with the mother’s decision to bear the child, and removes himself from the proceedings. But does the man still hold casual responsibility for the fetus’ existence? I think he does. Brake gives an example that a man should be held liable in the same way a cautious driver is held liable for running over a pedestrian. No matter how cautious the driver was he still ran over the pedestrian and is now responsible for the pedestrian’s medical expenses that resulted from the accident. Key word: accident. In the cases Brake examines, the pregnancy was a result of contraceptive failure and could be labeled as an accident. Nonetheless, the man is still partially responsible for impregnating the woman but NOT for bringing the fetus into existence, if that makes