Pregnancy is not at all unequal.

Women carry more of the inconvenience of pregnancy, yet they also carry all of the control over when and whether they get pregnant.

What’s unequal is when we are unfair to men and hold them to double standards to compensate women for a “discrimination” that turns out to not be discrimination at all, but merely envy: it is not a man’s job to make it up to a woman for the fact that she wishes she had his biology instead of the biology she’s got.

Pregnancy is a blessing, not a curse. If you don’t want this particular blessing, then don’t get pregnant.

You do have some valid points, but I think you yourself admit in your last comment that pregnancy itself is unequal. What you describe later on is unplanned parenthood which is not exactly the same thing as unplanned pregnancy.

In terms of the ‘economics of sex’, a man may indeed have to worry about a woman coming to him with news of a pregnancy as an unplanned ‘cost’ of having sex. But ultimately there are men who can and have had lots of random sex fathering children they never even know about. Hence the joke when someone asks if you have any kids you may slyly say “none that I know about”. This is a joke that works for men because it has a core of honesty about it. When a woman says it, though, its pure farce because everyone knows a woman could never mother kids without knowing about it unless she was in a deep coma.

Don’t try to take away their perceptions. Being thrust into the role of father, with all its expectations and demands, is a life-changing event.

To be thrust into this role when one does not want it, is in some ways not as awful as it is for the woman – because it’s not their body that will change, so they at least do not have that.

But in some ways it’s worse, because our expectations toward what they’re “supposed” to feel and how they’re expected to behave are thoroughly unreasonable.

We currently expect them to put aside all of their own true feelings to make a number one priority of “being supportive” – and they’re supposed to be okay with having no input whatsoever into how the fate of this newly formed family is to be decided. Their role is supposed to merely be to “support” the woman in whatever she decides.

So, for all that we angst over the poor girl who might have wanted to go to college or have a career, we get outright nasty if a boy even suggests he might have had plans that don’t include a kid. “You should have thought of that,” we shriek, before we turn our attention back to the poor innocent woman who is entirely victimized by…her own little mistake (oops – I didn’t think skipping one … well, no it was three … I didn’t think skipping a couple of days would really matter….….)

The days when women could play the victim sympathetically have been over for a decade. We must lose the farce, so that we can adjust and balance realistic, fair gender roles, responsible behavior, and well-cared-for children.

Men don’t experience unplanned pregnancies. You complain that other people’s problem is insisting that men and women aren’t different yet you seem to glide over the most basic, most undeniable difference between men and women…women get pregnant and men don’t.

I only think that it needs to be brought in line with what we expect of women: if they get choice, let men have choice; if men are expected to take responsibility, then force women to accept responsibility too. The double standard is a problem.

You are aware that women can and do pay child support? If you are talking about the non-monetary responsibilities of parenthood, well most single mothers do not fight fathers who are seeking to be part of their children’s lives. Murphey Brown did not ‘trick’ some man into getting her pregnant and then slam the door in his face when he wanted to act as a father. Yet you base all your ire on the woman. Why carp about a woman being ‘entitled’ to welfare monies when she can’t support her child? Why should a man be entitled to put a baby on the welfare or charity rolls?

I am sorry if I gave the impression of a double standard.

I believe that the most important principle is that rights and responsibilities be in balance.

I don’t care which way we go as far as granting men the right to choose whether they have a “choice” as to whether they wish to keep an unplanned pregnancy experience – I only think that it needs to be brought in line with what we expect of women: if they get choice, let men have choice; if men are expected to take responsibility, then force women to accept responsibility too. The double standard is a problem.

I also believe we need to stop subsidizing single parents. We do need to provide assistance as charity – with the understanding that we are keeping them from starvation because it would be inhumane to let them truly accept the full consequences of what they’ve wrought – but whatever help we give them, it needs to be clearly marked as charity, not entitlement, and we need to stop prioritizing our scarce economic resources such that those who misbehave get first dibs on the funds, while those who work hard and play by the rules get no assistance with education or other legitimate goals.

There is no reason for anyone to be pregnant outside of wedlock.

Today we have birth control options that women could only dream of in 1980.

It remains as true as it ever was: if a man does not marry a woman, it is a clear and unambiguous sign that he is not interested in co-parenting a baby together with that woman.

As for the rest, you are welcome to believe what you want to believe. Denial does serve a psychological purpose, I’m told.

As for the cost really being constant, well it isn’t. Don’t cry for Bristol Palin, she doesn’t have it that tough. Also don’t cry for Madonna who I believe has several kids by birth and adoption but isn’t married. They are perfectly fine.

And relatively speaking single parenthood today is nothing like it used to be. The Persian woman from 25BC who was a single parent was likely destined for a quick death as was her child (forced marriage, possible slavery and other bad fates were less pessismitic expectations). The increased risk of mental illness (aka ‘depression’, ‘low self esteem’) or poverty (i.e. 1/5 the Xbox games that Bristol gets) simply demonstrate the fact that the costs have in fact decreased. This is why you draw in world data when most of the world looks absolutely nothing like a developed nation and with something like 1+Billion living on $1 a day or so much of the world looks more like Persia in 25BC than America.

I don’t mean to make light of the problems of single parenthood in developed countries but the price is quite relative, not absolute. You talk about the lower odds children with both parents have of starving in the developing world but at the same time many who live dodging starvation would happily change places with a people who will never starve but may have a higher risk of ‘mental illness’. Poor in America trumps a super stable family in much of the developing world (unless your family also happens to, say, be running the country).

You know most activists, even on the left, have (quietly) admitted that Quayle was right about Murphy Brown.

The reality is that single parenthood is very, very bad for children, by all measures, and according to all but the most biased studies.

Children raised without a father in the home are more at risk for substance abuse, poverty, school dropout, crime, and mental illness.

Even in America, single parenthood is highly correlated with pathology and poverty, even though we heavily subsidize single parents.

Which is BTW what I meant when I said the costs remain the same, even if these costs are redistributed: for every single parent in the public high school who gets extra assistance, there’s that much less money available for other social needs, like education or tutoring for low income kids, or funding the local library.

The real “Murphy Brown” myth is the myth that single parents are or can be wealthy professional women who can and do work having a baby into their regular schedule without any hardship. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of single mothers are nothing like that comforting stereotype.

Outside of isolated pockets where nobody is allowed to starve, the children of single parents are still far more likely to live in poverty and die prematurely than children with intact families.

If you doubt this, the international NPO/World Bank community has lots of free information on poverty available.