When does a prospective dad's responsibility for a baby kick in? After the baby is born or before? According to law professor Shari Motro, a man should become financially accountable for that new life as soon as the seed is planted, as it were.
In the New York Times article, Motro claimed prospective dads should be liable to pay preglimony even when they aren't married to the impregnated woman. It's hoped that such accountability would stop many men from skipping town when they discover that the pregnancy stick showed a positive result.
Preglimony would force prospective dads (whose paternity can be established in vitro) to step up to the plate, and foot the bill for things like pregnancy-related birthing classes, loss of income and the cost of an abortion, should events go that way.
But not everyone is a fan of Motro's ideals.
"Once you admit that the father is responsible to a woman carrying his fetus, you are halfway, at least in an imaginative sphere, to admitting that the fetus is a ‘life’," wrote Katie Roiphe in Slate.
True enough. If a man has financial responsibility to the fetus obviates the whole concept of the fetus being within a woman's sphere of control. He would then have the right to influence her decision whether to keep or terminate the pregnancy.
Motro argues that new legislation would cease to make pregnancy just a "woman's problem."
Is preglimony a sensible idea or would it stymie a woman's freedom to choose?
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