Sadly, this article (“Who’s the Daddy?” by Melanie McDonagh) lurks behind the London Spectator’s paywall. That’s a shame, because in its own quite astoundingly malevolent way, it’s not without interest. The author’s complaint? That DNA tests now allow men to know whether they are truly the fathers of the children that they are being asked to provide for. I would have thought that this was a good thing. Ms. McDonagh does not.
DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science, a change in the balance of power between the sexes that we’ve hardly come to terms with. And that holds true even though many women have the economic potential to provide for their children themselves…Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them. The point is that paternity was ambiguous and it was effectively up to the mother to name her child’s father, or not… Many men have, of course, ended up raising children who were not genetically their own, but really, does it matter…in making paternity conditional on a test rather than the say-so of the mother, it has removed from women a powerful instrument of choice.
Words fail me.
Me too. I can't see why mens' rights are always, always, always inferior to womens' - simply because a child is involved. Why not offer full disclosure to the "catch" and see if he's willing to show his true quality and agree to raise a non-related child? Perhaps, because there is no such man who would accept the offer. And the author knows it. Unbelievable what passes for critical thinking in the ol' Blighty these days...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThink of the poor child. Mother consciously makes the choice to delude the child's knowing their true father. And the true father knowing they have a child.
DNA test sounds like a savior to me.
SO
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFeminists have long butted heads with reality -- in insisting that promiscuity didn't hurt women, that intimacy wouldn't lead to babies, that men's respect would increase if they played randy and callous, that motherhood was about empowerment and creativity.
This is just one more page in the guide book to their alternate universe. Poor, poor children born into such circumstances.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy do liberals always seem to want to make things about power rather than what is true and just?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI suppose the Magna Carta removed from King John a powerful instrument of choice, too.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science"...
Clearly, then, feminism is anti-science.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf paternity testing is anti-feminist, then feminism is about power for women over men, not about equality.
This is probably not a shock for readers at NRO. ;)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDunderheaded. That's what Ms. McDonagh is, dunderheaded. A powerful instrument of choice? That's some euphemism for lying.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs a feminist Ms McDonagh knows that all men are guilty regardless of the DNA results. Since all men are guilty of being men why should the mother not get to choose which guilty man she wants to burden with the task of helping to raise her child.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf a woman can force a man to financially support a child that is not his, then why can't a man force a woman to raise a child that is not hers?
If a man ends up with a child (adoption, divorce, etc), what's to say he can't just randomly select a woman he finds suitable to provide most of the child care for his child?
Isn't that the same as what this moron is proposing?
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