Who’s the daddy?

John Waters

A few questions for Ms McDonagh:

1. Do women have any "moral obligations" or are these limited to men who happen to draw the short straw when a promiscuous, "choice"-happy female seeks to subject hims to extortion and at the same time deprive the child and the child's true father of their moral right to know one another?

2. Does she have any sons and, if so, does she ever reflect on the logical consequences of her opinions in their future lives?

3. What "God" was A.C. Graying crediting with "knowing" about this stuff?

...

2.

Phil Mac Giolla Bhain

Ms.McDonagh seems to be grieving for a woman's ability to decieve her husband/partner that he may not be the biological father of the child he rears and loves.
Yes Ms. McDonagh it does matter. It matters a lot.

Coastal

Of course, if the whole genetic aspects of parenthood are so insignificant, it seems like the NHS could save some desperately needed cash by scrapping all those wristbands, footprints and the like in maternity wards.

The kids could all be put in cots on an airport-style baggage carousel and just take which ever one comes up next when they're leaving. Sauce for the goose, eh, Mel?

Stu

"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 there was me thinking that feminism was all about equality between the sexes. Seeing as men

"The actor Jude Law recently found himself in just this position, and unhesitatingly and ungallantly demanded a DNA test. "

So, gallantry is taking responsibilty for a womans mistakes? Must we me be martyrs to a womans infidelity?

"Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them."

Why stop there? If lack of involvement in the conception of the child should be no barrier to a woman picking the best man for the job of "father", why limit her choices to the men she has recently slept with? Why not let her just chose any man? So the girl who gets herself knocked up by the drummer from the band can take her pick of the "nice guys" she wouldn't normally deign to sleep with just because they will be better providers?

"You can feel quite as much tenderness for a child you mistakenly think to be yours as for one who is."

The lack logic in this statement is astounding. If you "mistakenly think [the child] to be yours" then of course you will feel tenderness towards them. The point is most men do not want to invest their time and time resources in a child that is not theirs - especially if it effectively robs them from having their own childen at some point.

"Scientific certainty has produced clarity all right, and relieved any number of men of their moral obligations, but at God knows what cost in misery, recrimination and guilt."

What moral obligation does a man have to parent children he did not conceive? Does having sex with a woman consign a man to be morally responsible for anything that happens to her for the rest of her life? If so, I'd like that priviledge extended to men - if I have sex with a woman then she should be responsible for doing my laundry and cooking my meals? Feminism fought for the removal of that kind of obligation but obviously not for men.

"But 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."

What about the choice not to be held accountable for an action that one didn't commit?

I'm amazed that the editor(s) of The Spectator have allowed this article to be published and even more amazed that Melanie MdDonagh got paid for writing this misandrist claptrap.

Salamandyr

At first I wanted to point at this essay as a prime example of the vacuity of modern feminism; but on further reflection, all it really indicates is Melanie McDonagh is a moron.

ertdfg

Ah yes, it's sad that women can't lie, demand support, and cheat men for financial gain. I can see the sorrow.

Since we're pining for the good old days; lets bring back some reason for women to be more honest (since we'll be rewarding them for lying).

Lets bring back the rule by which you can beat your wife/female child, etc. with a stick so long as the stick isn't too large. that might keep the ladies honest.

So, patriarchal society with beatings doled out to ladies who don;'t "know their place" and women who can lie to demand support for their kids from men who they may well know aren't the father. Deal?

Or were you simply looking to enable women to engage in criminal fraud for financial gain without any possible downside?

Let me guess; it's "for the children" that you need the right to commit fraud? Much less the lovely example of a woman who conned two men into each believing they were the father to get paid twice...

Is there any other forms of fraud that should be legalized? Identity-theft perhaps? Or is it just women in these specific cases who should be allowed fraud for profit?

Patrick Brown

Leaving aside the obnoxious sexism and entitlement of the article, are the Spectator's editors aware Ms McDonagh has recycled this from a piece she wrote for The Times last year?

Rocks

Next she needs to defend the "choice" of butchers and grocers to use invalid scales and perhaps the "choice" of people to pass checks with insufficient funds.

Wow just wow.

To quote John Cleese
What an eccentric performance

B Johnson

Ah for the good old days when the police didn't have the unfair advantage of DNA testing in dealing with serial sex offenders. This intrusive test has gone a long ways towards removing from serial offenders a powerful instrument of choice. The choice to go on offending.

BobW

Written by someone who will never doubt who the mother of her child is. The subject doesn't even come up for you.

Finbarrok

Wow. This woman actually thinks it's better to fleece innocent men of child support and to burden them with the guilt and responsibility of children that aren't theirs, and to lie to children about who their fathers are? Because the alternative might inconveniencde women?? I wonder what ms. McDonagh's response would be if this situation was reversed and a man had written an artifcle arguing that women should be deceived because the truth might be awkward for men, but i think I can guess. Words fail me with how repellent I find this article and its author. Vitriolic and vacuous in the extreme. Mcdonagh argues that it has 'removed from women a powerful instrument of choice' and laments this development. Wrong, it has clearly removed from women a powerful instrument of deception, a progression which is to be lauded.

SZ

"Paternity was ambiguous..."

Paternity is only ever ambiguous in the case in which the mother happens to be a prostitute or is promiscuous (what used to be called being a "slut"). By making such a generalising statement, is Ms McDonagh suggesting that all women are prostitutes or sluts?

Ben

Melanie McDonagh argues that since good women have been deceived by bad men, bad women should be allowed to deceive good men.

How vile.

Rip

"moral obligations" ha. This drivel is some sort of practical joke, right? Or just another attempt of feminists to avoid responsibility for their actions. If this is feminism, it's pretty pathetic. All it does is reinforce negative stereotypes that women are incapable of acting responsibly and have no intention of achieving equality.

Will S.

Thus the bankruptcy of modern 'conservatism', when an ostensibly conservative magazine like the Spectator publishes such feminazi drivel as this.

Michael maier

Salamandyr
October 28th, 2010 4:28pm
At first I wanted to point at this essay as a prime example of the vacuity of modern feminism; but on further reflection, all it really indicates is Melanie McDonagh is a moron.

Actually, it looks to be both?

Mikesbo

You're out of your mind.

Do you honestly think men are collectively your servants waiting in line for you to decide who will be given the honor of supporting you and *your* child?

Have you heard of such a thing as consequences, or does that only apply to men? I mean, if it's his child, he needs to pay for it, right? Yet, you may sleep around, have your lover's child, yet *good* is best served by your provider-man, your husband, the cuckold, thinking the child is his? No consequences for you is best.

This is feminism at its shining best, men.

Luke Smith

"Scientific certainty has produced clarity all right, and relieved any number of men of their moral obligations, but at God knows what cost in misery, recrimination and guilt. "

Uh, what moral obligation does a man owe to an ex-wife who has cuckolded him? Frankly, such a faithless woman deserves any "misery, recrimination and guilt" she receives. And, any consequences to the child are all on her head; SHE is to blame for intentionally acting in a way that brings a child into the world without its mother being married to its genetic father.

IMO, paterntiy tests are a good thing. They make women have to finally grow up some and take responsibility for their actions. This is the essence of being an adult, something most men have long understood.

kurt

Glad I'm not her son.

Uncle Sol

Seriously. I wonder how many years of therapy it took to arrive at this conclusion

Devon Lee

I'm afraid I could only accept this scenario, dear author, if all the babies born on a particular day were randomly assigned to a pair of parents. If this doesn't appeal to you, I invite you to consider how a male might feel in the scenario that you outline.

Ram444

This article makes me sick.

Pat H.

What a vile article. Paternity testing should be made mandatory. It would help prevent quite a few very violent divorces that come up when the truth comes out, as it always does.

When feminism is equated to Men v Women instead of helping women bridge the gap to equality it's not really feminism anymore, it's just misanddrist.

Dream Puppy

You are pushing men towards the already increasingly popular “never marry” route, leaving millions of women who like me, actually WANT a loving committed marriage SOL.

You do know men are human beings right?

I have a suggestion, perhaps when you pop out some devil spawn from your fang laden vagina, CPS can swoop in, snatch it and take it to a more loving and nurturing mother, with better resources. You will still have to provide a monthly stipend, as it is yours, after all. Fair's fair.

Sam Spade

Ambiguous paternity = promiscuous mother. Plain and simple.

Alexandra Selkirk

This article is either a (sick) joke, or a deliberate provocation of a male mysogynist pig pretending to be a feminazi to rally other men to his cause...

Goran

This article is so staggeringly egoistical and vile that I am at a loss for words. Deceiving your partner about one of the most important things in anyone's life is not a choice or right, it is a CRIME.

If you believe this then you, Madam, deserve to be cheated on and dumped by all of the men in your life. I can only hope that they use condoms before doing that.

steven

I want to sincerely thank Melanie and other feminists I've read or spoken to over the years. I am a young man who used to consider myself a feminist when I thought it was about promoting the idea that men and women are both valuable and one sex isn't intrinsically better than the other. That was my definition of “equal.” Not equal in all abilities or biology, but equal in worth as human beings with complimentary roles in life.

Thank you for opening my eyes to the fact that I was misled. Feminism does not stand for what I believe in. Your article makes this quite clear. Please keep letting the world know what feminism is really about.

You're right when you say “DNA tests are an anti-feminist appliance of science.” But they are a pro Humanist application of science, and must be mandatory.

John Boy

This is why the legal concept of, "Everything inside the marriage is his and everything outside the marriage is hers" evolved. In times of yore, there had to be some sort of accomodation. I think the modern idiotic feminist position is now, "Everything his hers, and nothing is his". It won't work.

Antoninus

So this is the feminist promise? Our civilization is on its last leg. It was a good run.

Stephanie Sinclair

"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."

THEN DON'T BE A WHORE.

Daniel

How about you take responsibility for your own actions and don't engage in sexual intercourse with men who you would not want to be the father of your children?

Stop having sex with deadbeats and trying to manipulate and trick "provider types" into raising your mistakes.

The fact that you call this is a woman's choice is absolutely disgusting.

A.S.

This is some new kind of insane craziness. Paternity now never needs to be ambiguous and it should be criminal for a woman to deceive a man about his relationship to her offspring.

You know, cudgels are also powerful instruments of choice. That doesn't make them just or right or moral to use. Much of society has matured beyond the Stone Age. Melanie should consider following suit.

You just single-handedly demolished any shred of credibility the feminist movement had left of it.

Sarah

Oh dear god. On a very, very weak level the argument that a woman should be able to choose the father who would "best suit her child" makes sense--in the sense that, if she were unable to support herself she might be able to find a willing man to take on the role of father (if the real father refused to stand up), but of course that entire argument is made moot by the fact of modern day child support.

PERHAPS in the olden days when a woman a) could not work and b) would be ostracized from society because her child had no father, this would have made sense ONLY in that it would be a last-chance survival mechanism. But now? Especially when a mother naming the father essentially means the man is on call for child support for the next 18 years? How can one even try to argue that it's acceptable for woman to just point at a random guy off the street and call him the father, and throw him on the hook for child-and-emotional support?

This would literally be the same as saying that punishing rapists/offering women assistance in finding their rapists is unfair to men. Back in the day when women were all weak and unable to work and such, how did men choose their future wives? A lot of them just went ahead and raped the girl, hmm. Well, now all these anti-rape laws are really just standing in the way of men making that "important choice" of who should be the mother of their children.

I am honestly in awe that someone would try to make this argument. You're actually trying to say that women have the right to take any man they want, call him the father (whether he likes it or not), not allow for paternity testing (so he can't contest the claim), and put him on the hook for 18 years of child support. ARE YOU SERIOUS? Obviously, if the child support and the legal obligations didn't exist, this wouldn't be as inane of an argument (well, it would be, but it'd at least be less of an issue), but really? Are people really this stupid?

No Ma'am

Dear Melanie,

If we assume 6 billion people on the planet, we'll divide that by 2 to get a rough count of men. 4% of 3 billion is 120 million. Now, we know that not all men reproduce; in fact genetic studies show that something like 40% of men across all time as a species reproduced, with about 80% of women reproducing.

Do you think that some of the probably at this point billions of men that have lived and died who have been tricked into raising a child that isn't theirs might possibly disagree with your assertion that it "doesn't really matter"?

Given my estimation of your intelligence based solely on this article let me clarify; that's a rhetorical question designed to make you think.

I know, I know; thinking is hard an' all that, please try occasionally.

You may find that probably a significant majority of not only men, but (I hope) just people in general find that starting a family on lie that large may in fact be a really bad idea.

Let's put it another way Melanie. Pretend you're a man for a minute. You're seeing some girl. Whether you want to start a family with her for this example is irrelevant. She tells you she's pregnant. If she knows it's not your child, (it is irrelevant who the father actually is) and acts as if it is and you go along with the whole thing assuming that it is your child and you raise it as such, when you find out 10 years along will you:

a) be happy that you spent 10 years of your life being lied to and giving away the resources to raise someone else's child
b) be angry that you spent the last 10 years of your life being lied to and giving away the resources to raise someone else's child, as well as lost a significant opportunity to father a child that you are biologically linked to, or
c) think gosh, it's really no big deal that i've been cheated on, lied to for years, and probably lost the opportunity to start a real family, because *the child that isn't mine has a great life, even though i'm furious about my losses*
?

Again, this is rhetorical and designed to try to instill the not male or female specific, but human specific trait of empathy in you.

Oh, and please, don't breed. We don't need you tainting the gene pool.

guest

Cuckoldry is the female equivalent of rape. Suppose that some man made the same argument that you're now raping about rape kits, and DNA testing to determine who the rapist was.

How on earth can you be paid to write this drivel?

James Brooks

Ms McDonagh, what you've just written is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent article were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this site is now dumber for having seen it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Paul

Think of how many people you'd have to lie to. The father, the "father" the child, your family, his family, friends, the government.

Pretty much everybody but God, if he exists.

Please, never reproduce. If only for your own well-being.

Mark

This depth of doublethink and hipocrisy required to arrive at your conclusions is breathtaking.

Under what circumstances can you possibly claim the true materity of the child is meaningless either in evolutionary or moral terms? For the child or the father?

Essentially ou are advocating women being allowed to have sex with muliple partners, and freely choose (trick) one of them into raising the child as his own with impunity. Are you sure what you want is called equality and not something else? How do you think the child will feel about this?

I assume you would have no problem at all being handed the child from a different mother after giving birth. You would happily raise it as your own? How about if you were banned from even being allowed to ask - you as you are essentially advocating for men?

Is this honestly what feminism has degenerated into? My mum would be sick reading this.

Jeff Brown

The sheer self-righteousness, selfish arrogance of this article absolutely astounds me. For you to even attempt to make the claim that it isn't a big deal that the baby that a man will spend close to twenty years of his life on isn't actually his own is so monumentally arrogant that I am having a hard time coming up with the words necessary to describe it. Certainly a man can feel love and affection for a child that is not his own, and I applaud anyone who undertakes the difficult and life-altering decision to adopt a child. However, for you to claim that it is perfectly acceptable to lie to a man for possibly the rest of his life, to cheat him out of his own earnings, to make him spend years of his life on a child that is not his is not only arrogant, it is pure evil.

The very idea that women somehow have the "right" to lie about who their baby's father is is perhaps the single most vile and disgusting thing that I have read in quite some time. After we strip away the veneer of concern for "marital violence" and "mental health difficulties for all parties, including the children", here is what your article boils down to: "We women have the right to lie, cheat and steal with impunity, because that's what we feel is best for our children, and I for one don't like the fact that some fancy new technology can expose us for the lying, cheating, stealing vermin that we are."

Personally, I thank God that the women who have responded to this wretched article seem to have enough morals to realize that lying, cheating and stealing is wrong, even when you dress it up as "for the children" and try to paint men as evil people running out on their responsibilities when they refuse to support a child that isn't theirs. I am thankful that morals and conscience do not appear to be as lacking in the women that have responded to this article as they are in you, Ms. McDonagh.

Peter

What a creepy woman. Guys, check out Citizen Renegade and be forewarned!

Fernando

looking at this woman's other articles i see they have little to none comments, which in turn makes me think she made this article intentionally polemic so that what she could get more views and comments, this makes her a poor untalented journalist

Counter

You sound like the greatest troll to ever touch this site.

Bob

I assume Ms. McDonagh will not object to serving as the surrogate mother for a woman with better DNA. Of course, for the sake of the child, it's best not to tell Ms. McDonagh that she is a surrogate, and in fact tell her the child is hers. Assuming she doesn't murder it in the womb, she can raise it as her own, devoting her own time and resources to raising a baby without polluting the gene pool at the same time.

Think of this, too - every time a provider-type is cuckolded, the next generation inherits a slightly larger fraction of whores and players.

The right to defraud a person of two decades of their income is neither God-given nor sanctioned by any legitimate government. That the crime is only now reliably detectable should be a cause for celebration, like the invention of DNA testing in rape cases or shelters for victims of domestic violence. I suppose, though, that those last two advances took choices away that criminals had grown accustomed to over the last two millenia.

Last point: deliberately preventing a man from having a genetic heritage is the equivalent to forcibly sterilizing him. It's taking away his informed choice to adopt or not. Neither of those is acceptable for any man or woman.

Jsa

Melanie the Moron somehow forgot that without paternity tests there would be absolutely no way to force a man to pay child support.

Helen

What an awful, shocking article. I cannot believe that any sane woman would think it acceptable to lie about something so important, outside of soap opera land or Jeremy Kyle. It's just plain WRONG, whichever colour you paint it. If that's feminism, I'm glad I've never described myself in those terms.

Ivan

And there we have it. Proof positive that modern feminists are completely insane. A child has a right to know who his/her biological father is. But then feminism isn't about childrens rights as we all know feminists love abortion.

Peregrine John

I'm a little confused by the comments, here. Why is any of this a surprise? Rights without responsibilities has been the guiding principle of feminism since the early 60's.

Larry

When people question why I say modern feminism is anti-science, I can now just point to this conveniently stupid article. Thanks Melanie!

Moron

Better for a child to have a false father than to know its true father because that is more convenient for the mother? Modern feminism has truly become a parody of itself.

Deke Jones

FEMINISM = Treat me like an absolute equal, right up until the point that I need to get my grubby hands on your wallet. Then, treat me like an 18th century courtesan.

Jack

Are you serious??? Is this article a joke? How is it a bad thing for a man to know if he is the father of a child? Why should a woman be able to "choose" the father? You seem to be saying it's ok for women to sleep around and if they get pregnant, to just announce who the father is, willy nilly, regardless of the TRUTH? What if the woman is married or in a committed relationship? If she cheats and gets pregnant, you think it's ok to just declare her husband the father? This is possibly the most ridiculous article I have ever read. My apologies if this was some sort of weird satire.

Jason

The feminist movement used to be about creating equality between the sexes.

Demanding the right to vote is fine and just. How did that morph into the claim that a woman can sleep around with as many men as she wants and then "choose" which one is the father? I'm guessing that the grounds for choosing will be based on who can pay the most child support... unless of course it can be pinned on the poor schmuck who married her.

The author seems to that it just fine for a woman to shackle an innocent man with someone else's spawn. However, how dare any man question these babies that are presented to them.

Disgusting, pathetic, outrageous...

Paul from Hamburg

Wow. I am in the US. In the UK, is today November Fools Day?

KK

Wow, I went to the Spectator website and somehow wound up looking at an article that surely belongs on Mother Jones or Slate! The Internets must be broken today.

Kelly Jefferson

This is the most anti-feminist thing I've read in a long time. How is it feminist (feminism being rooted, first of all, in fairness) to give women freedom from the truth? Is it really feminist to promote the abuse of stereotypical feminine wiles? What's next, a "feminist" claim that women are most empowered when they're tethered to the kitchen? Please, stop. Feminism isn't about women getting what they want. It's about women getting what they deserve, nothing less and nothing more.

Phyllis

In this article, Melanie makes a compelling case for extending the right to abort into the 200th trimester, and possibly later.

Francis W. Porretto

"But 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."

If the author actually means to lament this development, she has enlisted on the side of fraud -- paternity fraud, a form of extortion no better than any other sort. And if that be the position of "feminism" in this year of Our Lord 2010, then a decent woman will want no part of it.

Paula

I am a woman. I believe in equality for women, yet I never use the word feminist to describe myself. You, Ms. McDonagh are the reason why. You give all women a bad name.

Just imagine a if you were raised in tribal times, and a man from a rival tribe's wife died and he raided your town, kidnapping you and forcing you to raise his children. How could you protest? He's doing what's best for his children. They do need a mother after all.

A woman's choice is either to keep her legs close, or use one of those nifty birth control devices if she wants to sleep with a man who will not be a good father. If she finds a man worthy of raising her kids, the best way to keep him around is by being faithful and honest.

I assume you're single?

Mastro

The author's argument fails on most moral levels.

One point that other posters have not touched on is that paternity is often discovered later when blood types or physical features become more apparent. The devastation of being lied to for 10-15 years is surely greater than the disappointment (or relief) of finding out at birth.

But- men's feeling don't matter- do they?

MB

I move that VD testing should be abolished as well. Its hardly fair that a woman should lose her choice of sleeping around just because she passes a venereal disease to her husband and hence gets caught.

Dr. Lemonist

I don't see the big deal. How else can you get a bloke to hang around and give you a chance to live your own life and not just be a mummy. Women are at a distinct disadvantage because they get stuck with the main consequences of pleasure and passion.
It is unfair that Father Nature is such a misogynist and forces us to make up constraints like marriage, fidelity, chastity, and all that customary conceit just to get men to grant women some basis of commonality, partnership, and equal trust with them so we can fool around without paying for it like they can if they don't buy into society's lies about sexual honor and decency.
Until wombs can be safely removed and cared for by science, we have to keep men in line and held to a standard of responsibility by which the rightful Priestesses of Gaia can judge them. I say take what you can for now, girls, while he's still blind to the truth. Once we free them from this burden they will run wild and only cause trouble for everyone. There is no other option, for now.

Eric

This column is a joke, right? A sort of "modest proposal?" Please tell me it is. Because if not, how sad. How pathetic. If this was composed seriously, I don't know who is more in need of help: the author, or the editor who allowed it to go forward.

LordJiggy

This is a logical extension of the Feminist's pro-choice policies, which are, by definition, sexist.

Look at it logically. A man and a woman have consensual sex. Up to the point of conception, they share equal rights and responsibilities.

As soon as the woman becomes pregnant, she has 100% of the rights. She can "choose" to become a parent. She can choose to have an abortion. The man has NO rights in the matter, by law. Yet, if the woman decides she wishes to become a parent, at birth the man suddenly has 50% (or more) of the legal and financial responsibilities.

It is patently unfair and unequal, and completely stacked in favor of the woman. Picture what would happen if a man forced a woman to become a parent against her will, and further, expected her to pay for 50% of the support of the child she did not "choose" to have. That man would be hanging from a lamppost before nightfall.

John B

Consider what happens to the child/marriage when later in life the alleged father is called upon to donate bone marrow or a kidney only to find he is "not a match" as "his" child lays dying.

Californio

A man cannot be "gallant" or do the "right thing" unless we adopt a rigid set of gender roles. As the author seems to reject narrow, "moral" (ha, what an old-fashioned concept) precepts for behavior - then men are free to behave badly as well. And isn't everyone happier now? Eagerly waiting for the article on how financial regulation is bad as it deprives frauds from their "choice" to cheat the unsuspecting.

mike

no father's name should appear on a birth cert until a DNA test is performed.

if you want him listed, prove he's the dad

Weary G

"By contrast, the old situation, in which women presented men with a child, and the man either did the decent thing and offered support, or made a run for it, allowed women a certain leeway... 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?"

Wow, in a world already overrun with people having a nauseating sense of entitlement, this was certainly a stand-out article. Congrats...I think.

Ken Kupstis

I guess there's no need to heap further vilification on Melanie.

But I thought I'd point out that a lot of women are doing this by proxy: getting married, having children, divorcing the biological father, retaining custody of the children, then 'shopping' on internet dating sites for some sucker who'll play Stepdad. It seems almost 2/3rds of the women my age are single mothers and all they'll get from me is the time of day.

Smarty

This once again exposes one of the pillars of feminism- the perceived right to be a tramp and make others pay for it.

MrBuddwing

From the column: "At a stroke, the one thing that women had going for them has been taken away, the one respect in which they had the last laugh over their husbands and lovers."

Projecting much?

John

As a man who fought tooth and nail to determine the paternity, and who also retained a lawyer to guarantee that I could support my child, when the mother refused to name me the father, I am extremely OFFENDED by this feminist harpy and her writings.

I have, at great expense in lawyers fees, fought tooth and nail for my daughter, whose mother does not allow me to see my own flesh and blood, still the father section of her birth certificate remains blank.

Dave the Sage

Cheerleading dishonesty, promiscuity, and cheating is pathetic. Actions have consequences.

Mike in Seattle

It seems to me judging from the level of shock and outrage that this article has generated that no one is actually paying attention to what is being taught in out post-modernistic, feminist liberal arts programs.

Melanie's article is clearly derived from the world view that gender roles are a zero-sum power struggle between oppressed woman and the patriarchy.

This article summarizes nicely their world view that choice and pregnancy are nothing more than tools of power to gain leverage over their 'oppressors'.

In other words, a vile, abhorrent pile of pseudo-intellectual bilge we subsidize through taxation and tuition.

Which, I suppose, does make us the idiots they imagine us to be.

Stephanie Tohill

I think there is nothing much else to add to Salamandyr.

What a most ridiculous article. Yes, Melanie, of course it matters! It shouldn't be down to a woman to force a man into fatherhood because she has deemed him the best option. If it isn't his child, tough tittie to her. What about his rights not to be saddled with a child he had no part in creating?

DRJ

"Uncertainty allows mothers to select for their children the father who would be best for them."

Being monogamous allows that, too, not to mention it's healthier, safer, and more ethical.

RSun

Banning DNA paternity testing gives license to arbitrage: sex the alpha, marry the beta. In the reverse, this situation would immediately incur media wrath. That it apparently does not says more about the women who are against testing than the men who benefit from it.

Chops

I am glad to see so many men fighting back about the extreme anti-male bigotry that 'feminism' has become.

Jeff Medcalf

What about the moral responsibility of the actual father? Why does he get a pass, while the "father" named by the woman does not?

Morgan

You're out of your mind. This is a completely immoral, sexist outlook that views men as second class human beings. Thankfully, I don't really believe that you believe what you wrote is true...because to have this view-point you have to have no experience with or love of males.

Immolate

Choice... the Holy Grail of feminism. Men get to make a choice too. The difference is that we have to make the choice without knowing whether we're going to get busted for it.

Francis Chalk

For those who think, "Why this writer is expressing absolutely absurd logic with regard to the purpose the Feminist Movement. After all, I thought it was all about EQUALITY between the sexes." I say, "You don't know much about the true goal of Feminism," which is to advance worldwide Socialism/Marxism/Communism and absolutely NOTHING ELSE! Feminist "logic" doesn't have to make any sense what so ever because the movement has no true connection to its stated objectives/goals. Its only goal is to destroy freedom, democracy and Capitalism. Thus, it's a fool’s game to try and make sense of useful idiots like the writer. By the way, the same is true of every aspect of the Environmental Movement and all its offshoots, the PC movement, hate speech types, multiculturalists, leftists, and all their associated political parties, etc... So don't bother to point out the flaws in the writer's argument. She doesn't give a rat’s ass about paternity in the first place. She is only trying to do her best to advance the "true cause," albeit in a stunningly moronic fashion.

CogitusRex

Let's be honest - the whole point of wave two feminism was presented to the public as "equalizing what was thought of as an unequal playing field" when in reality it was totally meant to stack the odds in women's favor and against men. Because we've figured out a defense against the obscene tactic outlined in this piece of garbage, she doesn't like it because it counters all of the systematic hurdles they've been building over the last 40 years!

Hughman

Yet more proof that feminism has nothing to do with humanistic ideals, and everything to do with female supremacy and gender fascism.

Tom A.

Best argument to commit to only participating in anal sex I've ever read. Thanks, Mel. ;)

CO

This article is so insulting!

A mother selecting a man to father her child against his will?

When a man selects a woman to father his child against her will, we call that rape.

Penguin

The situation is not as bad as Ms. McDonough paints it.

It's much worse. France has banned paternity testing. In the USA medical "ethicists" will flat out lie to the cuckolded husband about the paternity of a child, testing or no.

myth buster

Well I am inclined to believe that it would do us good to return to the Old Testament standard on this- kill the adulteress and her paramour.

kyleb

"Many men have, of course, ended up raising children who were not genetically their own, but really, does it matter?"

Congratulations for penning the most callous statement I've ever read on the subject. Would you force a woman to carry a child even for 9 months? I thought not. Yet it's nothing to your for a man to be enslaved for 18+ years of his life. Do your see us as human at all, or should we just don the slave collars now.

Naif Mabat

"Scientific certainty has produced clarity all right, and relieved any number of men of their moral obligations, but at God knows what cost in misery, recrimination and guilt."

Talk about blaming the messenger. Are the misery, etc., really caused by the science that discovers deception had taken place? Or rather by the deception itself?

And whose moral obligations are being relieved here? Surely not those of a man who has actually fathered a child. What about the moral obligations to tell such men the truth?

malclave

"But 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."

Just to be clear... you're suggesting that a woman's right to choose to lie must be held inviolable?

John C.

A lawyer friend of mine once handled a case for a man who had been told that he was the father of his girlfriend's unborn child. He accepted the responsibility, married her, and helped raise the little girl as a father should.

When the child was 4, the mother said to him that he wasn't the biological father after all; the sperm donor was a former boyfriend whom she had decided to move in with, taking the child with her. He demanded a DNA test, and found that the girl was, in fact, not his biological daughter.

But she was his DAUGHTER, biology or no, and he was the person she knew as her father, so he fought for visitation rights; unfortunately, he was unsuccessful.

There is more to being a father, or a mother, than biology.

California Girl

After reading this diatribe, I can only draw one conclusion:

She has no idea who her father is.

The man she called 'Daddy' doesn't meet her exacting standards, and for the better part of her life she has resented 'Mommy' not "choosing a better man".

Usually women with Daddy issues end up on a stripper pole. Of course, Feminist Studies lauds that, too.

Scott M

I guess we have more proof that the left is exactly what Jonah Goldberg claimed, "liberal fascists." The left reserves the right to force anyone to do whatever is required to create their Utopia, all in the name of "fairness", of course.

Bloodtiger

Wow. The author really sounds like she really hates men. Men, blah, who cares how they feel. It's perfectly alright to commit fraud on them. I havn't seen that big a misandrist in a long time. And women wonder why men don't trust them.

Darrell

What a disgusting article.

To think this woman imagines herself to be something other than a lying, cheating skank. She is an insult to sluts.

DANEgerus

Melanie McDonagh is the father of my baby! Please start sending the checks immediately and don't you dare deny your paternity based on some genetic excuse like your gender.

Bob Y. Uncle

These comments renew my faith in humanity.

Walk Like a Man

So this is feminism eh, that a man should pay for another man's fun with a slut.

Is it any wonder so many good men now go ghost?

Peter Kasting

Isn't the "powerful instrument of choice" here the ability to decide to have unprotected sex with multiple different men in a short period of time? If a woman really wants Guy A to be a father of her child and Guy B not to, can't she choose to sleep with Guy A and not Guy B? Or is it anti-feminist to suggest that one should choose a course of action whose consequences one can accept?

Don Buchanan

"At a stroke, the one thing that women had going for them has been taken away,"
Not giving much credit to women are you? I would suggest they have more than this going for them.

Grant

Recently I urged a friend to go ahead with a test that established that he was not the father of his long time girlfriend's infant.
For showing this support I was drummed out of my social circle. Trouble maker, I was.
How dare I not ignore the bamboozlement of my best friend.
Ms. McDonagh is daft but she does voice what seems to be the prevailing yet unspoken sentiment among women. Screw men.

Chrysalis

This article made me SO VERY ANGRY. I cannot believe what McDonagh wrote, suggesting it doesn’t really matter if it’s the man’s child or not, if he thinks it is, it’s good for her child, and he can go to hell; that women should have the right to deny their husbands the ability breed and generally succeed at life! Instead he serves her life, and his genes disappear into the void. Forever.

Men: the right argument to get that paternity test is because you are obsessed with the chance of your baby getting swapped in the hospital. All babies look the same to you, so you want to know to make sure. SIMPLE!!!

Make her understand it’s not about your trusting her, it’s about you not trusting the faceless, nameless hospital bureaucracy. You’re planning to raise it for 18 years, so she must allow you your peace of mind, and she has no reason to deny it whatsoever.

She can’t defend the nameless, faceless hospital bureaucracy with the same passion she would defend her supposed trustworthiness, nor can she be offended by your distrust of said nameless, faceless hospital bureaucracy. It is illogical, weird, and suspicious. If she’s hiding something, she won’t want to point that out anyway.

BTW, men can also find a way to test her opinion on this logic before getting married:

“Honey, I can’t wait until we’re married and can get pregnant! By the way, since we can’t 100% guarantee that hospital workers won’t accidentally swap our baby with someone else’s, something I will need to have is a DNA test to make sure we got the right baby back. Babies all look the same to me, so, it’s something I will need just to make sure.

Oh, and while we’re on the topic of marriage, I was checking out those rings you liked! They’re great! I especially like the one with the [whatever design element]!”

In other words, set the expectations shortly before you plan to propose. Then, while she’s digesting your plans for the DNA test, you can soften the blow by flirting with her immediately afterwards regarding that precious One Ring of Power…

Frank

This absurd neoluddism makes me sick. Women have another tool for them to choose which man should be the father of their children: it's the anticonceptive pill.
So, we have a win-win situation here: women can choose the father of their children and men can be assured that they really are the biological fathers.

myth buster

Let's play "How many of the Ten Commandments does this idea violate?"
1. You shall not commit adultery- this one is obvious and needs no further explanation. Cuckoldry presupposes cheating.
2. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor- Falsely accusing a man of being the father of your child when he is not damages his reputation to save yours. It is slander.
3. You shall not steal. The cuckold stakes a claim to resources she has no right to.
4. You shall not covet your neighbor's spouse. This is really what cuckoldry is about- a man coveting his neighbor's wife and a woman coveting other men.
5. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods. The cuckold covets the resources of a man, wanting to leach off him, but not bear his children, but rather those of a paramour. Some versions don't render this as a separate commandment, but consider it listed again for emphasis.
6. You not commit murder. The wages of sin is death, and cuckoldry scandalizes the child, setting a bad example by teaching the child that it's okay to lie, cheat and steal when it happens to be convenient. That lesson can destroy a child. Better to drown than corrupt a minor, especially your own child.
7. You shall not take the Name of the Lord, your God in vain. When you get married, you swear to God your fidelity to your spouse. From that moment forward, your sexuality does not belong to you, but rather to your spouse. Deliberately disregarding that vow and covenant means you lied to God and used His Name to deceive people. Anyone who uses the Lord's Name in that manner is guilty of blaspheme, for it brings shame upon the Name of the Lord. You consider the Name of God to be worthless if you so cavalierly lie to God and invoke His Name to a lie.

joe

Hi I'm a med student and I was talking to my genetic prof the other day. She does many studies of lineage and family history and she said that around 10% of fathers are being genetically decieved. She also said she does not tell them and indeed will lie if asked.

Ed

What none of the commenters seem to understand is that as all intercourse is rape, all of a woman's sexual partners are morally guilty, and thus valid targets for child support demands.

And now I suppose you troglodytes will object to the intercourse = rape tautology!

René

"Many men have, of course, ended up raising children who were not genetically their own, but really, does it matter? "

Ehh, there have been several cases where hospitals switched babies, and ended up paying big bucks to the mothers for suffered psychological trauma. (In one case the switch was only a matter of hours.)

Why is a mother finding out her child isn't hers worthy of so much compensation, while a man just has to "man up" and swallow the pain?

Ashlyn

Articles like this one are the reason so many people give me a look of vague distaste when I tell them I consider myself a feminist. Thanks, Melanie, for making the fight that much harder for those of us who DON'T think we're entitled to deceive people about life-changing matters or to treat the men in our lives as a stable of potential providers from which we may pick our prize stallion.

Thanks, Melanie. Thanks a lot.

slwerner

This pile of crap is being widely panned around the Internet (many linking back here). Melanie McDonagh has managed to make the Spectator a laughing stock.

As a matter of keeping up their reputation, the Spectator needs to dump her as a contributor.

A reader

"Scientific certainty has produced clarity all right, and relieved any number of men of their moral obligations, but at God knows what cost in misery, recrimination and guilt."

There would be no misery, recrimination and guilt if women didn't sleep around. Hence men are not being relieved of their moral obligations. The moral obligation was always on the woman to make sure she was able to identify the father of her baby. Only thing that's changed is that women can now be taken to charge for failing their moral obligations.

Darth H8er

Dear author,

Your suggestion that women not be held accountable for WHO they got pregnant by is preposterous. Saying that women should have the so called "choice" to have a baby by one man and dupe another into paternity is immoral and deserves to be shamed into oblivion. So shame on you.

What if men could pull the same horsesh!t on women? I don't think these attitudes towards the subject would persist then.

Women don't like having to take care of other people's children against their will. And I am sure women would not like to be fooled into thinking a child is theirs. Of course such a thing is not biologically possible, as women know a child is theirs from birth. So I suppose the author cannot relate to the plight of the duped daddy. Nevertheless, such trite "choices" should not be defended and sure as hell should not be encouraged. I hope subsequent commentors continue to unload some rude awakenings on this issue.

bigbadmo

Well all that can be avoided if women be up front from the start and not LIE. This person that wrote this article believes that women should have no accountability.

Ahsan

"The actor Jude Law recently found himself in just this position, and unhesitatingly and ungallantly demanded a DNA test.
"

Apparently it is not gallant to confirm your suspicions that a woman is a tramp.

Jono

Ahsan - any woman who has a child out of wedlock is a tramp IMO, and Jude Law had every right to get a DNA test from the woman.

Johnathan Blaze

Typical. Women want to have sex with the badboy alpha males, and then have the provider beta males help raise the kids.

Siamese

So you dont only get the displeasure of being cheated on, you pay the way for the man she cheated on you with? And thats somehow good? A womans power should come from being a good partner to her man.

lurker

Even with paternity testing, women would still have the power to select the father best for their kids. It's called "having sex with the guy who would make the best dad in the first place."

Mark

Let me get this straight. You are whining because modern technology is robbing women of the ability to hijack the life any man they wish to, just because they have had sex?

Wes

DNA tests upset the balance of power between the sexes? Into a more neutral area, perhaps. And when the mother sneaks around and then demands child support, what defense does the man have? I'm afraid "he doesn't look anything like me" just doesn't apply any more.

Paternity tests are absolutely necessary.

Edi

Doesn't the moral obligation belong to the father? If it's not your child, you have ZERO obligation.

Michelle M.

I'm tired of seeing bullies like this use "feminism" to try to justify their cruelty and complete lack of morality. It just makes real feminists look like a joke.

And it's hard to respect any publication that gives voice to such bullies.

Dan Gutierrez

Let's call it what it really is:

Genetic Fraud

And I'm glad that medical technology (not science) is making readily available to the average person.

Telekinesis

Amazing how such a sexist bigot as this can get a soapbox, how far we have fallen, men's rights all the way and equality for all.

You suck.

Ma'am, you are an idiot.

Jesus

This is a truly despicable article. All it is is a horrid demonstration of the true nature of Feminism.

Steve

As a single father, carrying the full burden of the new archetype "dead beat mommy" this so called womans article represent that to the new breed of loser females they have pseudo-intellectual counterparts just as harmful to children and society.

Justin

Like many folks, I believe strongly in equal rights for all individuals. I fight for them and serve on a city commission to help guarantee them.

When I see disgusting pieces like this, I feel sad. Printing this trash discredits feminists everywhere. The line of reasoning is just indefensible.

mark

"At a stroke, the one thing that women had going for them has been taken away, the one respect in which they had the last laugh over their husbands and lovers. 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."

So anything that may bring women down to mens level is anti-feminist and evil?

Love misandry.

Melissa C

This has got to be the most horrid display of idiocy I've ever seen.
If you don't want children by an unfit father then don't open your legs for such a man. It's that simple.
Why make an innocent man pay for your whorish behavior?
Any man ever defrauded in such a way was obviouly too good for the slut he got saddled to.

Nemo

You're a horrible person, Melanie. Seriously. Horrible.

As an advocate of human equality, it's disgusting to believe that a woman should have the right to saddle a man with a responsibility that he's not willing to commit to. Yes, it's possible for a man to love a child that's not his, but you cannot expect him to undertake that responsibility unknowingly or with the shadow of doubt in his mind. It's unethical and unconscionable.

wackywilly

You may be right that people will not be as happy, but it is not the men who deserve the blame. It is the women who will no longer be able to lie about paternity who are at fault. It may be a bad turn for happiness, but it is a good change for justice. No man should be required to pay for a child that is not his own. If the mother and child are less happy then so be it. These women should have thought of that before trying to defraud someone.

Peters

thank god for the tests then, otherwise i wouldnt trust women at all.

David

Lifelong celibacy sounds better every day.

Kris

Dear Writer.

You are dumb.

Sincerely, Kris.

etherspirit

Principles are more important than feelings. Truth is the noblest principle, and arguing against this principle because of how you feel is immoral and wrong. Paternity fraud is one of the biggest robberies a man can face...that his genetic material will not be passed onto future generations. DNA testing is one of the greatest inventions for establishing truth and should be mandatory for all newborns.

James Arwick

It may have removed the instrument of choice, but it was an unjust power. It's a good thing that men can ask for a DNA test. The author of this article clearly believes men have no rights.

You can call it "ungallant" all you want. It's only fair for a man to assume responsibility only for the things he has caused.

How about this, you get to pick who the father is if I get to pick who the mother is. After all, its in the best interests of the child to have a caring mother.

GrimmNoir

To paraphrase the late great Rick James....

"MISANDRY is a helluva drug!"

Max

It's not everyday that I read a thread that is 100% full of adverse opinions!

The author is an awful misandrist. According to her, men are "ungallant" if they don't agree to become slaves to these fraudsters. Absolutely disgusting.

Army Officer

So DNA paternity testing is an anti-feminist application of technology? I'm pretty sure any woman who criticizes a man for acting "ungallantly" harbors pretty strongly anti-feminist tendencies herself. According to the author women may act as modern sluts and men are required to be gallant about being cuckolded? Which is it madam, equality or pedestal? For heaven's sake, pick ONE and stick with it, even when it's not convenient.

In the U.S. many of the Black leaders of the early 20th Century told their peers that, if they wanted whites to accept them as equals, they would have to prove themselves worthy. For that reason many of them volunteered for military service in the two World Wars despite blatant discrimination against them at the time. The reasoning was that if they proved themselves in that dangerous meritocracy, the majority would see them as equals in other areas as well. It was along and bloody road, but the early leaders did not try to jump the queue by simply demanding equality - they sought respect the old-fashioned way: by earning it. Those poor people had a much tougher row to hoe that modern feminists: perhaps the most pampered group of human beings ever to draw breath.

Feminism puts the cart before the horse, and this article is a perfect example of it. MS McDonagh wants to preserve an egregious example of female privilege (the ability to cuckold her designated provider), while denying men the most basic kind of justice. Being forced to work for the benefit of another is, simply, slavery. Whether accomplished by force or fraud, there is no other word that describes what she countenances. Apparently owning slaves is acceptable for women, as long as the slaves are men.

Disgusting.

Mark

Mrs McdonHag:

You are, and I believe you must know this, a totale and complete scum bag!

Robert O'Hara

This article displays the all too common pathological disregard for the rights of men and children. No man should be forced into paying for a child that is not his. No child should be denied the right to know who their real father is. There is no rationalizing this away and the author has, true to feminist form, insulted the readers inteligence by sugesting that we are all better off not knowing for sure.
In the "old days" when we didn't have any scientific way of determining paternity we there were strict social rules to help ensure that the putative father of any child could be reasonably assured that the child was indeed his. These rules included things such as chastity before marriage and strict behavioral guidelines for "lady like" behavior. And no, these rules were not imposed by some almighty "patriarchy", they were adopted by just about every society worth being called a society because no one can rightly expect a man to take care of his. This close association with biological paternity is what compelled our male hominid ancestors to stay with their children so they would have a better chance of survival thus creating tribes cities and nations. Think about it, not one red brick would be sitting atop another today if there was never any assurance that men's children were indeed theirs.
Now we have scientific means to determine the real truth. The only people that could posibly be unhappy about this are feminists who think that woman should have every right and no resposibility when it comes to reproduction ( and numerous other things) and unfaithful women who want a coockhold to support thier bastard children.

Robert O'Hara

Correction from previous post:

The last sentence from the second paragraph should read:

“And no, these rules were not imposed by some almighty "patriarchy"; they were adopted by just about every society worth being called a society because no one can rightly expect a man to take care of a child that wasn't his."

An example of why you shouldn't write and publish while you are angry.

Gary Drechsel

Oh my dear, what nonsense. You give feminists a bad name. Being able to know the truth is always better. I find this article quite troubling and a tad disgusting.

Ardia

I started wondering what *Maternity* fraud would be like...

First picture was a man impregnating a woman against her will. Date Rape.

Second picture, was a twist on date rape. When the girl is knocked out, a man impregnates her, but she's none the wiser. So her husband and her raise the child thinking it is theirs.

But even that isn't close to Maternity fraud. After all, the mother is passing on her genes.

So, heres the third. When the girl is knocked out, a surgical team implants another woman's fertilized embryo into her womb. That she will then go through pregnancy and childbirth and decades of care for, for that offspring. All the while, thinking its hers.

And women wonder why men think Paternity fraud is a big deal.

Sergio Meira

Well, the others have already said it better than I could, so I will simply add to their chorus: grieving for the right to lie is ultimately grieving for the right to commit fraud. Since knowing which son(s) are his is a man's right (just as it is a woman's -- which woman wouldn't fight for the right to know if her baby had been exchanged with another one by mistake in the maternity ward?), grieving for the right to defraud men of such knowledge is simply morally wrong.

Maybe Ms McDonagh should work on changing the public morality -- so that people will start caring for children that are not theirs just as much as they care for their own children. A case can be made that this should be so (though I would like to see what Ms McDonagh would feel if she were the one burdened with a child not hers -- say, if orphans were assigned by law to childless women, so they can grow up with at least one parent? By her logics, she should be happy to do that.).

But this still isn't so. People care about their children more than they care about other people's. Men and women alike. Unless this changes, Ms McDonagh is still grieving for the right to commit fraud.

bugmenot

I love how Ms. McDonagh thinks that anything pro-male (ie: DNA tests) is inherently anti-female. Just like any other closed minded racist or in this case supremacist she wants her lessers (males) to be permanent slaves to tgheir superiors (any woman who accuses them of having impregnated them). Well done, twit. Every day folks like you are working hard to discredit, radicalize and villainize the feminist movement.

Matt

This is an utterly appalling article and I really cant believe that a respected publication like spectator allowed it to be published on their website.

Nick

How can anyone be this idiotic?

Teflon

The misandry displayed in this article is shocking. I can only hope the author doesn't have any sons. Having a female chauvinist sow like that for a mother will require years of therapy to heal them from the damage she would inflict on them with her sexist views.

marcef

Guys don't be fooled by this, this women is surley a bitter misandrist, but this is all for show. The goal is to make men feel grateful the "little" things. Things like simply being able to see your child if mommy decides she wants to do other men and leaves you. You will still have no authority or digression over how the $ is spent. Once she has removed you from the home you bought, you will atleast get to visit, but only sometimes IF she decides that now just is a good time, be happy daddy she does not have you put in jail, quit whinning men,you still have your freedom, be happy!

Seriously

What? You say that I am the father and I must pay child support?

It couldn't be me. I am not paying one penny.

What? You want a paternity test?

No no no. I will never consent to such a thing. As I am a male feminist who believes that DNA tests are anti-feminist application of science.

Ian

Are you grieving because now you can't lie? No man should have to raise a child that isn't his own. It isn't right. It's quite immoral for a woman to do that to a man.

william

I cannot believe this drivel was allowed to be published, that men should just foot the bill legally for children they did not sire is absolutely ridiculous. That this idiot should think that scientific proof of fatherhood takes away a womens agency, is she a lunatic. She should never be allowed to print her asinine bigotry anywhere else.

C

Melanie, I'm tempted to state that your both a moral and an analytical moron. However, I don't think that is really the case. What I do think is that your opinion is one of a sociopath. I guess that does make you a moral moron. I think you purposefully ignore the analysis of the implications to society of your crazed opinion.

Just continue to reread this quote, and think of the implications as they have to do with individual rights and freedoms:

"Many men have, of course, ended up raising children who were not genetically their own, but really, does it matter?"

You truly care only about using men as tools for your support and advancement, like animals.

Kevin

How about women have some fore thought and simply don't cheat? The problems are already there before the Truth Test is applied. Why on earth would you want to have a 'last laugh' over your husband, aren't you supposed to love and support one another? Sigh, the correlation with increase in feminism and divorce rates is no more apparent than in lopsided articles like this. :(

Kearney

wait, wait, this is just British humor right? Does this woman actually think she has a valid point here? I'll be dead the day something like this is published in TWO reputable American journals.

Erica

um, so do you think abortion should be banned as well? Since the men could financially provide for the children, or not, and getting an abortion takes from men the ability to choose the mother that they feel would be best for them? You know, by making abortion dependent on a medical proceedure rather than the say so of the father, you have removed from the father a powerful instrument of choice. Why do people like you have to destroy the feminist movement?

Tyler Durden

I'm okay with this as long as she's okay with rape.

MartinH

"Many men have, of course, ended up raising children who were not genetically their own, but really, does it matter?"

Since you think this is a grat idea, why dont you come and work for me for free to help raise my children then? You can cook and clean for them how about that?

I know they are not genetically your own, but really, does it matter?

Mark

should paternity testing be required from women? Depends it should be required if.

1. the man believes he is the father of a child and wants to have a part in the childs life but the mother denies him this right because another man is the apparently the father.

2. a woman has a child and wants to claim benefits from the man.

so paternity testing should only be required when a disupute arises. I do agree that women should not be required to take a DNA test legally just because the man doubts the baby is his.

Ashley Gaskell

I am truly shocked this is being published in something like The Spectator, rather than something like Woman's Own.

A_guy

"But 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. I’m not sure that many people are much happier for it."

Dear madam, I am much, MUCH happier for the fact that I can no longer be blackmailed into rearing a child that isn't mine over the actions of someone else and infidelity.

Furthermore, making a man you wouldn't want to impregnate you raise someone else's child is possibly one of the absolute lowest things any human being could do. This not feminism and equality this is called being truly evil, children should be raised with someone you love, not someone you can extort for money while you run off and screw other men.

I Love Dicks

Oh Fuck You Bitch, Fuck You so hard

Elensar

The entire point of feminism is to ensure that both sexes get equal rights. The moron who wrote this article is a bad example of a feminist.

It would be better for everyone reading this article to stop immediately and save themselves from losing a bit of respect for humanity.

Peter Wellington

What am I reading? How can a mainstream publication peddle this kind of prejudice? Feminism isn't about gaining the upper hand in some kind of war of the sexes, it's about equality and understanding in the workplace, in home, and in culture.

Frankly I'm not certain what damage you need to have taken to blame the inability of yourself and your partner to maintain a healthy responsive relationship on the entire opposite sex.

Man's opinion btw

Allison

Is this a joke?

Jack

I am glad I'm not the only one having a problem with this article. It's obvious this is extreme sexism. Imagine a man got a child and the mother ran away, it would be ridiculous to say that man should be able to choose from who he recently had sex with and that woman would be legally committed to pay and take care of that child. So why should a woman have the right to abuse a man in this fashion? The man also has a life, and some men have very little money and paying for a child might ruin his economy. How is he morally obliged to ruin his life paying for someone else's child, just because he had sex with that same woman? It's like saying to bust someone, who just happens to be black, for fraud is racist.

"Stu" said almost exactly what I was thinking when I read this.

I would feel immensely cheated to pay for or maybe even raise a child I thought was mine, when it was the child of someone my spouse had cheated on me with. I would rather know right away, than to live the lie of a cold hearted woman. It's the greatest and most cruel scam I can think of right now.

Frankie

Mark; It's not the woman who takes the test. They match the child's DNA with the father's. Even if the woman evaporates in flames, a paternity test can still be taken.

Davide Pintus

"it has removed from women a powerful instrument of choice."

...said choice is called lying.
I fail to see why exactly ANYONE should have it. Wait, I've a great idea: let's make this thing go both ways. If a woman sues a man for child support, she can't have him tested for DNA. This way, men will receive a powerful instrument of choice. You know, to even things out.

RicAdbur

What a horrible woman. Equality is a two way street, lady.

fdas

Well your Honor, I would love nothing more than for the police to obtain evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that I raped the defendant... but I feel that DNA tests are degrading, antifeminist, and unempowering towards women.

*case dismissed*

Andy

So I wrote this huge scathing rant about how the author is a moron. She still is, I assure you, but I realized that I wasn't making my point clearly - I erased it to start over here: Is the author intentionally dense to attract publicity?

The author contradicts herself in her own articles (her later writeup on the merits of DNA data-storing, for instance). Moreover, her idea is flat out ignorant to common sense and decency. Her quote, "...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."

The say-so of the mother? Really? Who in the hell ARE you, lady? Feminism is great, I'm all for equal rights of women, I spent a great deal of my university time in feminist courses, even; but again I ask, are you intentionally dense? What part of creating a child (whether viewed religiously or scientifically) is strictly up to the mother? You NEED my man-batter inside you to make it work, and if you sleep with too many guys to have a clear understanding of which one didn't pull out fast enough, we have bigger issues to deal with.

Get a clue.

San

"the impact a DNA paternity test can have: ‘The result can be shattering, leading to divorce, marital violence, mental health difficulties for all parties including the children.’ Well, yes. Scientific certainty has produced clarity all right, and relieved any number of men of their moral obligations, but at God knows what cost in misery, recrimination and guilt."

Now if this hypothetical couple is married, and the wife gives birth to a child who isn't the mans, the blame is put on the man and the DNA test due to the man filing a divorce because of his cheating, lying wife?
I fail to see your logic McDonagh.

Pete

I think this is a great article. I'd actually recommend taking the author's advise and taking it and running with it..

I don't think both men or women need to know who their offspring are.

I suggest this. When a couple has a child, all the babies born that day are all mixed together. You then get a number, as a couple. When your number gets called, you pick a baby, the one you like best at that time.

Guys, feminism is about equality. The author is just showing her views that both men and women equally don't need to know who their children are.

I want to marry her actually. I hope our number gets picked first so I can pick the biggest baby out of the lot.

DJDamage

She essentially wants to keep men in the dark while still giving a pass to women to hop on top of some other men's c0cks without responsibility or accountability. Then when they accidently or deliberately get pregnant they lie to some man that its his baby in order to swindle him of his time, money and also robbing him of his own future (especially if he didn’t want to be a father). So instead of pointing to the cheating women as the culprit for the required DNA tests, its men's fault once again.

Quote:
A.C. Grayling, the philosopher, has written with feeling on this question this week, in an article for the Evening Standard. Noting that 4 per cent of men are, all unknowing, raising children who are not genetically theirs, according to a report in the Journal of Epidemiology and Human Health, he ponders the impact a DNA paternity test can have: [The result can be shattering, leading to divorce, marital violence, mental health difficulties for all parties including the children]

Ironically the part I placed in brakets described perfectly what feminism has done to marriages over the years on a much larger scale.

Jesse

If you want to select the right father you do that BEFORE you have sex, not after.
Fraud is fraud and paternity fraud is a particularly nasty form of fraud. Fraud doesn't matter? I guess he's just a man isn't he? Men are just walking ATM machines after all. No need to feel any guilt over committing fraud when the victim isn't a man.
If raising kids that aren't your own is so unimportant how about we just dispense babies at random. If you aren't the actual mother what does it matter?
You misandric twat.

Steve

Most powerful instrument of choice??? Most common method of fraud you mean. It's about time this racket of suckering in a patsy was stopped. If you don't want to have a baby to a man, don't have sex with him. A baby isn't a free ticket to commit fraud, and a particularly nasty type of fraud at that.

Todd

Last time I checked, the right to conceal infidelity wasn't something that feminists fought for...

I find that an unavailability of paternity tests to be more anti-feminist: A man can simply say it isn't his and walk out, leaving all responsibility and burden on the woman, along with the usual accusations of cheating and the reputations it brings on the unfortunate woman.

John McDonalds

I seriously hope this article is a parody of what feminism has become.

Emily

Feminists around the world are fighting tirelessly against the gender pay gap, sexual assault and rape (which are legal in many countries), domestic violence, sex-selective abortions and infanticide, forced marriages and countless other issues that hurt women and restrict their freedom. Please don't tarnish the reputation of the movement by associating it with the "right" to commit fraud. It makes it easier for misogynists to dismiss true feminist causes.

billy williams

Is this from spectator,Or The Onion?

Britton Kerin

Although Ms. McDonagh is indeed startlingly unprincipled, its best not to
be distracted into focusing on her. She has powerful allies: governments
who prefer cuckolded men to remain ignorant, docile and domesticated.
Feminists alone (actually, lets call them pseudo-feminists to avoid insulting
legitimate feminists) would never be able to get most of the paternity test
restriction passed by themselves: most women are principled and don't support
these laws either.

Tom

Seriously if this women has kids I would demand a DNA test. She is exactly the one that would sleep with someone then demand financial support from someone else.

billy williams

This has got to be the most horrible dose of misandry since Catherine Comins TIME Magazine quote.

Alex

This article reads like a conservative parody of what feminism is. It is embarrassing.

Steve McCoughlinton

so men are "morally obliged" to provide for the children of other men?

I'm just singling this out in a sea of pure idiocy and arrogance.

Tarek

Um, no. Women don't have a right to tell a man who is and who isn't their child without proof. And no, everyone is not happier not knowing. Only feminists are, because it gives them unchecked power.

Sarah

You just split the atom of crazy. This is why feminism is a joke.