What happens if a girl tricks a guy into getting her pregnant?

[cityofthedead]

So the laws are that only the pregnant partner has the legal say in what to do with a pregnancy, and the impregnater has to pay for child support. What happens if someone with a uterus tricks someone with a penis into getting pregnant by, say, poking holes in a condom or lying about birth control plans? It seems that according to these laws, a man would have his entire life changed even if he took all the protective measures he and his partner would need for sex all because his partner was deceptive. That is disgusting and wrong on so many levels. Could someone please tell me if this would be or is actually the case? Thank you, very much.

[Iwanthelp]

With the way condoms are designed poking a hole in it would make it shred/notably tear as you put it on (mods feel free to correct me on this one). Its' more likely that the condom just failed due to imperfect use rather than any sabotage going on.

But yeah, tampering with/lying about contraceptives is awful and pretty much constitutes rape since the other party isn't agreeing to unprotected sex. Same reason people stealthily removing a condom during sex without informing the other party about it are rapists. I don't know what the law is but as shitty all around as the whole situation would be the kid didn't ask to be born and needs financial support to survive.

[Jacob]

Hey cityofthedead,

Really in a legal sense it's hard to be hypothetical because the law is a practical process so it's for a judge or jury to decide in each case which crime has been committed.

Ethically speaking the most important thing in my opinion is the welfare of the child, if it is indeed born and becomes a child.

Cases like these are rare and if they do happen they tend to be over-reported and held up as an excuse for sexist actions. So I think it's important to emphasise that!

Also what Iwanthelp said about condoms sounds spot on to me!

[cityofthedead]

What about pregnancies that are totally unplanned by both partners? The uterus-possessing partner has all the legal say in whether to abort the baby or to have her and her impregnater to become parents. So if a woman gets pregnant and says "I'm gonna have this baby", the man who got her pregnant would be forced to pay financial support for her and her baby when he is not ready. If forcing someone to have sex is illegal, it makes no sense that someone should be required to be a parent by law.

[Sam W]

I'm assuming by support you mean child support? Because the answer to that is child support policy in the U.S is fairly complex, and whether someone has to pay it depends on a host of factors (including whether the person who needs the support is willing to go through the bureaucracy needed to get it). Too, paying child support is not the same as taking on the duties of parenting, so even if someone is ordered to pay child support, they not required to be a parent (and the other person can't really force them to be, because at a certain point if someone wants to up an leave kid who shares their genes, stopping them from doing so is hard). That's something the two people involved have to work out between them

If a person who decides to carry a baby to term, they may or may not want support from the other person who conceived it. That's one of those things that, as Jacob mentioned above, is hard to pin down as a hypothetical because the details vary so much from person to person and from situation to situation. For instance, whether conception happened during a one night stand versus a long-term relationship is going to play a big part in how the people involved decide to care for the child. Or the financial situation of the two people involved could be a big factor in who takes on what kind of role.

[cityofthedead]

So if I impregnate a girl and she decides to keep the baby, would I have to pay for child support whether I'm ready or not?

[Lyssa]

Hi cityofthedead,

Like Sam said, there are many factors that play into if someone is court ordered to pay child support or not. How long it takes to request child support through the court varies too.

Child support was put into place to make sure a child of a single parent is getting their needs met, and that the single parent does not have the entire financial burden of providing those needs. But yeah, like Sam said, the process is very situational.

[Mo]

If this is something you're worried about in your own life (and I think it's good to keep in mind what Jacob said, that this is both unusual and something that gets co-opted to support a lot of pretty gross and sexist ideas), then what you can do is make sure you're talking to potential partners about your birth control plan before having sex so you're both on the same page, making sure to have your own supply of condoms if you're concerned about condom integrity, etc.