T HURSDAY : Pondering the need for a male sexual revolution. The
National Center for Men (yes, only America would have one) suggests the time has come for a Roe v. Wade-type landmark ruling which would give men ‘the freedom to enjoy lovemaking without the fear of forced procreation’ — if the word ‘lovemaking’ doesn’t put them off sex altogether, I can’t help feeling. Debate has been sparked there by a man whose partner told him she was infertile and on contraception and then got pregnant. If he’d been brighter, perhaps alarm bells would have rung a little earlier. He wasn’t, they didn’t, and he now argues he shouldn’t have to pay child maintenance.
Is he a bad father and a feckless philanderer?
Audiences on Kilroy, Question Time and Trisha know the answer off pat. ‘Put the welfare of the child fiiirst,’ they bray as one. Such instant moral high ground is more catechism than argument. But for once, let’s hear it for the poor parent. Giving Bad Dad (as we shall call him generically and a little unjustly) the legal opt-out not only seems fair to him but could ultimately allow another desperate mother-to-be, the Frozen Embryoed Natalie Evans, the child she so desperately wants without ruining her ex-boyfriend’s life in the process.
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