Should “oopsing” be a criminal offence?
A woman wants a baby, the man doesn’t. A woman has two options: 1) Play fair or 2) “oops” him. “Oopsing” means going off the pill or other contraception and lying to the man that birth control has been taken care of in order to get pregnant despite the man’s wishes. This can be done in various ways and in various situations, but the bottom line is that the woman gets a baby and the man gets to “do the responsible thing” and take care of the child and sometimes the mother to boot. The term “oopsing” comes from the explanation given to the unexpected pregnancy: “it was an accident!”
Let me ask you this: Doesn’t this make you sick?
This behaviour has been accepted in the society for far too long. Not only have we been turning a blind eye to it, women openly admit doing it, mothers encourage their daughter-in-laws do that to their sons, and everyone knows someone who has done it or have it done to them.
Would it be fair to compare “oopsing” to rape?
When men rape women, they excuse it by having urges and needs that they cannot control, and that the woman was “asking for it” or that “she wanted it, but just didn’t know it“. When women “oopses” men, they say they have a desperate urge to have a child, a need to become a mother and that they know that deep down the man wants a baby. Why are those things acceptable excuses when they come from a woman, but from a man they’re not? When did “no means no” stop being relevant?
Does a child excuse it?
Women might claim that “oopsing” is acceptable, because it results into a beautiful innocent child. However, so does rape. Again, how is this different? A raped woman is not expected to want to keep the child, even in the strictest abortion jurisdiction it’s usually acceptable that a raped woman is entitled to an abortion. The same isn’t true for a man who has been “oopsed”, instead not only does he need to accept the fact he’s been “harvested” without his will, but he also needs to pay child support. Sometimes the man is expected to marry the woman, and “do the right thing”, but at the very least she is “deserving” of respect.
It’s not violent like rape is.
The only somewhat good excuse is that a rape is violent where as “oopsing” is done to a man who is a willing participant in the sex act. However, a rape can be performed without a woman being aware of it (drugs) and even though she would have no memory of the event, it doesn’t take away from the seriousness of the offence. Also, if the man WOULD BE aware of what the act was about, it would change the willingness of their participation quite dramatically, but also would make it a lot harder for the woman to complete the act. There are some obvious physical differences in play, but I don’t believe it makes the act any less abhorrent.
It’s hard to prove
Yes, it probably is. There are plenty of crimes that are hard to prove, a lot of them sexual in nature. That shouldn’t be a reason not to criminalize it. There are probably ways to medically assess things like how long ago a birth control pill was last taken regularly – it usually takes quite a long time for the hormones completely leave the system. There might be a way to make sure a pill contains a harmless ingredient (or several) that has a very specific time frame in which it leaves the system. Normally if a woman really doesn’t want to get pregnant, she keeps taking the pill regularly but misses a day or two maximum in which time conception is possible. In that light, she should be still taking the pill at the time she takes a pregnancy test, and if she wants to get pregnant it’s more than likely she hasn’t taken it for quite some time.
Then there’s the morning after -pill, if she really didn’t want to accidentally get pregnant after a condom broke, she would have taken the morning after -pill, at least where available. There’s so many ways to prevent a pregnancy these days that there really shouldn’t be much of a reason for an “oops”. If there has been a prior conversation that has clearly stated that the man did not wish to have children at this time, it should be a reasonable cause to suspect foul play.
At any rate, the fact that the strategy would be criminalized would send a clear message to the society that it is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Even that would be a good start.
How can this be legal?
I have no answers to this one. It shouldn’t be legal. There is absolutely no justification why it should be. Or is there? Give me your best shot.
Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2011-2012
INFP Childfree21 Comments
Leave a Reply
About Me
I am a (anti-)feminist childfree INFP blogger, a life coach, and a writer. If you'd like me to write for your blog or other publication, don't hesitate to ask.
I am Finnish and live in Australia.
I have had a personal website in this address since 2001 and made my first personal site in 1998 - hooked ever since!
i hadn’t ever thought of this before, but it makes total sense. I’ve been googling around ‘childless by choice’ because my husband and I are undecided on having children (but strongly leaning towards NOT). Glad I found your site. I also just read the post on your theming for wordpress, so i understand that everything isn’t totally the way you want it yet, but i would like to subscribe to RSS if you get it up and running.
RSS can be found at http://www.sebastyne.net/feed – I’ll have to add that somewhere, thanks for reminding me! And thank you for your comment.
Of course it should be, but the economics supposedly need a steady new workforce (plentiful enough for the people to need the work way more than the work will need the people, so the people will accept to be overworked and underpaid and generally subservient in order to keep this current rotten system working) and religion needs to “go forth and multiply” and few of those in positions of authority dare go against either, not least because one or both of these forces put and keep them there in the first place.
Plus (if I’m allowed some meanness… if not, tough), it’s not “politically correct” to blame poor gentle defenseless women (who only want to fulfill their “highest calling” and have a “cute wittle wuddly baby”) when “he should have kept it in his pants if he wasn’t ready for the consequences”.
Gah! I’d way, way further, but we can start from this just as well. Unless both parents (and, in case of polyamorous relationships, other primary partners of either as well) truly want and plan for this, there should be no pregnancy, if one happens by accident there should be an abortion, and if a person keeps getting here more than a few times there should be sterilization, since they obviously can’t be trusted with being responsible about sex. End of story.
There are so many ways to avoid pregnancy, that “an accident” as an explanation should make anyone suspicious, especially after a conversation that makes it clear one party wants a child while the other one doesn’t. Even if it was an accident, if the woman was responsible, and assumed responsibility for contraception, shouldn’t she also be solely responsible for the offspring? And if this is the case, then is such a woman a suitable mother? I honestly don’t think so. The whole scenario is rotten.
Well, accidents may happen, but yes, when the one responsible for the contraception actually wants a kid they automatically become highly suspicious. And of course such a woman wouldn’t be a suitable mother, but when equally unsuitable people make the rules…
Hmph, just checked this week’s posts on PostSecret. The first is just about this.
I wish they would allow comments, I’d tear her a new one…
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SXiHja-irvM/TsiLcI2YIBI/AAAAAAAAQ68/oKu7wWaxa-c/s1600/norbe20.jpg
That’s the other side, http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ef2Rz6Xrdqo/TsiG1zRRSkI/AAAAAAAAQ6w/U2yW6_vHgyY/s1600/norabe10.jpg is the front (annoying when he does that, making it show the back when you click).
And technically you can send an e-mail and he may publish a few comments, but you know, it’s the whole “we don’t judge” thing.
But yeah, sometimes I spot one that makes me feel oddly close to whoever wrote it, other times I just want to give the person a hug or some sort of comfort, even if I can’t directly relate, other times I’m curious, other times amused, sometimes a tad peeved… And then there are cases like this, when as you say I’d sure like to tear the author a new one.
As a childfree woman, I agree with you on everything but this last statement:
“Then there’s the morning-after pill, if she really didn’t want to accidentally get pregnant after a condom broke, she would have taken the morning-after pill. There’s so many ways to prevent a pregnancy these days that there really shouldn’t be much of a reason for an “oops”.”
I’m not sure if you have this issue in Australia, but here in the US it is sadly, horribly common for a woman to be denied Plan B as well as any other method of BC just because the very idea gives the pharmacist a case of the “moral” queasies. All that pharmacist (who 99.9% of the time is either evangelical Christian or Catholic) has to do is say that his/her “conscience” doesn’t allow that medication to be dispensed, and the woman is SOL. If she’s lucky she can go to another pharmacy, but that’s not always an option for poor women or women living in rural areas – there are colleges and towns where even condoms are banned from store shelves because of “conscience clauses”. There’s no way to really know beforehand if your pharmacist is a sanctimonious a$$hole, so you can wind up just taking your chances, not a good thing with something as time-sensitive as Plan B.
Wow, yeah. I’ve heard of that clause but it didn’t even occur to me when I wrote that. I haven’t needed “Plan B” in Australia, I just assume there wouldn’t be issues with it… I’ve needed it once back home in Finland where it’s definitely not an issue. If you only have one pharmacist available, I’m pretty sure I’d go and ask them before I need their help, just to ease my mind on that… And I don’t think I could live in a place where abortion was illegal.
While I agree it’s wrong for anyone to trick anyone else into something, particularly a human something, it is disgusting that you’re comparing this to rape. They’re not the same thing at all. Yes, getting pregnant on purpose when your partner doesn’t want to is very wrong. It is not rape. You should be ashamed for that horrible comparison.
Here’s a solution: If you’re willingly having sex with someone who wants a child and you do not want a child, stop having sex with that person. Accidents CAN happen, and if you’re not willing to accept that risk (and if you’re partner is a raving lunatic), you shouldn’t be with someone who’s willing to invite the risk into your lives.
Rape is rape. Crazy chicks who lie to you aren’t raping you.
Of course it’s not, legally speaking or technically speaking a rape, but in my mind it’s comparable to it, and in my mind, it’s just as bad. And I’m glad you’re disgusted. That’s what I want you to be. It is a disgusting horrible thing to do to a person, and the level of disgust I feel towards women who do this is exactly the same as I feel towards rapists. I want to take nothing away from the crime of rape, not at all. I just want to point out that this is a disgusting practise that has been allowed and quietly accepted for far too long.
Your solution doesn’t work though. Married women do this to their partners all the time. And just because you’re married doesn’t mean children are automatically agreed upon. Unfortunately a lot of women think that since they got married they got rights to the man’s sperm… Much like some men believe getting married means they have rights to the woman’s body and can do what ever they want with it. And what do you say to men who trust their partners to do the right thing? Who can’t see the craziness in them? Is it their fault they are trusting of their partner? Of course it isn’t. A lot of women agree not to have children with a man who doesn’t want them, but then go on behind their backs. Should men know when that’s a risk? They can’t.
There was an idea floating around for some time that if a woman became pregnant (whether by accident or on purpose) and decided to have the child and the man himself did not want the baby, on learning of the pregnancy he should be allowed to sign a form relinquishing his rights and responsibilities as a father. Therefore, he wouldn’t be required to pay child support, but he would not get visitation rights or custody either unless the mother changed her mind. While perhaps imperfect, this solution seems to be the best out there yet. If anything, it might dissuade some women from oopsing their partners (especially if those partners happened to be rich).
That is an option, but I don’t think it’s good enough. The reason being that while it would relieve the father from responsibility, it would not stop the woman from using him as “a free sperm donor”. I believe most men would not feel right about abandoning their children, whether wanted or not, and would definitely not want to abandon them to be raised by a woman who would ‘oops’ him, even if they did not want that child. It’s not really how a man should have an option tp avoid responsibility, but rather a clear message that this method is simply not okay.
While I don’t think that OOpsing is the right thing for a woman to do if she would like to become pregnant, I do think that anytime a man decides to have sex with a woman, he should be prepared for the consequences that could happen. Even birth control methods are not 100% effective. If a man would like to avoid a pregnancy, he should make sure that he supplies condoms to ensure that nothing happens that he does not want to happen. He should take the initiative to ensure that a pregnancy does not happen, even if a woman “says” that she is on the pill.
While I agree in theory, I feel like this is exactly the loop hole these women count on. This is the way they rationalize the ‘right’ they have to that. “You should have been more responsible, and because you weren’t I stole your seed.” How is that right?
This is a very thought provoking subject. I do agree that women do exploit this “loop hole”, but how can this be proven. Condoms do break, sometimes you can honestly forget to take the pill and no contraception is 100% accurate. I don’t think it a case of stolen seed though. It’s freely given.
My old roommate desperately wanted to get pregnant. Her boyfriend didn’t want to have children because of his diagnosis. He was bipolar.
She did get pregnant. She later reveal to me that she put a hole in her diaphragm. I was completely shocked. It was the first I realized how low some women could go. They broke up and she suffered a miscarriage. She was completely unfair to the guy, but how would be able to prove it.
Lots of crimes go unpunished because they can’t be proven. That’s not a reason not to declare it a crime. It would be a start to send a message that this behaviour is not OK. It should also be a crime to encourage others to do this, which may already fall under some legistlation, encouraging or supporting criminal activity. This would undoubtedly also aid in this, because women probably need some support to do this. I cannot phantom a lot of women not telling their friends how they feel and what they’re planning… Of course choosing to ask for support from women they already know would support such a thing. (A bit like asking for support for abortion from a pro-choice woman or asking for courage to keep an unwanted baby from someone they know to be pro-life.)
I’m sure hole in a diaphragm can be proven to have been caused by a deliberate puncture instead of wear and tear or some such thing.
Thanks for your comments Hardison!
child molestation usually can’t be proven but its illegal and it should be. I can see your point of view. even though conviction rates would be low and jail time is not necessarily the besst option, except with child molestors and rapists. There should def b a law against or something sending the message that it is wrong. And it is taking advantage of your partner, and using his body for selfish reason, similar to rape.
Oopsing a man is a disgusting thing to do, and probably should be a crime.
However, I don’t know how it could be proved. I also think there are *some* men out there who would use it as excuse not to take responsibility for their actions. No contraception is 100% guaranteed, and accidents do happen. There are thousands of women who have been abandoned by irresponsible men, as there thousands of men out there trapped by women who have ooppsed them.
I don’t know what the solution is.
I’ll just put this out there: In areas, where abortion is legal, should the man have the right to say that he’s not up for this? If the woman still wants to keep the baby, then she can go right ahead, but shouldn’t the man have the RIGHT to opt out? It wasn’t his choice to keep the baby, but obviously if he’s not going to be a part of the baby’s life, he’s not going to be a part of it’s life, so signing off responsibility would also sign off any rights. It’s not ideal, and certainly not fair on the baby, but would definitely make people think twice about taking risks. Clearly, abortion is an ethical question to a lot of women, but should it be a decision that is put on the man who may not share her values? I would never want to force anyone into abortion, but it’s not much better to force someone into parenthood, either.