It isn’t just women who are affected by crisis pregnancy. Men are involved too.

That’s why I view this news as a depressing step in the wrong direction for everyone involved in crisis pregnancy. It’s yet another erosion of fathers’ rights.

(If you have trouble with the link, the article is called "Supreme Court upholds adoption" by Rob Moritz of the Arkansas News Bureau.)

Basically, what the article says is this: the Arkanasas Supreme Court has ruled that “a woman who has had no contact with the father of her baby since the night the child was conceived does not have to notify the father or receive his consent before putting the baby up for adoption.”

(I’m not sure what this means in situations where the couple does stay in touch, but I'm not optimistic that fathers have any more rights in that case.)

The state says that putative father registries are enough to uphold fathers' rights. Putative father registries require that men to register as the father of the child before they can be notified if a child believed to be theirs is adopted. If you don’t register, you don’t have a right to know—or so says the state.

This is very backwards, and completely denigrates the role of a father in a child’s life. We tell people that having an active and caring father is so very important to a child, then we pass laws that make it difficult for those who want to parent to stay informed and involved. It doesn't make sense.

Ladies, how would you feel if you had to register with the state every time you had sex that might have resulted in a child? How would you feel if the man had ultimate and complete control over what happened to your child?

It’s true that many men in crisis pregnancies get scared and run. It’s true that many of them just don’t want to be involved (or think they don’t at the time). But there are plenty of men who do want a shot at parenting their child, and who would make fine parents. Often, they are simply not told of a pregnancy. This makes it easier for an adoption to happen, because it eliminates the possibility that the father might object to the plan. However, in cases when a father is not informed and does object, it creates a situation that is ripe for the adoption to be overturned. And that is good for no one.

I say it’s time to update our outdated notions of “legitimacy” and start giving natural parents equal rights. A pregnancy is created by two people and deeply affects both parties. It isn’t fair to trample the rights of men in our zeal to allow adoptions to go forward.