“….The NCM actually offers the “Reproductive Rights Affidavit” (think of it as the sexual equivalent of a living will), which challenges “any court order that seeks to impose a parental obligation upon me against my will.” Unfortunately for Jeremy, a 35-year-old technical consultant and musician in New York, the affidavit doesn’t provide a legal cover for now. He thought he’d found himself a nice girl. He had just split with his longtime fiancée but explains that this new woman was saying all the right things—even when it came to practical matters. She was on the Pill. She was pro-choice. So she and Jeremy (who’s using a fake name) enjoyed a couple of months of unprotected intimacy.

Then things got weird. She mysteriously quit drinking. She disappeared for days at a time. She told him she was considering going off birth control, though she assured him she hadn’t yet. By July, Jeremy had had enough and broke things off. Then in August, he says, she told him she was pregnant and was keeping it. “She was pregnant all of May, all of June, and all of July,” Jeremy says. “I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?’ She’s like, ‘I didn’t want you to influence my decision.’ Something that has potential impact on me for the rest of my life, she doesn’t want me influencing her decision!?“


More than a year and $6,500 in legal fees later, Jeremy has a 7-month-old boy he’s never met, a child-support case pending, and a judge who’s less than sympathetic toward his allegations of contraceptive deceit. Even his own attorney told him he’d better ditch that dream of becoming a full-time musician and focus on the computer gig that he’d hoped would only supplement his income: “She was like, ‘You know what? You gotta be a man. You’re gonna have to have a job 40 hours a week, and you need to support this child—this is your responsibility and your obligation.’ And I’m thinking to myself, like, ‘How is all of this my responsibility and my obligation when none of this was my choice?’”


Men. You may think you aren’t ready for the responsibility of fatherhood. You’re probably right. The scary thing is, even though you should have the right to have a say in how your life is about to change, don’t bet that you will. It may not matter one jot to your partner – if she decides she wants a baby. Best look out. And unprotected sex? Definitely not worth it.


Thanks to fellow blogger A Likely Story for sending me this link, and highlighting this very despicable practice. I think it’s well worth writing about.