Return to joint parental responsibility
Pierotti, D.
Entre Nous 24: 3
1993
ISSN/ISBN: 1014-8485 PMID: 12222250 Document Number: 331465
Along the frontiers of the former Soviet Union young women die every day because of the serious medical conditions preventing childbearing; they die because they are culturally obligated to reproduce. Such cultural codes led to the death of a 15-year-old girl who was killed by her immigrant father and other relatives because she wanted to live like her peers in the French city of Colmar. A 1992 visit of the author to Catalonia to discuss male reproductive roles made him reevaluate earlier views. Traditional sexist attitudes resulted in the expulsion of pregnant students from a nursing school by a male doctor who blamed them, while male partners were acquitted. Preparation for the conference in Barcelona by reviewing 20 years of work on male sexuality and family planning yielded only a few studies on male responsibility and the changing role of males. The advent of modern contraceptives has weakened male supremacy in Europe except among some immigrant families and religious extremists. Divorce and child custody laws, favoring the mother further, eroded male dominance. Even organizations have been formed to defend male rights. In vitro fertilization was endorsed by American lesbians in an article in 1993 reducing males to sperm donor status. Modern reproductive medical technology seems to have broken all limits; even elderly women can be made to conceive. These extreme examples indicate that the male-female relationships and joint responsibility for raising children in a family should be resuscitated based on equal terms for emotional stability and benefit of parents and progeny.