To the editor:

What kind of man refuses to support his child (Journal-World, March 9)? The kind who has grown up hearing that a child should not doom anyone to months, much less years, of suffering his presence. Only someone educated in the school of me-ism, divorced from notions of moral obligation to other human beings could possibly be so selfish.

Whom do we have to thank for the new men’s “rights” thinking now threatening a child welfare crisis unmatched in history? Well, ask yourself who is saying, “I had a right to play sexual games and not let worry about possible consequences spoil the fun. Surely my rights trump those of this kid I can’t even see. Society has no investment in my private life. How dare anyone condemn me to responsibility and un-fun for a kid I don’t even want.”

We all pay when anyone with responsibility for the weak and helpless abdicates and throws the burden upon “society.” We all pay when the calculus of life makes murder a possible solution to our discomfort. We all pay when the next generation takes its miseducation to its obvious, if horrific, logical conclusions.

I’d like to tell these young men there is no “right” to irresponsible sex; that no child should be punished for their own selfish, ignorant immaturity and that they will be more manly, more noble, more human for facing up to the obligations life imposes. But all around me women who need their support are telling them the opposite is true.

Charlotte Ostermann,

Lawrence