Man Protests Being 'Forced' To Pay Child Support For A Baby He Didn't Want—'We Should Never Force A Man To Do Anything'
Just trust us, he might actually have a very valid point!
TikTok When you first start watching Shane Morris's series of TikToks protesting about child support you might think, "Oh no here is another man refusing to do right by the children he brought into the world" but context matters and, in this case, context proves that Morris is actually part of an important fight for women's rights — we hope!
Morris recently went over to his local reproductive healthcare clinic and decided to mess with the people protesting outside of it. Morris decided that, instead of advocating for pro-life or anti-abortion, he would protest the one thing men in America are forced to do, but never want to.
The man claims he was being forced to pay child support for a baby he didn’t want.
Morris stood on the sidewalk alongside the pro-lifers and held a sign that said “Tell Krystal I am not paying child support,” with “child support” in rainbow colors — the rest all black.
He was donning a trucker hat, viper sunglasses, and a lot of red, white, and blue colors — he played the part pretty well and repeatedly yelled about this fictional character named “Krystal” and how he refused to pay child support for her.
“She can bring a baby [into] the world if she wants to, but she can’t make me pay for it,” he explains. “It’s not late, I’m just not paying.”
Most of the conversation in Morris's first video happens with a woman that has a microphone and speaker set up, as well as a big sign that reads “If paying someone to rip apart this child isn’t murder…then there is no such thing as murder,” with a baby’s ultrasound.
He asks her if Krystal is in there, and initially, it seems as though she’s going along with what Morris is saying, asking on the microphone if Krystal was in there and if he fathered a child with that woman.
“You can’t force me to pay child support,” Morris offers up once again to the imaginary woman named Krystal. “These fine people are going to make sure that Krystal never gets a dollar from me.”
According to the CDC, via Divorce Wizards, approximately 84% of child support providers are men. Although women do, and can, pay child support, they pay much less on average than their male child-supporting counterparts — $2,400 annually versus $3,600, respectively.
However, in 2019, Forbes reported that US census statistics showed that more than 30% of child support payments are never paid and less than half are paid in full. Often, this means that primary carers are left funding kids alone. This is typically — though not always — the mother. So, imagine if women who are already at risk of being forced to support children alone are also being forced to become mothers because their reproductive rights are being stripped from them... that would be something worth protesting about for sure!
That's where Morris comes in. He's pointing out the hypocrisy and almost laughable decision to force women into motherhood without forcing fathers to support children.
His goal is to get them to realize their own perspective on the subject.
Morris's whole point here, although he’s mocking them by playing the role satirically, is that people shouldn’t be forced to do things they don’t want to do.
It sounds crazy, right? Well, in Morris's second video, he confronts a man who actually agrees with him without realizing the irony of his own stance.
“It was her choice to have the baby, you know? She went through with it, that’s her decision, but I’m not paying child support,” he explains. “No man should ever be forced to do anything he doesn’t want to do.”
The man contemplates for a moment and says “Yeah, they forced me to go into the army.” He agreed that men shouldn’t be forced into doing anything they don’t want to do, without realizing that the same argument should be made for women — that they shouldn’t be forced to carry a baby to term.
In his attempt to emphasize the irony, Morris repeated, “The government using force is a problem. For men, not for women. I’m glad we’re here in agreement.”
The man never seemed to capture the irony of his own pro-life opinion, but everyone in the comments praised Morris for his “genius.” He just wishes everyone outside his comments were able to understand what he was trying to do.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.