Rosanna Davison advises cheating woman to conceal paternity doubts from her boyfriend

I'm pretty speechless after reading this. If anyone wondered why the issue of mens' rights has started to become widely debated in recent times and those who campaign for them sometimes seem bitter and untrusting, this type of unbelievably hideous sh!te is the exact reason.

http://www.independent.ie/style/sex-relationships/dear-rosanna-im-six-months-pregnant-but-im-not-sure-if-my-boyfriend-or-his-best-friend-is-the-father-31094031.html

Q. I’m six months pregnant and I’m not sure that my partner is the father of our child. I had a one night stand with his friend and now timing-wise this child could belong to either man. My boyfriend is so thrilled at the prospect of becoming a father and I want to just go along with that because it’s something that we had planned to do anyway. His pal and I have not said one word to each other since we slept together but I can see how he looks at me since we announced my pregnancy.

He has a wife and two children, so it’s not like he wants any of this to come out, but this is a pretty big secret to have lurking in the background – if there was no chance whatsoever that the pal could be the dad of my baby then I’d try put it behind us, but time wise I can’t lie to myself that this is the case. I think the fact that myself and this other man have not spoken about what happened or the possibility that this child is his is not helping – if we can both agree to chalk it up as a mistake that we will never mention to another soul then maybe I can just plough on with my partner?

A. This pregnancy must have come as a shock timing-wise, but your focus really needs to be on having a healthy and stress-free pregnancy, and delivering a healthy baby.

It’s happened now, you’re bringing a new life into the world and it would be pointless to get caught up in guilt and regret. I do think that you need to speak to your boyfriend’s friend before the baby is born, and to make it clear to him that the baby could be his but if he is willing to forget that the one night stand happened, then you are too. I would imagine that he’s happy to get back to his normal life and not get caught up in another woman’s child, as well as the huge problems it will cause with your boyfriend.

You might consider taking a paternity test on your child, but for now it’s most important to speak to this man and agree on how you both want to proceed. My advice is to focus on your boyfriend as being the father and cut contact with this other man once you have spoken to him.

The fact that a mainstream newspaper (yes, even if it is the Indo) would happily print an article advising somebody to trick her partner into giving up his life to raise another man's child without realising it is something I find shocking, even in a society in which mens' rights and autonomy are generally ridden roughshod over without a second thought. Is paternity fraud really normalised to the extent at which it can be advised to casually and openly, without literally a single sentence in the article giving thought to how the boyfriend might feel if he knew the kid wasn't his?

That's not even getting into the fact that this woman is being advised to conceal her infidelity, again as if her partner's feelings or role in their relationship is completely irrelevant. I have a very hard time imagining that any cheating man would ever be advised to do the same. Nor is it even touching the issue of another man potentially having a child that he will never know about - where do his rights as a biological parent come into any of this?

I consider myself a gender egalitarian rather than either a feminist or an MRA, and I definitely don't consider myself MGTOW - but bullsh!t like this is directly responsible, at least in part, for the trend of guys shunning relationships. The same trend which I'm sure people like Ms Davison will bemoan in future newspaper columns, "why are there no good men who are interested in a relationship / getting married / etc?" before accusing the majority of this generation's men of being childish or having "peter pan syndrome" simply because they're disillusioned with how irrelevant their own desires and feelings in relationships have become from society's point of view.

Does anyone else find the article absolutely abhorrent? Does it surprise anyone? Am I being overly pessimistic in my belief that this kind of male disposability has become absolutely endemic in society to the point at which it is seen as somehow normal, and not a horrific violation of an actual human being's life? Is this view less mainstream than the media trends suggest?

Thoughts?