I also know full well that i could be run over by a bus while crossing the street in a designated cross-walk, but society holds that bus driver responsible none the less… Her alleged inability to become pregnant was clearly conveyed to the op. I doubt he ever signed any legal documents, or made any verbal agreement to become a father. A failure to deny consent does not imply enthusiastic consent. Society does not allow rape so long as the victim fails to deny consent (i.e situations where drugs or alcohol are involved), it is rape when consent is not provided. To set a different standard for anything else is inconsistent and illogical.
She isn’t expected to raise a child. She has various options during pregnancy and after the child is born. Hypothetically, a woman can employ 10+ different forms of birth control within her own body (none of which are a male condom/controlled by the man). She can take a morning after/plan b pill. She can choose to have an abortion performed. She can have the child and give it up for adoption. She can even abandon the child at a designated safe location in specific countries and/or states, facing no legal consequences for doing so. Men have a few options, wear a condom (not a guarantee), get a vasectomy (permanent, and not always 100% effective), or don’t have sex (though if you are raped by a woman and she becomes pregnant, you are still legally responsible to pay child support, even if you are under the legal age of consent when the rape occurs).
With all of this evidence before us, I would say it’s impossible to look at this situation logically and conclude that this is a fair and balanced system. I can only imagine the message that young men are receiving when they see older men saying that their consent to be a father doesn’t matter, only that they consent to having sex. It’s all too convenient to forget what it was like to be young and horny, as though not having sex is a realistic expectation. If not having sex is a realistic expectation, then why all the controversy surrounding access to legal abortion? Surely people can just choose to not have sex so that we can do away with medically unnecessary abortions? It all works perfectly if we pretend that young humans are rational and responsible enough to just abstain from having sex… Is it any wonder so many young men are being driven toward toxic movements like incel and mgtow, when there is hardly a reasonable alternative voice available to guide them, to show them that some women are still worth it, that becoming a father is still worth it?
He never agreed to be, and is not legally obliged to be a father. He is legally obliged to pay child support, and short of fleeing the country there is little he can do to change this reality. Whether this financial responsibility is fair or not can certainly be argued (preferably with facts/evidence and a rational perspective), but he is obligated none-the-less.
Ignore the shaming and emotionally driven arguments OP. Ask yourself if you ever gave this woman any reason to believe that you wanted to become a father, and did she ever give you any reason to believe that she was capable of becoming pregnant? If the answer is no, then you have only one choice to make, stay and become a reluctant father, or fly to freedom and a new start, perhaps somewhere tropical ;)