Should men have some rights regarding the potential abortion of a foetus they have contributed to. <– I hope that was neutral enough language for all
I am pro-choice is just about every single way but I believe that in some cases the potential father should have some meaningful say.
Here are the criteria:
Long-term committed couple
Consensual sex results in planned, or unplanned but not unwanted, pregnancy
Couple breaks up around the time they find out
Paternity is not an issue
Abuse is not an issue
The man is financialy, emotionaly and moraly capable of and willing to raise the future child
The woman was willing to have a child with hime but now that they are split she doesn’t want the pregnancy and decides to end it.
Man is willing and able to pay any and all expenses related to the pregnancy and birth.
Under these criteria I think a man should have the right to insist the foetus be carried to term.
I know this was somewhat hashed out a few years ago,
I am pro-choice. As a man I would have every right to my opinion and input on whether my girlfriend or wife should carry a child to term but the final say rests with her. In the end, it’s her body and her choice.
Otherwise you set up the deeply disturbing situation of the woman not wanting to be pregnant and the man having the power to override her wishes.
But I can’t help feeling that I am being deprived of something that I deeply want through a problem of biology. I’d be happy to carry the kid if it could be passed off but I can’t.
It is both our fault that the pregnancy exists. It is not my fault that I couldn’t get pregnant and she could. But she gets to choose whether I lose my future child and all things attendant or I get some visitation and child support.
That seems like a double standard and it bugs me that I can’t reconcile it. That’s partly why I started this thread.
I don’t see your desire as rising to the level of a right. And I don’t see the intensity of your want as altering the basic right a woman has to control her own body.
How about looking at it the other way around? If abortion is legal, why should the man who doesn’t want to be a father be on the hook if the woman insists on carrying the child to term? Turnabout is fair play, right?
The only circumstances underwhich I would agree with that would be if the man were able to have the fetus somehow transfered into; a surrogate, an artifical womb, or himself. Until we devlop that technology the woman’s rights supperseed any rights the man has without exception.
I’m willing to meet the OP partway and agree that I think that a case can be made that a woman who has previously committed to bearing a man’s baby has accepted a personal ethical obligation to carry that pregnancy to term if he still wants her to and if she can possibly do so.
Likewise, I think that a woman who has accidentally become pregnant by a man who always made it very clear that he didn’t want parental responsibilities, if she decides to carry the pregnancy to term, has a personal ethical obligation to raise the child on her own as best she can without demanding the man’s unwilling assistance.
However, I think trying to turn either of those moral positions into a recognized legal obligation that’s binding on the woman would be a recipe for disaster.
Ultimately, legally, the woman’s right to control her own body in the early stages of pregnancy has to take precedence over the man’s preferences, even if she makes an unethical choice. Likewise, once a baby is born, it’s right for the law to maintain that the baby’s needs take precedence, even if that involves an unscrupulous mother shaking down a reluctant father for financial support that she knew all along he did not want to give.
Pregnancy is not an equal burden on men and women. We don’t get pregnant. Women do. So we don’t get an equal say in the matter. I do not regard this as unfair. I would certainly sympathize with your position but I would not say your desire to have a child allows you to impose that on a woman who does not desire to carry a child. Think of the potential for abuse if you set that precedent.
If, as alphaboi said, we could come up with some way to magically teleport the fetus into the womb of a consenting woman, or better yet if you would carry the baby to term, then I’d revisit my opinion.
On the other hand, you can become a parent when you’re an old geezer, in your sixties or even later. She can’t, she’ll be unable to conceive a child after menopause. Sure, she’ll be able to have one with IVF or other artificial means, but it won’t be her genetic material unless she stores eggs for future use. You can find a sweet young thing and make babies when you’re well on your way to your second childhood.
If this really does bother you, then develop a way to transplant embryos or fetuses (I speak English and I use English plurals, dammit!) into men, and develop a way for men to carry them to term.
And I agree, once that happens, and if a way is found to perform abortions so that the living embryo/fetus can be transplanted to the father’s womb (geez it seems odd to type that phrase), then it should most definitely be a father’s right to carry a fetus if the mother doesn’t want to.
I get that and agree entirely except that there are some cases where the law seems to suggest that a foetus is in someways a personish.
More google-fu would likely result in more of the same.
If sometimes a foetus is protected and sometimes they aren’t dependant on circumstance; and there is no reason to doubt that the man will not do a good job raising the soon-to-be kid and wants to that should be taken into account I think.
I get that pregnancy sucks, badly and delivery can be hell intensified. I get that it is wrong to force a woman to undergo that against her will.
I also get that a man can desperately want the child and be able to care for it and is stripped of the opportunity through no fault of his own. I also consider that wrong.
As was said earlier by Quartz - I’m paraphrasing - if the man wants the child but the woman doesn’t then there is no child. If the woman wants the child but the man doesn’t then there is a child. If there is a child then the man - who didn’t want it - is on the hook for 18+ years.
I don’t believe that this is entirely fair. I believe that if a child can be forced upon a man,
“I don’t want the blessed thing”
“Too bad, it’s yours.”
Then under the criteria listed in the OP I think:
“I’m going to end the pregnancy”
“I want the future child and I can take care of it. I’m sorry it’ll suck for you but I can’t carry it.”
Should also apply.
I’m not trying to open the floodgates to allow men to force gestation upon women hither and yon. I’m just saying that if there is to be “equality” between the sexes it has to include reproduction and right now it seems highly off center in this one hypothetical case.
No, we shouldn’t have such rights, because the situation of a woman and a man in a pregancy they have created together are not equivalent. Forcing a woman to bear a child she does not wish to forces her into slavery for 9 months, and perhaps risks her life in some circumstances.
Is it unfair to oblige the man to support the child afterwards? A little. But life isn’t fair. If you don’t like it, take it up with Zeus.
You give me far more credit than I warrant and I thank you for it
Alas I lack the credentials and, to an increasingly less important degree, actual knowledge in those areas. Where I to try it would be a disaster of neandrathal-Mengelean proportions.
How far are you willing to go in order to force her to carry the child to term? Do you just sue/prosecute only after she has an abortion or can the father have her commited to a special maternity institution against her will? Should the father be made to undergoe physical torments designed to simulate the discomfort/pain/indignity/risks of pregnancy as much as possible for equality’s sake? If the unwilling mother were to die in childbirth should we then kill the father?
As long as the woman’s body is the one inwhich the fetus grows men & women cannot have complete reproductive equality.
I think Skald the Rhymer hit the nail on the head. Yes, the way the situation is, there are elements of “unfairness” to the males.
Unfortunately, barring the advances in medical technology that would force us to reexamine the question, we just simply have to chalk it up to “Life’s not fair.” I think most everyone here understands the initial question, and, speaking for myself, I sympathize with it. But we can do absolutely jack squat about it.
Biology isn’t fair in this circumstances. Once the sperm leaves the man and enters the woman his ability to make a decision in regards to producing a human being has ended. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. If we had technology enabling embryo transfer into someone else it might be a different story, but as of yet we don’t.
But also they broke up and that reason didnt presumably didnt come out of nowhere. One or both parties decided that the relationship was not a situation they wanted to raise a child together in.
In my view both parties have to agree that this is the case in order for the contract to continue. Once one is out, it doesnt matter how much the other one wants to continue, its sort of a biological version of making divorce illegal. Once you break up, she owes the man nothing other than what was earned prior to the relationship.
The only decision she has to make is whether its a good time to have a child in that situation and her own beliefs about abortion.
Bear in mind that if a woman agrees to transfer a fetus or embryo to a man (via the method of Dr. Hypo & Prof. Thetical), fairness and the current body of law suggest that she would be on the hook for child support until the kid is 18 or so.
