I’ve heard that if a man does not support a woman’s right to choose (to have an abortion, that is), it’s because he wants women to remain subjugated to male-dominated society. Fair enough, I guess.
However, I’ve also heard that if a man does support a woman’s right to have an abortion (sorry – to choose to have an abortion), it’s because he wants the ability to rid himself of the obligations that come with being the father of an unwanted child. Anecdotal stories abound of men browbeating their wives or girlfriends into having an abortion just so they won’t be stuck with another mouth to feed.
In general, the prevailing attitude seems to be that men aren’t entitled to an opinion on the subject, since the whole issue revolves around a woman’s right to have control over her own body. Kind of like, say, a colorblind person wanting to offer suggestions as to what color the walls should be painted.
Well, I suppose if you frame the debate solely in terms of a woman’s right to choose, then men really aren’t entitled to an opinion on the subject. And maybe that’s why the abortion rights activists are so adamant about framing the debate in those terms.
Does the debate have to be framed solely in those terms, however? Aren’t there issues involved about which a man would be entitled to have an opinion? What about the effect that easy access to abortion will have on society as a whole? What about a father’s rights to have his children born? What about, in fact, the whole question as to whether the abortion right’s debate really is solely (or primarily) about a woman’s right to choose in the first place? Am I, as a male, entitled to offer an opinion on any of these aspects of the issue? Or is it really just “none of my business” after all?
I’d really love to know what the female perspective is on this.
I think it depends on what stance you have on the ethical implacations of abortion. If you reguard an unborn child as a “person” then we as a male should have the right to stand up and say: “Hey! Quit killing kids!” or “Hey! It’s okto kill some kids!”
If on the other hand you think that an unborn child is not a person, I can see where a man’s POV is irrelevant. It’s not in us and so we can’t make that decision.
I realize that these are overly simplistic, but they get my main point across I think.
The man’s opinion is irrelevant period. It’s not his body and that’s the end of it,.
It’s really kind of a moot point anyway if you think about it. What do you do in the case of a stalemate? The final choice still has to reside with the person who owns the body in question.
Not until I find out whether I’m entitled to have opinions on the subject…
Seriously, though, I can’t say what effects easy access to abortion will have on society. In my OP, I should have said “might have” instead of “will have.” Off the top of my head, one could argue that easy access to abortion might lead to a general desensitization to the value of human life (the “slippery slope” argument). Conversely, one might argue that it might lead to the complete self-actualization of women. Or that it will lead (as mentioned earlier) to a situation where men are able to “force” women to have abortions they don’t really want. Or that it will lead to a Utopean society where all people have freedom to choose how they are treated.
The point is, are men entitled to discuss and have opinions on these issues, or are we forced to only focus on the “it’s a woman’s body and therefore only women can have a valid opinion” issue?
This woman’s perspective is: people are free to have opinions. Well-informed and thought-out opinions are more valuable to me than opinions that are not well-informed, and I am more likely to respect them; being female is not the only means of having a well-informed opinion, nor is it sufficient.
I do have a certain level of amused respect for the guy who expressed to me his opinion on abortion as, “Well, I’ll never have one.”
That’s an odd point to make. Of course you’re entitled to your opinion, but in what possible scenario could your opinion override a person’s right to choose?
On preview I see you’ve sort of answered this, so let me ask you: What child?
I’ve always thought it unfair that the women gets to make the decision as to whether the child is born, yet the man is financially bound by the result of that decision.
HOWEVER, I can’t really think of any other way to do things that would make any kind of sense, so I suppose it’s a necessary evil.
[BTW, some people get very emotional about the subject, so I caution you not to read anything into my post that I didn’t say. Thank you.]
Not at all. If we assume that the unborn child is a human being, then it’s not merely the mother’s body that’s at stake: it’s the life of the other human being. I have every right to advocate laws that protect women from being vaginally raped, even though I as a man will never be vaginally raped. The sine qua non of being able to offer a useful or legally binding vote on matters of law is not whether or not the law might ever persoanlly affect the lawmaker.
If we assume that the unborn child is merely a leeching mass of tissue, parasitically living off the reluctant mother, then I agree that the opinion of the mother should be paramount. But if it’s a human being, then I’d argue that the mission of society to protect human life should outweigh the mother’s inconvenience.
And so we come to the same unanswerable impasse. Can I prove it’s a human? Of course not. I’m convinced of it. But I can’t offer an objective proof.
And as long as you can’t prove it’s a human we have to err on the side of the rights of the woman – who we know for sure is a human.
BTW, I thought the OP was talking in terms of whether men who impregnate women should have some legal say in whether those women can have abortions. Of course, in a larger sense, any man can express whatever opinion he wishes but it’s ridiculous to say that he should be able to impose any legal will on a woman’s reproductive decisions.
[sarcasm on]Well, I’ve heard that people that hang out with idiots get a lot of bullsh*t pumped into their heads. I’ve also heard that idiots like to take very difficult and complex issues and make them simplistic enough for them to understand. [/sarcasm off]
Very few people - Diogenes the Cynic notwithstanding - would claim that the father’s opinion is irrelevant. The father should have plenty to say about the matter, but ultimately it should be the mother’s decision.
Indeed, everyone who has something at stake should be free to express their opinion, but the decision whether or not to have an abortion is unusual in that there is no room for compromise. You can’t have half a child. Someone has to make the final decision and that someone should be the mother.
Who said anything about my opinion “overriding a person’s right to choose”?
My original post was not about whether I should have the right to make a decision on behlaf of a woman. It’s simply about whether men are entitled to be involved in the discussion over the larger issue of abortion rights in general.
Whenever I witness or participate in such a discussion, I inevitably see men attacked regardless of the position they take, and the general consensus is that men have no right to even offer an opinion on the subject since abortion is something that only affects women.
As for my opinions regarding abortion, they have shifted back and forth over the years. The only constant thing is that women don’t seem to want to acknowledge that my opinions – whatever they happen to be – can possibly be valid since I am a man.
I won’t defend that attitude, but I’ll draw a comparison. If women constantly stepped into discussions about prostate cancer and said things about how prostate cancer isn’t so bad, or if you didn’t want prostate cancer you shouldn’t have done X, or “my father/brother/husband has prostate cancer and he’s really happy about it,” you would start ignoring women who talked about prostate cancer. It wouldn’t be fair, but it would be understandable.
Everyone’s got the right to an opinion. I have to admit, though, even though I know it’s unfair, I have a harder time giving weight to the opinions of people who can never face the problem they’ve decided to dictate a solution for.
I know men have wives, girlfriends, daughters, sisters, who may go through an unwanted pregnancy. I know that that is difficult, terribly so. But the fact that no man ever has to worry about having some one else living inside his body makes it harder for me to listen to one tell me that I have to let some one live in mine.
Anyone who advocates banning abortions except in the case of rape or incest, I tune out as well. That makes the worth of the fetus’s life judged by the behavior of the mother, and throws the motives of the pro-lifer into question for me. If it’s about how the mother behaved, then banning abortions seems like punishment for women who don’t conform to certain moral standards, not an effort to protect ‘babies’.
I understand, and I don’t blame you for feeling that way. At the same time though, one could argue that such people can actually be more objective in deciding such matters; after all, they won’t have as much of a personal stake in its outcome.
Mind you, I’m not saying that men are more qualified than women to decide such matters. I’m just pointing out that their relative lack of personal involvement can cut both ways.
