Abortions: should the father have a say in it?

Great Debates
41

Legally, parenthood is an assumed responsibility of intercourse for both men and women. Women have an effective “out” due to the availability of a medical procedure which will terminate the pregnancy. This is not written into the law as an “out” for the woman however. The law is fair, as far as it goes, because it treats the decision to have sex the same way for both genders. Another right of the woman, the right to decide her own medical treatment, creates the unofficial “out” of abortion. There is no legal construct under which a woman can waive her obligation of parenthood, and therefore there not being a male equivelant of this non-existant legal option is not an issue.

Crap like this is why I think the legal system needs an overhaul. It mirrors reality very imperfectly.

Enjoy,
Steven

42

Abortion, pregnancy, childbirth, hormonal contraception all place a woman’s life at risk. Her pocketbook too, but her life, her health, her welfare are all bigger risks.

If a woman has any fertility at all, she can’t have risk free sex with a man who has any fertility at all. And no, I do not believe that men, in general, would rather be the ones who get pregnant.

43

Oh please.

The custodial parent faces equivalent, if not greater, financial and social consequences than the non-custodial parent. The custodial parent is usually a woman. At a bare minimum, she is expected to keep her children fed, clothed, educated, and healthy. All he’s got to do, at minimum, is remember to write a check every month, or even better, have a wage withholding in effect.

In addition to the financial and social risks, the mother faces the medical risks of both pregnancy and either delivery or abortion.

44

Deadbeat dad laws are for shit in some states, mine included. I spent over four thousand dollars on court and lawyer fees, only to get less than a thousand back in child support. This was in less than three years. I finally gave up after the sperm donor was “unemployed” (read: working for cash under the table) and I realized that his on again, off again presence in my son’s life was doing more damage than good.

No, I wouldn’t have any guarantee that he wouldn’t do that under a reformed “opt-out” system. But at least I’d have the moral high ground, knowing that he had every opportunity to handle himself like a man who didn’t want kids. As it is, I’ll always feel like he didn’t want me to have the kid, but couldn’t say it because it was “my decision” and so he was trapped into it. He pretended to support me, sponged off me for 3 years, and jerked me around in court for another 3. He’s an asshole, but at least under another system could be a responsible asshole.

As it is, he bears exactly zero responsibility, and there’s not a practical thing I or anyone else can do about it.

Frankly, I feel like EVERY person who decides to become a parent should do it under the assumption that sooner or later they may be a single parent. Not only because of deadbeats, but because of divorce and death.

45

IMHO, where abortion is legal, and where a child is conceived by two consenting adults, a healthy child should be carried to term if the mother is able to do so, unless both parents decide to abort. If one parent wishes to abort and the other does not, then the parent who does not should carry the financial burden. ‘You want to keep it? You pay for it.’

I do not agree with the principle of a woman’s body being her own once she becomes pregnant: she’s now sharing her body with a foetus.

46

Not true.

47

We keepstressing shared raising of children. Men change diapers and take kids to school and pick them up. Discipline is shared. Does sharing only start at birth. Before birth it is totally a womans choice. This does not seem quite right. It is possible for a woman to lie about birth control. A man can be set up. Can you envision no circumstances when a man should have rights too?

48

[QUOTE=black rabbit]
A giant fucking mess.
Maybe I missed something, but I don’t get how that’s about a married couple where the mother gave birth doesn’t want the child and the father does. It seems to be about an unmarried couple who both signed the consent to adopt papers and changed their mind.
In the case of the married mother who doesn’t want the child while the father does , it seems to me there are basically two options- they agree to either adoption or keeping the baby and stay together , or they split up. If they split up, there’s no reason the father shouldn’t get custody and then the mother will be liable for child support. There’s no way she could legally surrender the baby for adoption without the father also doing so, there’s no way she can just opt out of being responsible without the baby being surrendered, and if she tries to lie and say she doesn’t know who the father is, the chances that she’ll get away with it are small unless she drops off the face of the earth. (He knows she’s pregnant, and he’ll know approximately where and when she had the baby- it won’t be that hard for him to stop a surrender)
Those Safe Haven laws decriminalize certain types of abandonment for both men and women , and they might make it easier for some women to surrender without the father’s knowledge- but I haven’t seen one yet that says if a father starts searching quickly, finds the baby and gains custody , the mother has no responsibility for the baby. It just means she hasn’t committed a crime and won’t go to jail if her identity is discovered.

49

I don’t see any good way of letting men out of responsibility for an unwanted child.

First off, who pays for the child if the parent deciding to keep that child can’t afford to raise it? I’m not at all anti-welfare, but I’d rather the people responsible for the child’s creation bear the costs of raising that kid. If the dad (or mom) has the finances, why should society bear the burden? I’m willing to chip in to help bring up healthy, well-adjusted kids for those who have hard luck or bad circumstances, but not for a parent who just wants out.

Secondly, what a parent says now may not be how they feel 5, 10, 15, etc. years in the future. They may very well decide later on that they want to be a part of their child’s life. Would you force them to pay back child support? What if they don’t want a full relationship but just want to keep tabs on how the kid is doing and send a birthday present or two? And what if the child decides at some point they want to meet their absent parent and establish a relationship? What caring parent would look at their kid and say “not until he/she coughs up $XX”?

Yes, biology is unfair. It’s unfair on both sides. As mentioned, women go through the risks and troubles of pregancy. Plus, there are many women who would love to keep their fertility as long as men do and not worry that because they’re getting into their later 30’s, they’re running out of time.

50

Support for a child is the right of the child, not of either parent. A parent does not, and should not, have the right to deny that to the child because of what they allege they did or didn’t want before the child was born.

It’s really very simple; if there’s a child and you’re the parent, you are legally and morally responsible for supporting them.

The rights are the same either way; if you’re pregnant you have the right to seek an abortion. Once the child is born, you are legally responsible for its support (and frankly, anyone who would not support their child is the filthiest sort of scum.) Men or women, same thing. Now, it just happens that men do not often get pregnant, but once one does I’ll happily say they have the right to unilaterally decide on an abortion.

51

I’m sorry, but where abortion is legal, I do not believe that to be true.

52

In a perfect world (which this is not, of course), we wouldn’t even need to have this debate, because people wouldn’t have sex without discussing the consequences.

I am one of the few people I know who has had this discussion with my boyfriend, and it went something like this:

Me: “We’re using protection, and lots of it, but if I get pregnant, I’m getting an abortion, end of story. If you don’t like it, we can stop having sex to make sure we don’t get pregnant.”

He didn’t like it (not because he’s anti-abortion, but because he loves kids), but he agreed that not only can we not support a kid at the moment, but he’s got two other children (who, because we’re so damn poor, we can’t get custody of at the moment) to pay child support to as well, and adding a third probably wouldn’t be the best solution.

I offered him the only two solutions that were palatable to me: abortion or no sex. He agreed to those terms, although he did mention that if we’re better off at one point he’d be willing to pay to have another kid, and I agreed to keep that in mind.

But unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. Far from it. So we’re going to keep going into this kind of debate. Anyway, where I’m going with this is, if it leads to more unwanted children in the world, I’m against it. So if a mother wants an abortion and the father doesn’t, too bad. If the father wants an abortion and the mother doesn’t, too bad. One way or another this kid’s life is going to be ruined; either put it up for adoption or get rid of it.

(I think this would be a lot less of a problem if the majority of younger women thought that a baby ties the father to them and makes them stick around…)

~Tasha

53

It makes me so sad that the archives only go back so far… I looked for my “Abortion for men” thread…not there. I guess that was 99 or therabouts.

sniff I just came to whine. Don’t mind me.

54

Same reason society bears the burden of paying for law enforcement, education, etc. instead of having police stations and public schools charge a fee to the people who want to take advantage of them: it’s a service society provides. We like living in a place where everyone can get a free education and the laws are enforced to protect everyone, and we’re willing to chip in for it.

I’d like living in a place where no one has to become a parent against their will, and I’d be willing to chip in for that too.

These all sound like details of secondary importance. Let the father work that out with the mother however they want. Let him adopt his child like any stranger would have to. Let his city council come up with their own rules. These details might need to be addressed in practice, but they don’t need to be resolved right now before we can talk about the general concept of opting-out from parenthood.

You can’t blame this on biology. Biology doesn’t force men to pay child support; the dollar is a human invention. The law does that, and the law can be changed.

That doesn’t mean both parents have to be the ones providing it. Every child has the right to an education, but we don’t force parents to home-school their kids, right?

55

Isn’t the real question whether or not the alleged father has a say in whether or not he ends up on the Maury Povich Show?

56

lol, touche’

57

Children have the right to equal access to education; they do not have a blanket right to have anyone specific provide it.

Children DO have a specific right to have their parents, both of them, support them.

The sympathy for deadbeats I see in these threads just appalls me.

58

Exactly. People complicate the issue for focusing on what women get to do that men can not, but this “discrimination” is a only byproduct of biology, not law.

Men, if you ever find yourself pregnant after a sexual encounter, I fully support your right to an abortion.

Women, if you ever become the parent of a kid, you still have to look after it even if you had no say over the pregnancy.

59

No, I don’t think so. Anyone can provide support. Many children are raised by people who aren’t their biological parents, and they turn out all right.

I’m equally appalled by the sympathy I see for women who are so infatuated with having a cute little baby (even though they can’t afford it) that they’re willing to force an 18 year obligation on someone else. If you can’t raise a kid on your own, hold off on the reproduction until you find someone who’s willing to raise it with you… is that so damn hard?

It sure would be nice if I could force someone else to make the payments on that brand new Lexus I’ve been thinking about, but if I did that, I’d be the deadbeat, not him. Instead, I have to limit myself to cars I can afford on my own. Life is so unfair.

If that’s true, then what exactly is the biological process by which money escapes from a man’s bank account after he fathers a child? When did it evolve? Does it exist in other species - does a daddy squirrel suddenly notice acorns rolling out of his burrow under their own power? Surely, this is evidence for intelligent design!

60

Indeed. And men should keep it in their pants.

Some men are bad parents and some woman are bad parents. Men and women should both have to support their children, and that’s the end of it.

Cars do not have parents. Cars do not have a right to support. Children do. You’re not making any sense.

Who cares if payments are biological? Child support payments are the right of the child, as they should be, and the parents must ante up.