The woman makes her choice when she accepts the sperm inside her body.
I’m curious about one thing that popped into my head reading this. Given that the fetus is nothing more than part of her body, does the man have any responsibility with respect to the pregnancy? There are a number of expenses related to managing a pregnancy, from clothing to medical care. There are also emotional/physical concerns.
I imagine that many men contribute financially to these things, and provide other support during pregnancy, should it be expected?
In my opinion, no. I don’t believe the man’s responsibilities should attach until there is a birth.
No, the woman has the physical ability to make her choice well after that point.
This is irrelevant. It’s all a matter of law. The man certainyl has the “physical ability” to make his choice to support the baby or not well after the insertion of the sperm. It’s just that the law won’t let him.
If the law allows a woman the ability to make her choice (to have a baby) well after the insertion of the sperm, it should also allow the man the ability to make his choice (to support the baby) well after the insertion of the sperm.
The law is different because the biology dictates that it be different. Only one of the two is affected physically by pregnancy and it’s ridiculous to say that person should be deprived of her autonomy over her own body simply to satisfy some misplaced sense of “unfairness” that a man has to make his choice before the woman does.
Once again, society is not served in anyway by placing all legal responsibility for children solely on women.
I did not say we should deprive her of her autonomy.
Let’s keep it, and also give some choice to the man.
This is a strawman.
I did not advocate “placing all legal responsibility for children solely on women”.
If they both want the baby, they share legal responsibility.
If neither wants it, there is no baby.
If she doesn’t want it, there is no baby.
If he doesn’t want it, and yet she still decides she wants it, she has full legal responsibility.
So, women will be in this situation only if they decide to have the baby fully knowing that they won’t get any help from the guy.
They have full freedom to not have the baby if they can’t raise it themselves.
In other the words, the only men who won’t have to take responsibility are the ones who don’t want to.
If I may, there is a third option: Having the baby but putting it up for adoption. I would hope that would be considered before abortion, but I’m certainly not going to force a woman to have a baby if she doesn’t want one.
And the only women who won’t have to take responsibility are the ones who don’t want to.
First, this isn’t a debate about when life begins, so let’s not steer into that territory-we’ll never get it back.
Second, as for just “handing it over”, it’s the WOMAN who has to go through a pregnancy. It’s a woman who has to put her health and often her life on the line and deal with the complications. The man is not going to have to worry about the following:
-gestational diabetes
-hemorhoids
-pre-eclampsia
-post-partum depression and/or psychosis
-Rh factor rejections with second pregnancy (if you have a negative blood type, and the father has positive, some times your body will try to reject the fetus, mostly in subsequent pregnancies. It’s been a while though since I studied this.)
-over active bladder
-mood swings
-morning sickness
-dental problems
-weight gain
-stretch marks
-sore breasts
-heartburn
Yes, in this day and age, women still die in childbirth. When it’s YOUR life on the line, you get first say.
As for men paying child support afterwards, I am OPEN to having the option of signing over complete parental rights, if a man truly wishes to do this, but if he does, it’s permanent-no going back and saying you want a relationship with your child, or having a say. At all, as iron clad as possible.
You really need to read the OP. From the second sentence:
Getting an abortion IS taking responisbility.
No, it isn’t.
It might be the correct decision in some cases, but it is avoiding the more difficult responsibility of raising a child.
Er, not to drag on an already too-long hijack, but I think calling a fetus “part of someone else’s body” is just flat out wrong. It may be 100% dependant, but a woman doesn’t grow a new part of her body for 9 months, and then lose that part of her body during pregnancy. Be careful of your terminology.
How is it avoiding responsibilty? It’s a addressing a problem head on and resolving it. It’s completely responsible. That’s exactly the point. A woman does not have the option of simply running away and hiding from a pregnancy. She has no choice but to take responsibility. She must deal with it, and terminating the pregnancy is no less of a responsible choice than carrying it to term. I would actually argue that it’s a more responsible choice than keeping a child she can’t take care of.
Actually, I think that’s pretty much exactly what happens.
First, that is not your problem
Second, I am not saying a man is equal to a woman in regards to a pregnancy. But we are debating totally cutting a man out of the loop, not giving him an equal footing on the situation. Find me a woman who can have a baby without a man in any way, shape or form and I’ll say men deserve to be cut out of the loop
There are no women who can have babies without a man in some form or another. Find me a woman who can suffer from gestational diabetes without a man helping her get pregnant and I will agree to cut the man out of the loop. This thread is about cutting a man out completely of the fetus’s development. If a woman can develop a fetus without a man then I’ll agree to cut him out of the decision 100%. True, men aren’t equal to women in the pregnancy phase but they deserve some say, that is like if I loaned someone $10,000 to buy a car and had no say in what happened to the car. When someone is able to buy a car without my money then I will have no say in what happens with it.
As far as me steering the thread off course I don’t recall me trying to do that. I was making a point about there being no clear cut definition of life. If you misinterpreted that then that is your business.
Very fair, thank you.