I agree with the idea that there are situations where the mother should take the financial burden on herself if she chooses to go ahead with the pregnancy, but this shouldn’t be universal. Consider the following scenario, though:
< man and woman decide to do the nasty >
Man: “I don’t want children, how about you?”
Woman: “Me neither”
Man: “Well, we’ll use appropriate birth control methods, but what happens if they fail?”
Woman: “Well, I really don’t want children, so in that situation, I would abort the pregnancy.”
Man: “Ok, I agree with that. Let’s get nekkid!”
< man and woman do the nasty; later, she discovers she’s pregnant >
Man: “Well, shit. I guess I’ll give you a ride to the abortion clinic, eh?” [warning: glib oversimplification]
Woman: “Uh, I’ve changed my mind and want to keep it.”
The Court: “You entered into an agreement, and you should stick to it or you bear the financial responsibility. Either don’t bring this child into the world, like you originally planned, or you support it yourself. Mister Spermypants is off the hook.”
< woman bears financial responsibility >
Obviously, the prior agreement is difficult to prove, but I think this sort of thing should be allowed, sort of like a prenuptial agreement.
The talk about “living up to the consequences” of your actions is nice, but it doesn’t really address a situation like the one I’ve described above. In this case, the plan for how to deal with the consequences was made and then not followed through by the woman. There was no deadbeat dad. The woman was not deceived. There was a perfectly rational contingency plan which solves the problem, and both parties agreed to it. However, one party chose, after the fact, not to take the available solution.
Forcing a woman into an abortion would be a horrible thing, but if she professes beforehand that she would do such a thing (and is able to), and then opts not to later, that is her choice, and should be her burden. Obviously, if she’s unable for some reason, the contingency plan didn’t work, and both parties need to bear the burden.
In addition, I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I think abortion is an option which should be taken lightly or viewed as a “silver bullet” solution to a problem. The woman goes through a lot, and feels the effects after the procedure is finished, and she should not be coerced into making this decision. But if she willingly enters into a situation where an abortion might be necessary, then expecting her to actually stick to her word is not coercion.
[aside]
This hits home for me, because I was once in exactly this situation, with the exception that she turned out to not be pregnant. We had discussed things beforehand, and when The Scare came, she had a change of heart and decided that, despite our earlier discussions, being a mommy might be nice after all. Needless to say, this scared the piss out of me.
[/aside]
