snort
You were kidding right?
I’d also encourage men who want more say about the treatment of fetuses to advocate for more research into the fetal-support technologies discussed here.
At present, both men and women have the right to choose whether or not to conceive a child, by abstaining from sex or using birth control. At present, both men and women have the responsibility of supporting and caring for a baby when it’s born, whether they want it or not, unless they both agree to offer it for adoption. That’s fair.
At present, both men and women have the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy in their own bodies, at least up through the first trimester. (The right is time-restricted because at present there’s no way of terminating a pregnancy without killing the fetus, and after viability the fetus’s right to life is considered to outweigh the pregnant person’s right to not be pregnant.) Of course, only women are currently able to exercise that right in practice, because of basic biology. That’s fair, or at least as fair as you can get given the fundamental unfairness of biological sex differences.
But if technology makes it possible to abort a pregnancy without killing the fetus in the process, and if that technology is widespread and easily available, I see no reason why fathers shouldn’t get just as much say over the fate of the fetus as mothers do.
In fact, I see no reason in that case to give either of them any discretion to kill the fetus if it’s no longer actually part of their own bodies, any more than parents are currently allowed to kill their infants. You conceived it, it’s your offspring, it’s there, but it’s not interfering with your right to control your own body. Consequently, it has a right to live and you have a duty to support and care for it, no matter which gender you are. Sounds fair to me.
Indeed, this is the crux of the current-situation-sucks people’s argument; if there is no sane way to equally portion off responsibility for the pregnancy and birth, then there can be no way to equally portion off responsibility for the resulting child. Statements about the resulting children’s needs are only an argument if you assume that sharing DNA with someone gives you an obligation to them (driving the convoy of trucks through this argument is left as an exercise to the reader).
Assuming that the man never explicitly gives consent to raise a child, and that women have the inherent right to terminate pregnancies. Having sex is not therefore a binding agreement to have and raise a child (if it was, then women would not have the inherent right to terminate pregnancies). How, then, can you hold a man financially responsible for the child?
Well, you can say, “Symbolic logic be damned, that kid needs money.” But if you do so, please acknowledge this, so we can advance practical instead of ethical arguments.
My own support for abortion rights is predicated on a belief that a fetus is, at least until the 24th week of pregnancy, a nonentity, every bit as human and alive as a benign growth. It is sentience, not chromosomes, that give rights.
As such, I would say that prior to the point where the fetus is capable of sensation, any rights attached to it are indirect rights: I can’t destroy it for the same reason I can’t destroy your car.
If, prior to this point, both parents decide that our test-tube fetus should be destroyed, I’m all about having that happen. If one parent decides to keep the test-tube fetus and the other wants it destroyed, I think we ought to have a contract that they both must sign, which absolves the pro-destruction parent of any parental rights and responsibilities in perpetuity.
The fact that pregancies don’t currently work that way makes the situation very different. I am always amazed and bewildered by people who act as if men are getting the short end of the stick re: pregnancy. Guys, we’re not the ones who suffer through morning sickness, hemorrhoids, back pain, mood swings, soreness, post-partum depression, and so forth. We’ve got it pretty amazingly easy when it comes to pregnancy. The fact that we don’t get the final say when it comes to whether the pregnancy continues is a tiny blip in comparison to the disadvantages women suffer by being the ones that carry the baby.
Daniel
Here’s a tissue.
No, I wasn’t kidding.
I think there is room for a significant overlap of people who think a fetus is life, but still support abortion rights.
Either they believe maintaining the right is a necessary sacrifice, or they don’t think of the life as a full life.
More like the Diet Coke of Life.
Anyone’s opinion but th woman’s is irrelevant. It really has nothing to do with my point anyway. Terminating a pregnancy is one way to take responsibility for it. The fact that some other people like to fantasize that a zygote is a baby is neither here nor there.
I should probably clarify. When I hear abortion being “discussed”, the discussion usually falls into these categories:
- The Federal government has no right telling a woman (or anybody else, for that matter) what to do with her body.
or
- Abortion is a sin and the Federal government has no right to allow people to commit a sin.
FTR, I’m pro-choice. I feel that any woman should be allowed to seek an abortion if she so desires. She will have to deal with the religious aspects as it pertains to her own beliefs.
As for the “when does a fetus become a viable human”, IANAD, so I can’t decide that. If a consensus on this is agreed upon, then perhaps the Feds can make a ruling on it.
If woman decides after that point that she wants an abortion, well, I don’t know. If it were deemed illegal, she’d be hard-pressed to find a legitimate way to have it done. We all know about the horrors of back alley abortions.
If she somehow self-aborted the fetus, what do you charge her with? Would it be ethical to make her do something with her body that she didn’t want to?
You’d charge her with abortion. Remember, right now, under Roe and Casey, we have a right under the US Constitution to bodily privacy that includes the right to abortion within limits. Casey stands for the proposition that government can place “reasonable” limits on abortion.
So if the Supreme Court revisits the issue and finds that there no longer is a privacy right in the US Constitution that includes a right to abortion, it would simply mean that not all Americans would have the right to an abortion. The states could decide whether the right is found under state constitutions. More liberal states likely would find such a right, while more conservative states would not. So a woman who gets pregnant in Arizona, say, might have to travel to Nevada to have a legal abortion. I presume that those states that are opposed to abortion laws would make abortion illegal again, and would charge a woman and a doctor under those laws.
As for the ethics of it, they would then be the same as for a man: the woman made her choice to carry a pregnancy to term when she had sex. There was a chance, no matter how small, that she would get pregnant. Knowing the consequences of her action, and knowing that she has no choice but to carry any child she conceives to term, she is deemed to have made her choice. At that point, I don’t see the argument that it’s unethical to make her carry to term.
I have apparently misplaced my driver’s license. I’m not sure I understand your argument, because it seems to be a straw man. Perhaps you can clarify for me.
The argument isn’t that the coincidence of DNA is sufficient to force a person to support another person, but that a person must take responsibility for his or her actions. Indeed, in the area of children, men who are not biological fathers are still deemed to be the father and ordered to pay child suppport under certain circumstances. In California, as of about a month ago, the same is true of same-sex couples.
What’s the relevance of that? If you have a child born to two women, it’s clear that one of them doesn’t share that child’s DNA, yet still must pay child support if the union falls apart. So society (which elects the government, which makes the laws with which it appears some take issue) has determined that the best thing for a child is to be supported by someone other than the government. I don’t think we can disagree about that: the societal cost of raising children on welfare is clear.
The man and the woman decided to have sex. They cannot say that they didn’t know that pregnancy could occur. So as between the man, who made the decision to risk behavior that could have long-term consequences, and society, who should bear the cost of raising the man’s child? We, the people, have determined that the man should be the first line. If he fails to meet his responsibility, then society will try and step in.
What am I missing?
Middleman, I’m one of those people who believe having an abortion is ending a life but is firmly in favor of keeping abortion legal. I consider abortion morally wrong, and I hope I never have to face an unwanted pregnancy, but there have been times in my life when I would have had an abortion if I had become pregnant.
Ethically, a man should certainly have a say in whether his significant other has an abortion. (I don’t consider myself qualified to speak about legal issues.) Having a say, however, is not the same as being the one who makes the decision. Ideally, couples in a committed relationship should talk about this before having sex; on the other hand, theory is one thing, reality is another and some people do change their minds when confronted with a theoretical possibility becoming real.
If I were to find myself pregnant and wanted to have an abortion while the father of the child didn’t, what I would do would be to have a long talk with him, find out why he feels the way he does, and what he’s prepared to do about this situation. An easy pregnancy and birth still involves, I gather, being off work for a couple of months at a minimum and a fair number of medical bills, in addition to the medical risks. It’s all well and good to say, “You’re not going to abort my child”, but is the gentleman saying that willing to pay for the doctor’s bills, baby supplies, etc.? Will he do his part to make sure there’s a roof overhead and food on the table, including making a run to the grocery store if things happen ahead of schedule? Again, ideally, all this would have been discussed beforehand, but then again, in my ideal world, no one would ever find herself considering an abortion.
Individual factors come into play. A very dear friend of mine has a heart defect which makes pregnancy a bad idea. Her husband knows this, which is why they’ve decided not to have kids. I’ve battled severe clinical depression for most of my life, which I assume puts me at a higher risk for post-partum depression. It also means that I’m at a higher than average risk for suicide. I can foresee circumstances in which, if I were pregnant and not legally allowed to have an abortion, I would become depressed to the point where suicide appeared to be the only rational way out.
The father’s opinion certainly counts and not for just a little. However, it’s the mother who has to deal with the physical effects of childbirth and who’s liable for the medical bills, not to mention keeping the baby fed and clothed when he or she’s first born although I’ve no idea how this works if the child is to be adopted almost immediately after he’s born. Men’s opinions definitely count for something, and, in the opposite situation, where the father doesn’t want a child and the mother does, I’d be legally in favor of there being a way for the father to renounce all liability for child support and all legal rights to parenthood. I agree that a man shouldn’t be forced to support a child he doesn’t want to have. On the other hand, by denying a woman an abortion, the woman is forced to support a child she doesn’t want to have simply because until she’s born, the baby derives her support from the woman’s body.
It’s a difficult situation and there isn’t an easy way out of it, which is one reason I don’t want the government involved in this. Every relationship is different, and ideals are hard to come by. Some men will want to have a child because they genuinely love children and want to be and will be terrific fathers. Others want to have a child because it’s one more way to exert control over the mother. (Excuse me. I’ve been reading John Grisham’s The Firm which touches on this.) I know, in real life, one abused wife who says she stays with her husband because of the kids. Ideally, people who will abuse their spouses should never get married, but again, in an ideal world, we wouldn’t be having this dicussion.
In my opinion, the father should have a say, yes, but not the final or only say.
Respectfully,
CJ
Hundreds of dollars a month for 18 to 22 years going into the pocket of someone who wanted to be a single mother and raise a baby on her own are hardly a ‘tiny blip.’
If a woman chooses to have a kid knowing that the biological father has chosen to not be a father, then she should figure out how to support the kid.
The man made his choice when he stuck his dick in the woman. Let’s not make excuses for these pigs that abandon their children.
It’s neither a tiny blip nor an experience unique to men. Men, as far as I know, may sue for joint, or even sole, custody of their child, if the child is born; and if they don’t gain sole custody, the only way they end up paying money into someone else’s pocket is if either it’s joint custody and they earn more than their partner, or they have no other responsibilities at all toward the child.
Yes, I’m sure you’ll bring out studies claiming that men have a hard time in custody battles. To the extent this is true, I’ll concede one point: men should be treated equally to women in custody battles. But that has no bearing on how they should be treated during pregnancy.
Child support payments aren’t part of the pregnancy advantages/disadvantages.
I’m so glad you found this thread, though–I’ve been wondering for years your take on this issue!
Daniel
Pregnancy detected, four possible scenarios:
Both want it: not under discussion here.
Neither wants it: not under discussion here.
She wants it, he doesn’t: Not mentioned in the OP, and ought not to be under discussion here. It would be nice if those who wished to bitch about the child support situation its associated abortion issues would do it in another thread.
He wants it, she doesn’t: This is our topic.
Discussions of hypothetical trechnology of the future are meaningless. Until we know the specifics of such technology, such as whether or not whatever procedure will be necessary to remove the fetus for placement in an artificial womb posed any greater threat to the mother’s health than a more traditional type of abortion, we’ve got nothing to talk about.
With current technology, the man is SOL. Blame whatever placed the womb in only one type of person. Them’s the breaks.
The alternative would be to grant the man rights whose implications could do nothing but harm society, IMO. What would be the legal test for whether you get to decide what another person’s body endures?
I put something from my body into yours, I get a legally binding say in what happens to your person? Does someone who donates one of their kidneys get veto power over a recipient’s actions from that day on?
So we restrict the bodily material to seminal fluid. My sperm has combined with your egg, you don’t get to decide what happens to the result without my OK. Want kids? Become a sperm donor, and all the women who partake of your sample have to do what you say. Or just rape someone and sue them to keep it.
OK, then. We modify it to say the man only gets a say if a consentual sexual act took place. So the husband in a marriage where IVF was necessary to bring about pregnancy has fewer rights? And consentual according to whom? Worst-case scenario is the rape vicitm forced to sue her attacker to prove the sex was not consentual.
And where’s equal protection under the law? What commensurate rights over a man’s body can a woman have? Should a wife then be able to force her husband to forego reverse a vasectomy if she wants children and he does not?
Allowing the potential for such reprehensible situations to play out can not possibly be considered for ratification unless there is simply no other solution available. But of course, there is. The man who wants children could carefully choose his mate and have serious discussions before sex takes place about what to do if a pregnancy results. If she doesn’t want children, probably best to move on.
But that’s no guarantee, I hear someone cry. A man who 100% wants children can never be 100% sure that a given woman won’t change her mind and abort after initally saying she wants kids! Sorry, uncertainty is built into the system. Even if the law granted you the right to force a woman not to have an abortion, the pregnancy could spontaneously terminate anyway. There are not now, and have never been, any gurarantees whatsoever in this area. No one promised that you’d always get what you want, and it’s not the law’s job to try and bring about that situation. As before, them’s the breaks.
This is an overly simplistic statement that reduces a large number of potentially complex situations to one insulting bumper sticker.
Polemics do not belong in a debate, particularly one that is always heated and most particularly one that has already nearly gotten out of hand. Posting inflammatory rhetoric precludes discussion. If you cannot find a way to continue this discussion respectfully, stay out of the discussion.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
Why can’t people engaging in these debates just admit they think abortion is murder because babies have souls? Why this evasiveness? A “majority of people”? A majority of these people also think evolution is somehow incomplete without divine intervention, but I have no qualms whatsoever about rejecting their position on evidential grounds and ignoring all subsequent appeals to popular oppinion based upon such spurious logic thenceforth.
The moment a so-called “pro-lifer” can give me one shred of evidence to support their position that an individual woman’s rights should be trumped by a collection of religionists who wish to impose their dubious morality on her, then I’ll back down from my “absolutist” position that what happens to her body while she’s pregnant is her decision, and her’s alone. Otherwise, I see absoluten no good reason to hold any other position than that men and woman have different roles to play during gestation, and equal (in terms of responsibility for the child’s welfare) roles to play once the child is born. It is a reflection of the biological reality and what should be the obvious need (given the very reasonable slavery analogy) for individual sexual autonomy. If those who disagree succeed in imposing a degree of majoritarian religious tyranny, rather than respect the fact not everyone buys into their theology, then I’ll fight them.
Until then, people who believe abortion is wrong in the way you’re suggesting are free to not have one. Oddly, in the US, where religiosity is generally more prevalent than in other industrialized nations, we fare rather poorly in comparison with our first-world peers in such metrics as rates of teen pregnancy, abortion, and infection with STDs.
Maybe our “moral majority” really should simply butt out, as their influence doesn’t appear to be helping their own cause any.
(Not that I should have to clarify, but I feel the need in present company: I’m not suggesting causation, just that our widespread religiosity is not correlated with reductions in the sorts of behaviors the religious purport to influence, while in “post-Christian” Europe, these behaviors are significantly less frequent.)
Well. I knew this would be a touchy subject, and I debated on whether or not to even start this thread, but I had to get some feel about the subject in my OP. I want to thank everyone for participating. I only ask that you please try to reel in your emotions so that the discussion can continue.
As an alternatative to the outright banning of abortions, do you think there would be a way for the Feds to financially discourage doctors from performing abortions? Some kind of special license perhaps?
I know that might sound stupid (it does to me a little, I must admit), but if a doctor had to pay some huge amount of money to perform abortions (and, thus, have to pass this on to his patients), it might discourage them from doing so. I will gladly accept your flaming on this idea.
Doctor/patient privelege would get in the way, for one thing. The government has no legal right to know what kind of treatment a patient has received from her doctor. They would have no way to know how many abortions a doctor has performed or who she has performed them on.
I’m sure there would be other legal issues as well, such as whether it would make access to abortion unfairly difficult to poor women.
All that would do is force poor women to have babies they don’t want (or can’t afford), while rich women wouldn’t have to face that situation. I just can’t see how that is in anyone’s best interest, especially the childs.
Mr Blue Sky- do you know that if a pregnant woman comes in moribund and in order to save her the baby must be delivered (even if the gestation is so early or lack of appropriate neonatal care means that this is essentially an abortion) that the doctor is medically negligent if he or she does not do so?
That occasionally a termination is necessary for the life or health of the mother, and that this could be in the walk-in to the ER situation.
Any suitably qualified doctor is REQUIRED by medical ethics to do everything in their power to save the life of his/her patient…if you can only save the mother, you have to save her by doing whatever is required. Even if that is a therapeutic termination at any gestation.
For that reason special licences wouldn’t work. A doctor always has to be legally able to give their patient the best care, especially when you don’t have a lot of time to waste.
Special licences would lead to the following:
- An exemption for the emergencies I’ve descibed above, and a sudden increase in terminations performed for these indications as doctors and their patients use this as a loophole.
2.There won’t be an exemption, and the number of maternal deaths will increase as women in the above situations will die due to lack of appropriate care.
-
Whatever happens, cheaper, illegal backstreet abortions will increase, and that is NEVER a good thing.
-
Whatever happens, you punish the women least able to bear the costs of a child, by making a legal abortion beyond their financial means.