# What rights should the father have re: an abortion decision? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 14, 2002, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924 "2002-07-14T17:15:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/141 "2002-07-17T21:12:35Z")
Having been through this (and ending up with a wonderful son - now 12 - with whom I do not get enough time to spend or enough say in his upbringing), I only blame myself. I should have ‘opted-out’ before sex, or (despite claims of wrong time of the month) insisted on being cautious. I didn’t…I wanted to ride bareback. It was a life-altering mistake - I didn’t want to become a father, especially with the woman with whom I was sleeping as mother. Yes, we men have no after-the-fact options. I knew that before. Therefore, it was my responsibility, and I chose a riskier course. I have to accept the consequenses, and I make the best of the situation. Quite simply, a man has nothing more than an opinion regarding an abortion decision. Know that before playing hide the salami, and accept all responsibility for protection. Or don’t have intercourse, if you’re going to complain about how protection isn’t 100%. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/142 "2002-07-17T21:22:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SisterCoyote \* > \*\*When I went looking for Cites on the CDC directly, this is what I found: > > Deaths per 100,000 in pregnancy: 9.2 (pg. 27 of linked survey)\* > Deaths per 100,000 in legal abortion: \<1 per year (0.8 in 1991) (pg. 51 of linked survey) > > I know which one sounds more risky to me. > > \*They do include some abortion-related deaths here, but even after reading their methodology I’m a little bit confused about how they figure in. \*\* Well of course I (nor anyone else in this thread) said anything about morbidity/mortality (of the mother) arising from abortion. I was responding to KellyM’s unsupported assertion that pregnancy/birth is “fraught with risk of death or permanent disability” What the hell, let’s round up to 10 per 100,000. Does anybody seriously wish to describe that situation as “fraught with risk of death”? (pssst for Guin…KellyM didn’t supply a cite either… 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/143 "2002-07-17T21:48:03Z")
perhaps, **beagle** it doesn’t come up to the standard of ‘fraught w/risks’, however, the difference in risks between the two add substance to the already substantial rationale for allowing the woman to have the final decision of abortion or carrying to term. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/144 "2002-07-17T21:54:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KellyM \* > **Get married, or pay child support. Your choice.** Ok. And I suppose women who are pregnant can “raise the child or give it up for adoption, your choice”? Maybe women just shouldn’t have kids on their own if they can’t afford to raise them on their own. > [@](#): > > **Do you realize how silly that argument is? A woman who gets pregnant has to either (a) abort the pregnancy, a dangerous and expensive process or (b) give birth to child, a dangerous and expensive process. There really are no other options. I think the woman “does the time” regardless of any laws we pass.** Yes, that’s a fact of biology. Child support is not, however; money doesn’t just naturally flow out of a man’s bank account. Are you suggesting that because women are getting shafted by their biology, men should get shafted by the law? > [@](#): > > **It’s patently stupid to argue that the imposition of child support on an absent father is an imposition even remotely similar to that imposed on the mother by pregnancy and 18 years of childrearing – whether or not she receives the benefit of child support payments.** A child support payment can be the difference between paying your rent and getting evicted, between owning a car and taking the bus to work. Sure, it’s not as bad as being pregnant, but “it could be worse” is hardly a justification. Again, the difference between a father paying child support and a mother raising a child is that the mother **chooses** to give birth and pay to raise the child for 18 years. If adequate precautions are taken by either the man or the woman, and assuming the precautions work as planned, she might not have to face that decision; but in the end she always has the final say. She takes the responsibility into her own hands. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/145 "2002-07-17T22:17:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wring \* > \*\*perhaps, **beagle** it doesn’t come up to the standard of ‘fraught w/risks’, however, the difference in risks between the two add substance to the already substantial rationale for allowing the woman to have the final decision of abortion or carrying to term. \*\* MMMmm maybe not. I tend to not spend a lot of time debating the maternal health risks of abortions (mainly because I think they are clearer pro life points to be made). However, the cite I provided earlier calls into doubt the supposed “low” mortality rate of abortions. > [@](#): > > **Abortion Deaths** > > These have been grossly under-reported. The expose’ on this is detailed in Lime 5 published by Life Dynamics. The author and his staff have verified 23 deaths from induced abortion in 1992-93. All were reported to state agencies. There is documentation from state health departments that 18 were reported to the Federal Center for Disease Control. However, the official report of the CDC listed only 2 deaths. > > “At Life Dynamics we knew abortion complications were grotesquely under-reported, but attributed it to garden-variety bureaucratic incompetence.” But after continuing research, they documented “that the flawed abortion data from the CDC was not from ineptitude but of dishonesty and manipulation” after finding that “a large percentage of CDC employees had direct ties to the abortion industry,” they retitled the CDC to stand for “Center for Damage Control” — “The CDC doesn’t oversee abortion, it justifies it.” > > M. Crutcher, Lime 5-Exploited by Choice, > Genesis Pub., Chapter 4, “Cooking the Books,” p. 135. > > The claim that relevant statistics can be collected from the place where the abortion was performed “is little short of science fiction.” > “Complications following abortions performed in free-standing clinics is one of the most frequent gynecologic emergencies . . . encountered. Even life-endangering complications rarely come to the attention of the physician who performed the abortion unless the incident entails litigation. The statistics presented by Cates represent substantial under- reporting and disregard women’s reluctance to return to a clinic, where, in their mind, they received inadequate treatment.” > L. Iffy, “Second Trimester Abortions,” > JAMA, vol. 249, no. 5, Feb. 4, 1983, p. 588. When dealing with maternal deaths from abortions, you’re dealing with some self-reporting issues that make it a bit hard to “trust” the numbers. I’ll be honest and say that I’m not real confident in the numbers produced by some folks in the pro life side either. It’s a murky situation at best, and I don’t think either side is standing on firm footing by making claims about the **real** numbers of maternal deaths from abortions in the U.S. And of course your “substantial rationale” for maternal abortion decisions rests in large part on some assumptions make about the organism being aborted. If one doesn’t agree with those assumptions, the rationale is far from “substantial” ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/146 "2002-07-17T22:26:48Z")
**beagle** according to the quote you lifted, these folks are accusing the people at the CDC as _intentionally_ screwing up the data, based on their affiliation w/ abortionists??? Sorry, but if that’s the **premise/conclusion** of these folks, I’m gonna have to pass on them as any kind of reliable source w/o substantial backing up of that particular conclusion. RE: the rest of your post – this thread at least ostensibly is about the decision to abort/not abort and rights of mom/dad in the scenario. The OP didn’t offer the child a vote. (that would make it more of an abortion ok/no thread anyhow). So, since at least in this thread the votes are: mom’s/ dad’s and whose should carry the day, not moms/dads/kids/ whose should carry the day, we’re back to my contention that the substantial evidence is on ‘mom’. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/147 "2002-07-17T23:10:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Ok. And I suppose women who are pregnant can “raise the child or give it up for adoption, your choice”? Well, no, they can abort the child. It’s biology. Dollars to donuts that if the biological gender roles were different, men would never even think of proposing “opting out” for women. > [@](#): > > Maybe women just shouldn’t have kids on their own if they can’t afford to raise them on their own. Many of them can, and do. It’s called “artificial insemination.” quote: ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/148 "2002-07-17T23:37:30Z")
So I noticed, but **sara** was the one who said, “I don’t have time to find one”. At any rate, I don’t think that deaths from LEGAL abortions are greater than that of pregnancy. But someone brought up developing nations-most of which, abortions are in butcher shops, I would think. Or at least, safe ones are expensive as prenatal care. So the point is moot, either way. So BOTH are dangerous in developing countries. However, even in places like the US, pregnancy, while a natural thing, is not always easy, and does have its health risks. Once again, however, I do think it should ultimately be up to the woman to choose. I don’t think abortion should be used as birth control-I’ve heard some women claim to have had two or more. (I think at that point if I were that adament about not having kids, I’d just get the bandaid operation). BUT…it should be kept safe and legal. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2002, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/149 "2002-07-18T00:54:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by D\_Odds \* > I should have ‘opted-out’ before sex Or pulled out during. b’doom _KSSH_ ---
**Author:** ![caterpillar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aca169/32.png) [@caterpillar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caterpillar)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2002, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924/150 "2002-07-19T16:15:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*Oh, btw, **sara** -please don’t think that “I don’t have that kind of time” is going to hold up when someone asks for a cite. Around here, if one makes a claim during a debate-they had sure as hell be prepared to back it up with a cite. \*\* I don’t have time to cite was merely my disclaimer, nobody had asked for a cite. All of my info comes from any basic biology textbook, which doesn’t do you all much good for me to cite it bibliography-style. I can certainly back it, but you might have to take a trip to the library or book store. As for the part about just looking at a pregnant woman, that’s just personal opinion. . . . any room for that here? Oh, and Bryan, funny . . . . love your drum-roll . . . . smart ass! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rights-should-the-father-have-re-an-abortion-decision/118924.md?page=7)