# With legal abortion, should men have to pay child support? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 15, 2003, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315 "2003-05-15T00:38:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Nightime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/21 "2003-05-15T17:28:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, even if he uses a condom. Men (and women) need to realize that no form of birth control is 100% safe. (How many “vasectomy babies” are out there?) I would stand by the original statement – you agree to the risk of creating a baby when you have sex, regardless of whether Mr. Johnson is wearing his little hat. I agree. My point is, this is about necessity, not morality. In the past you could have said the same thing to women: If you have sex, you agree to have and raise a child. But now abortion and adoption are two options that women have in order to avoid any possibility of raising a child against their will. And this is a GOOD thing. It is good that women do not have to risk so much. And it would also be a GOOD thing if men had options so that THEY did not have to risk so much. Of course it is a terrible thing that men can be responsible, and use birth control, and still end up ruined, while women always have multiple ways out. But as of yet there are no good options for men. It’s “unfair”, but that is just the way it is. Maybe someday there will be a good option for men, and that will be a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/22 "2003-05-15T17:34:02Z")
> [@](#): > > But couldn’t you use the same argument for women? > > When you have sex, you assume the potential financial liability for motherhood. If you don’t want that liability, don’t enter into the contract. You’re going to support the child. If you want sex without responsibility, then use the vibrator. Otherwise, be prepared to face the consequences like an adult. > > The man has to be prepared to face the consequences like a man and support the baby, but the woman does not have a corresponding obligation. She has an ‘out.’ I would agree with you, however and this is the big “however”, the child is made from her. From her body, her blood, it is a part of her. That gives her right, and I yes I say right to call the shots. It can’t be any other way. It has to this way or we become a society of monsters. The alternative is unthinkable: We isolate women and restraint them as to such a time as the babies are able to be ‘harvested’. On the ‘promise’ that the father really wants to be a father. What if he changes his mind? What’s his “obligations” to a child that no one wants and a woman who has been violated in way that is inhuman? I know, he pays some money, as if money could ever make that right. No money? He goes to jail? How long? How long does he go to jail for causing the ‘state’ to restraint a woman, for what…six months? Then forcing her have a child against her will. If that image doesn’t make your skin crawl, i don’t know what will. We know what happens to her…What happens to him? Yes the father has a genetic tie to the baby, but and this is the big “but”, he has no physical ties to the baby. That’s his “out”. He can pick up and go whenever he wants to, and only when and if the government decides they have time to track him down, will he be forced to 'live up to his obligation". Once that baby is born it’s her’s…remember unless the father agrees, she can’t give it up for adoption. I know people don’t like to hear this, but sometimes biology wins out. It just does. Sharks aren’t evil or good, they just are. Women carry babies, that’s it. The burden of children is one that only females can carry. That’s it. Like it or not, you can’t change the biology…yet Women are literally the life-blood of their babies, having babies can and does kill them. Only they get to chose how much of that blood, they’re willing to spill. That is a risk, an obligation, a choice that no man ever has to make. Another ‘out’. The world isn’t fair and I think that everyone agrees, that it must be horrible to be a man, who wants his children, only to be told no. That his ‘claim’ is negated, not because he doesn’t want have children, but because he can’t. That they will soon no longer exist…to add insult, he now has to pay to support the children he didn’t want… sucks. The only answer i can offer, is that life is a compromise and sometimes, its not fair. The laws of man however, will never outweigh the laws of nature. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/23 "2003-05-15T17:58:19Z")
Yea, we’ve done this one before. I think the first one I can recall was “Does he have to pay for UNWANTED kid?” or something like that. I recall no less than six threads on the topic. Some focused on the legalities of the situation, some focused on the realities, some focused on the morality. They all have one thing in common. A misunderstanding of what exactly the “choice” a woman has post-conception actually IS. It is NOT simply a tool to help her control her reproductive options. It is an offshoot of her ability to be sovreign over her own body. It, in the eyes of the law, is no different than a boob job, or a nose job. It is an optional medical procedure which impacts(in theory) only the woman. The fetus is not recognized as having rights, including the right to life. Similarly, while it is pretty cold IMHO, any attachment/claim the father may have to the unborn is not considered justification for suspending the woman’s sovreignty over her own body for the term of the pregnancy. With no protected rights being infringed by a woman choosing to have this procedure it has been ruled that it can be done at the woman’s discretion(i.e. her choice). I’m going to reproduce a section of a post I made a few months ago in another thread about reproductive rights and the seeming imbalance between the “choices” of the male and the female in the current legal framework. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Mtgman_ > Here are the propositions for the reproductive rights arguement. All of this assumes consensual adults. > > It seems a clear distinction needs to be made. Do we, as a society under the rule of law, wish to seperate the act of sex from its potential biological consequences? Right now the laws have been written in a way that does NOT make this seperation. There is no official “opt out”. For BOTH parties the decision to have sex is the same as the decision to accept the consequences of pregnancy, should it occur. This is the position of the law. > > Now, some have argued that legal, safe, elective abortions have put an unofficial “opt out” into the process for the woman. The point they’re missing is that abortions were NOT made legal so women could “opt out” of the consequenses of sex. Abortions were made legal so a woman could retain her autonomy. Her right to be sovreign in her own body. This sovreignty can ONLY be challenged if exercise thereof would cause harm to another being. The courts have decided that protection of law does not extend to the unborn(the piece I disagree with), so a woman has a choice, thanks to her biology giving her control over the biological process of pregnancy in the post-sex, pre-birth timeframe. This choice does NOT exist to give the woman an “opt out” of parenthood. This is a side effect of the greater goal of giving the woman sovreignty over her body. > > So now people are claiming that there is an imbalance. Women have an “opt out”, an implicit one, under the law and men have no such thing. A decision needs to be made. Are we, as a society under the rule of law, going to divorce sex from its biological consequenses of parenthood? If so, then both parties need an explicit “opt out”. If not, then something needs to be done to educate the population to understand that a woman’s ability to get a legal elective abortion is not an “opt out”. It is a side effect of a right she has always posessed combined with the nature of human reproduction having the woman as the carrier of the child. > > Overall I’m not sure which way we should go. I already see lots of good pre-conception “opt out” opportunities thanks to improved methods of birth control. All of these pre-conception options make it more and more common to enjoy sex without consequences, and I’m a big fan of sex myself. The less strings attached to the act the better IMHO. > > OTOH I’m absolutely NOT a fan of the one post-conception “opt out” that currently exists(well, adoption could be considered a second “opt out”, and I’m fine with it). I can’t say that I see good arising of allowing men to “opt out” of financial support post-conception. Higher tax rates, more welfare recipients, and bitter lawsuits seems to be the most likely outcome of such a decision. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/24 "2003-05-15T18:09:08Z")
Mother to child “I’m sorry, honey, the reason you will never know your father, and the reason I have to work so much to make money to be able to pay the rent, is because your father never wanted you. He wanted me to have an abortion and since I didn’t, then he _gets_ to forget that you ever existed.” Nice. It’s not about Men or Women, for the love of God, it’s about CHILDREN. So it’s not “fair.” Suck it up. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/25 "2003-05-15T18:33:42Z")
Please. Tell me if I’m brilliant or nuts. What do you think of my _process vs. product_ analysis? ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/26 "2003-05-15T18:51:58Z")
I think it greatly oversimplifies the matter, **autz**. I think the pro-life side is indeed, concerned wholly with the product, or at least with the _idea_ of the product. (When most people say,"But it’s a _baaby_, I’m guessing they’re envisioning a plump, healthy, eminently adoptable cherub, not a shriveled-looking premie with crack addiction or physical defects, which some aborted fetuses would undoubtedly be.) I don’t know about other pro-choicers, but I don’t think about it in terms of the process of pregnancy itself, but more in terms of…I guess coercion is close enough. If you could get rid of all the unpleasant effects and physical dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, I’d still be prochoice because it’s about a woman’s sovereignity over her own body. The incredible unpleasantness of pregnancy is really pretty irrelevant. Personally, I don’t want the product _or_ the process, but that’s just me… ---
**Author:** ![Spite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@Spite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spite)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/27 "2003-05-15T19:15:08Z")
Mother to child “I’m sorry, honey, the reason you will never know your mother and father, and the reason I have do/don’t work so much to make money to be able to pay the rent, is because your mother and father never wanted you. We wanted me to have an abortion and since I did, then we get to forget that you ever existed.” Father to child “I’m sorry, honey, the reason you will never know your father, and the reason I have to work so much to make money to be able to pay the rent, is because your mother never wanted you. She wanted to have an abortion and since I didn’t, then she gets to forget that you ever existed. While I think about who you could have been every day.” Very nice. Pro-choice people have to understand that thier claim for the sympathy card does not work well for pro-life people. **cowgirl** could be pro-life from that statement alone. Just someone who has the welfare of the child in mind _regardless_ of the wishes of the parent(s). Man or woman. Without being hypocritical, both parents must take responsibility for the conception of the child. Not just one. I think all men should face that responsibility, as well as women. That proverbial “contract” makes both parents just as responsible. A man cannot have a baby, why does that make him more responsible? ---
**Author:** ![Razorsharp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/53a042/32.png) [@Razorsharp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razorsharp)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/28 "2003-05-15T19:18:12Z")
I just love it when I am handed the opportunity to pull back the sheets and reveal the naked hypocrisy of liberalism in all of its repulsiveness. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Scarlett67_ > **Yes, even if he uses a condom. Men (and women) need to realize that no form of birth control is 100% safe. (How many “vasectomy babies” are out there?) I would stand by the original statement – you agree to the risk of creating a baby when you have sex, regardless of whether Mr. Johnson is wearing his little hat.** Glamour Magazine reported that approximately 1.75 million conceptions occur annually due to contraceptive failure. Abortion rights activists insist that abortion remain a safe and legal procedure because a young woman should not have to suffer the consequences of having her life interrupted with an unplanned pregnancy. Should a failure of birth control or a “mistake” occur, the young woman should have the option to terminate her pregnancy for any reason. She may wish to continue her education, enter the job market or concentrate on her career. She may wish to travel, purchase a home or automobile, or just avoid the responsibilities of parenthood if she should so desire. However, the true agenda of the “pro-choice” ideology is exposed when those who gallantly rush to the defense of a young lady facing an unplanned pregnancy, idly stand by while the same legislative and judicial systems, that recognize a constitutional tenet of “freedom of choice”, violate the concept of equal protection of the law by forcing an unmarried man into an eighteen to twenty-one year parental obligation. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by MSU 1978_ > **Sex is the implied contract. When you have sex with a woman, you assume the potential financial liability for fatherhood. If you don’t want that liability, don’t enter into the contract. Whether or not she aborts is her decision, not yours. If she chooses to keep it, then you’re going to support the child. If you want sex without responsibility, then use the hand. Otherwise, be prepared to face the consequences like an adult.** Did you really think that you were going to get away with that nonsense? See, a contract relies on the participation of two parties working in concert for a mutual goal. If one party can arbitrarily void the “contract”, then there really is no contract. How about John Stachokus? He thought he had a contract, in fact he had a verbal contract. Of course, you really don’t expect women to “be prepared to face the consequences like an adult”, do you? > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ouisey_ > \*\*Complete losers don’t pay child support for their children. Whether or not they wanted the child. Why are they complete losers? Because like it or not, their child’s here and their lack of support hurts that child. \*\* Of course, you are not referring to women, are you? Because women already have several options available to remove themselves from the child support obligation. Even after the birth of a child, the birth mother still has the option to terminate her parental responsibilities through the adoption process. After a birth mother relinquishes her child through adoption, she is free of any further responsibilities to her child regardless of the future hardships that may befall that child. And on top of that, there has been a wave of legislation in various state legislatures across the country to give women yet another way to remove themselves from the parental obligation, by sanctioning the abandonment of their newborns at specified locations on a no-questions-asked basis. Women already have pre-conception reproductive choice, via contraception. They already have post-conception reproductive choice, via abortion and the ability to give up children for adoption. Now they are being given yet another choice, the abandoning of their newborns. Why is there such determination to give women choice after choice in matters related to reproduction, but an equal determination to give men no choice other than to pay for a woman’s so-called “private choice”? ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/29 "2003-05-15T19:19:19Z")
Autz, let’s try appling your product vs process in another way. The product is cotton, the process is slavery. i can be the most decent, nicest, fairest slave owner in the world. But those people are still my slaves. They have no freedom, no control over their bodies, save the one i allow them to have. Not a great way to live. That’s what the people having choice mean. Not that the process is simply uncomfortable, which it isn’t. But that someone else takes control of how their bodies function…even if it’s “poof”, if a woman doesn’t want to be “poofed”, see shouldn’t have to. And the only way to “poof” her then, is by force. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/30 "2003-05-15T19:44:44Z")
Bad comparison, **holmes**. You see, slavery isn’t necessary to produce cotton. Pregnancy is necessary to produce a baby. With cotton, you have other ways to get the product, with babies you don’t. Faulty analogy. ---
**Author:** ![Jdeforrest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@Jdeforrest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jdeforrest)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/31 "2003-05-15T19:55:15Z")
First thing I learned on this board is never, never, never, under any circumstances, make any kind of analogy. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/32 "2003-05-15T19:55:49Z")
True. However slavery was used as the primary method to produce cotton. It doesn’t matter that there were other methods…slavery was the primary method. In fact, if memory serves me, slavery increased once the cotton gin was invented, INCREASING the need for slave labour. Analogy stands. As historical fact bears me out…not some theory of "poofing"but actual real world events. Sorry Autz. Now I can understand why you won’t address this point…but “poofing” it away won’t work. [cotton gin](http://web.bryant.edu/~history/h364proj/sprg_01/solomon/) ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/33 "2003-05-15T19:56:24Z")
> [@](#): > > **Tir Tinuviel** said: > He doesn’t get a say in one side of it, so it’s unfair to force him to be ‘responsible’ about the outcome? That’s exactly what it means. I don’t get a say in whether or not you give birth to a kid and choose to raise that kid, so why should I be paying for your choice? > [@](#): > > What if she has to make a certain choice, for example - she’s prolife, and although she doesn’t really want a child, she cannot terminate it. Operative word there is still that she made a _choice_. It’s really two distinct choices, one in carrying the pregnancy to term and one in keeping the baby, neither of which she should be able to force someone else to fund. If she _chooses_ to be a mother, then fine, let her be a mother. But she shouldn’t get the choice to have half of someone else’s paycheck (or more) to fund her choice. > [@](#): > > Is it fair to make the woman not only in the greater degree of cases the sole carer for it, but also the sole provider? If she’s the sole reason she is the ‘sole carer and provider’, then hell yes. Let her choose to be a single mother and support the kid on her own, but recognize that means _on her own_. It does not mean on her own with a court ordered flow of income. > [@](#): > > **holmes** said: > That gives her right, and I yes I say right to call the shots. And if she wants to call the ‘I will be a single mother and raise this kid on my own’ shot, it’s hypocritical to say ‘on my own consists of taking away half of your paycheck to do it.’ > [@](#): > > **cowgirl** said: > Mother to child > > “I’m sorry, honey, the reason you will never know your father, and the reason I have to work so much to make money to be able to pay the rent, is because your father never wanted you. He wanted me to have an abortion and since I didn’t, then he gets to forget that you ever existed.” I’d rather hear the truth of the matter than have it all swept under the rug in the form of a check. > [@](#): > > **Razorsharp** said: > And on top of that, there has been a wave of legislation in various state legislatures across the country to give women yet another way to remove themselves from the parental obligation, by sanctioning the abandonment of their newborns at specified locations on a no-questions-asked basis. And safe harbor laws, unlike adoption, would not require the consent of a known father who did want to keep the kid. > [@](#): > > **holmes** said: > even if it’s “poof”, if a woman doesn’t want to be “poofed”, see shouldn’t have to. Even if it’s ‘poof’, if a man doesn’t want to be ‘poofed’, he shouldn’t have to. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/34 "2003-05-15T20:02:22Z")
Note on child supprt: it isn’t an obligation placed on men alone. **Both** parents have a duty of support, and a court may order _either or both_\* parents to pay child support. Men usually end up being the one who pays for child support, but men are usually the non-custodial parent. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/35 "2003-05-15T20:10:47Z")
Catsix, i understand your point, but let’s push it further. Why should i, as an innocent person who didn’t get this guy’s lady knocked up, now have to pay for it? I mean if she goes on public assistance, that’s my money. She gets foodstamps, wic, healthcare, housing…things that I can’t provide for my own kids and **I’m paying for it?** Maybe I’m missing something, but the father shouldn’t have to pay directly, but I have pay indirectly? That makes sense to you? You know someone’s going to have to pay, either now or later when the kid shoots someone in the head…somebody’s gonna pay. Screw that. He banged her, he pays. Somebody has to pay for her and her kid and it shouldn’t be me. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/36 "2003-05-15T20:11:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by holmes \* > \*\*I would agree with you, however and this is the big “however”, the child is made from her. From her body, her blood, it is a part of her. . \*\* :Sigh: I guess that explains why the child always has the same blood type as the mother…but wait… :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/37 "2003-05-15T20:28:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by holmes \* > \*\*Sorry Autz. Now I can understand why you won’t address this point…but “poofing” it away won’t work. > \*\* You seem to be reading a lot into this that isn’t there. I’m not addressing this point because it has **nothing** to do with what I was saying. In my little analysis, I never said that one side is right and one is wrong. I was trying to get (and maybe give) some insight as to why the two side often seem to be talking at cross purposes, not understanding each other. I don’t think my _process vs. product_ analysis is 100% the issue, but I think (for me at least) it helps to understand that part of the reason the sides come to different conclusions is that they are looking at the whole issue differently. Maybe it gives you no additional insight, but it helped me a bit. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/38 "2003-05-15T20:45:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Screw that. He banged her, he pays. Somebody has to pay for her and her kid and it shouldn’t be me. Wrong. No one ‘has’ to pay for them, any more than somebody has to pay for everyone else. I get that in America, we won’t and it’s not practical to let large numbers of people starve to death. But it is not moral to steal from John’s biological father to feed John. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/39 "2003-05-15T20:47:49Z")
> [@](#): > > quote: > You seem to be reading a lot into this that isn’t there. I’m not addressing this point because it has nothing to do with what I was saying. Sure it does. > [@](#): > > I think it’s a process vs. product issue. > > Most pro-choice folks focus on the process (i.e. the pregnancy). They don’t like the idea of a woman having to bear a child. It’s primarily the morning sickness, swollen ankles, awkward questions, labor pains and such that they object to. If a woman got pregnant and suddenly _poof!_ there was the baby, there would be less objection. Then they could give it to the father if he wanted it, or put it up for adoption. But in our present reality, the pregnancy itself is the most objectionable part. > > Pro-life folks, on the other hand, focus on the product (i.e. the baby). They see the pregnancy as a possibly unpleasant, but necessary part of achieving the goal of having a baby. To all of the pro-choicers’ objections to the pregnancy, the pro-lifer will respond, “Yes, but it’s a baby.” You seem to be saying that if the process of removing the product was easy, then shouldn’t the need for abortion be eliminated. As the main reason for wanting choice, is because the process is so complicated. If i’m miss stating you, please correct me. However and I guess, that’s were the misunderstanding comes it. It’s not the process that offends, people it’s the lack of choice. No matter how simple the process becomes is…No choice, is no choice. A slave, not matter how nice his master is, is still a slave. Lack of freedom is inherently wrong, you don’t get to say whether it is not. It is. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315/40 "2003-05-15T21:01:39Z")
I’m saying almost all of the abortion arguments I’ve heard/read have had the pro-choice side emphasizing **the pregnancy**. I could get all sorts of quotes from the various messy abortion arguments, but many pro-choice people saying things like, “Why should my body be high-jacked for 9 months?” “I don’t want to go through the discomfort of pregnancy just because my birth control failed.” This has been my observation. Like I said, it’s not 100% the case, because some pro-choice arguments are about other things, but most seem to by pregnancy-related. If your observations are different, maybe you have dealt with other pro-choice folks. Again, you seem to be assuming I’m criticizing pro-choice people for this. And I might add that you seem very hostile. This is meerly a _description of my experience of the pro-choice position_, not a critique of it’s corectness. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-legal-abortion-should-men-have-to-pay-child-support/175315.md?page=3)