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Originally Posted by flstf
I generally agree. However when the woman is deciding whether to end her pregnancy or not she is not just deciding what happens to her body in the next 9 months but also what happens to her and the potential father's financial responsibility for the next 21 years.
If she decides that now is not the time for children and wants to stay in school etc.. she can decide to terminate. If he decides that now is not the time for children and wants to stay in school etc.. he has no say in the matter.
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We deal with the unintended consequences of our actions all the time. One of the easily anticipated consequences of sex is pregnancy. If you're not prepared to deal with that consequence, there is a foolproof way around it--don't have vaginal sex, or have a vasectomy.
Once she's pregnant, unless there is a surgical intervention or miscarriage, he will be a father. He may not want that, or like it, but that is how it is. Biology puts the baby in her body, not his. Because the burden of carrying the child is
entirely hers, the decision making at this point must be
entirely hers.
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I think that people should not breed until they are financially responsible and I think that everyone should be obligated to support their offspring
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I agree completely.
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but I understand those who wish to give the potential father some say in this 21 year financial decision.
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I understand it too. Some men want to have fun and not deal with the consequences that result. That is irresponsible, and unfair to the child who had no choice in the matter.
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Especially in places where abortion is still considered a legal way to avoid parenthood.
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Giving someone other than the woman any sort of control over her body and her decison about what to do with it, either in the form of forcing her to carry an unwanted child or financial coercion to have an abortion is an invasion of her right to determine what to do with her body.
Let's look at the result of giving males this option of deciding once a woman is pregnant that they want to decline fatherhood. This would remove all responsibility at the outset, even before the pregnancy occurs. Men would be free to have as much consequence free sex as they liked, and walk away unburdened by the responsibilities of parenthood. It would remove any incentive for the man to share in the responsibility for contraception or supporting the children they fathered, shifting all of that to the woman.
A child deserves the support of both her parents. A desire to save some money shouldn't trump what's best for the child the man willingly helped to create.
Gilda