Quote:
This thread is about father's rights.
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This seemed to be in response to FoolThemAll's discussion of "when a fetus becomes a human," which he's right in identifying as the critical "stalemate" in any discussion regarding the "right" of a fetus to live.
And similarly, I think it is a VERY important question to the discussion of father's rights, because it is again where I draw the line.
I do not believe that a father should now or EVER have any rights regarding a child until the moment of birth.
My entire opinion about abortion and father's rights stems from my belief that a parasite (or symbiont, should you choose to use that word) is the property of the mother and no one else, in line with every other piece of anatomy.
I similarly reject the position of pro-life individuals who believe that the cells, even in a "human-like" arrangement, somehow constitute "human life", particularly at the moment of CONCEPTION! I fail to see how that a position like that could coexist with a belief that antibiotics are an acceptable practice?
Why? Because for much of a pregnancy, especially immediately following conception, the magnitude of cells in a zygote is equal to the number of cells constituting a bacterial infection.
A "human-like" appearance is similarly unconvincing, and although I grant that the organism is multi-cellular, I do not hold that as a defining characteristic of humanity. There are billions upon billions of multi-cellular organisms which we do not protect from death. Some of them we actively work to destroy.
If you don't believe a baby is a child until birth, then you must see how that changes your opinion of what rights a father is entitled to regarding a fetus.