What do you feel about a man's right to determine whether or not a woman has an abortion?

If a man doesn't want a child, should he have a right in determining whether or not the fetus is aborted, considering half of his DNA is the child?

And if a woman doesn't agree and goes forward to have the child, should the man be obligated to pay child support?

It seems current abortion laws favor a woman's right to choose over the fate of the child, but a man is simply forced to sit and wait and see whether or not he will be forced to pay child support and raise the child. Should the man have any rights in this decision, or is the ball entirely in the woman's court since it is her body?

6/25/2007 8:38:58 PM

i feel a man has no right to determine abortion or not. i do however feel that if a man does not want a child he should have the right to dis-own it. as for if he wants it and the woman doesn't, it still comes down to the woman having control over her body

6/25/2007 8:44:35 PM

If a man has no legal say in whether the child is aborted, then the man should have the ability to legaly surrender all rights and responsibilities to the child, which includes not paying child support, but also includes no vested interests in the raising or welfare of the child (that is, he has no more legal claim to any part of the child's life than a random stanger plucked from across the country. In a sense, you need to create a legal "abortion" for men.

6/25/2007 8:51:02 PM

I feel like the man needs to GROW SOME BALLS and be responsible for his own actions. Or LOSE HIS BALLS so that he doesn't have to worry about making babies.

6/25/2007 8:55:56 PM

^But, why does the woman have a choice in the matter but the man has none? It takes two to tango, but only one person is allowed to kill the music?

6/25/2007 9:10:57 PM

And what of the woman when the man wants the child? Shouldn't she take responsibility for her own actions or suffer castration so that she doesn't have to worry about making babies? The beauty of child production is that it always requires at least two people. Why then can one be forcefully roped into taking responsibility for something they don't want, yet the other can do away with all responsibility with a high tech vaccum?

6/25/2007 9:11:49 PM

/message_topic.aspx?topic=425047

lol. this stuipid topic again. Man doesn't carry the baby for 9 months

/thread

[Edited on June 25, 2007 at 9:13 PM. Reason : k]

6/25/2007 9:12:32 PM

Well then lock it or stay out of the thread.

6/25/2007 9:17:54 PM

^^ But he does pay for baby for 18 years. How again is this justice?

6/25/2007 9:27:02 PM

if the woman can choose

the man must have choice that is no easier nor more difficult than abortion

6/25/2007 9:35:23 PM

Quote :

"But, why does the woman have a choice in the matter but the man has none? It takes two to tango, but only one person is allowed to kill the music?"

/thread

6/25/2007 11:31:07 PM

Quote :

"But he does pay for baby for 18 years. How again is this justice?"

Not to mention that the mother has almost all the parental rights when it comes to decision making. The father will almost never get custody of the child even if he can provide a better environment for raising the child, is more stable, and doesn't have a history of drug use, etc. The courts are heavily weighted against men. A woman just has to allege a man has done something wrong (hit, molest, whatever) to the child and, without any proof, social services will come in. It's a pretty fucked up system right now.

6/25/2007 11:38:50 PM

man shouldn't be able to have any say in forcing a woman to have an abortion. that's absurd.

the system is fucked, though...if you're a dude, and if you make more money than the mother, it's gonna be bad for you. trust me on this one. i've spent about $13,500 in legal expenses and child support over the last 8 months...all to settle a bunch of stuff that 2 halfway reasonable people could've handled much better (and for a fraction of that much money) on their own.

[Edited on June 26, 2007 at 1:30 AM. Reason : and put up with some crazy bullshit in terms of visitation, etc]

6/26/2007 1:30:02 AM

Most ideal solution,

if one partner wants to keep the baby alive, then woman can't get an abortion. The one that didn't want the kid is required to pay child support.

6/26/2007 1:32:07 AM

i think it should be geared towards life.

meaning if either parent wants the child to live, the child should live.

i couldn't imagine a girl i slept with wanting to kill a child, and having to stand by helpless as she killed it.

that would be some shit.

6/26/2007 1:33:10 AM

considering abortion happens when a child has fewer cells than a rat, i don't think you're killing a child

6/26/2007 2:59:44 AM

Let's try to stay away from what is the medical definition of abortion and whether or not abortion is right.

6/26/2007 3:12:51 AM

but it's a very important thing to consider

and i'm not sayin that to troll, it really is. because what we consider to be a human is based on a definitive set of qualities, one of those qualities being general number of cells, ie the number of cells required to have a functioning human

6/26/2007 3:19:21 AM

This is possibly one of the most intractable political issues there is.

Both sides have validity. It seems silly to make a man pay for somthing he never wanted because, you're right, "it takes two to tango." But on the other hand, one can't minimalize the fact that a woman carries the little bastard around for nine months that the man might not even see at all, and, besides that, an abortion is a procedure that is only invasive to one gender.

You can't do it fairly at all. Ultimately, you're stuck being as fair as it is possible to be, and that requires a man pay for at least part of the process. Whether or not 18 years of child support is kosher, I don't know, but at least some payment should be required, because you're right -- it takes two to tango.

Because in the overwhelming majority of cases it will be the woman left in charge of raising the child, some mechanism has to exist to make the man contribute from outside. Not just for the good of the kid, but for society as a whole.

6/26/2007 3:30:20 AM

Abortion isn't even a factor here, you can have the child, but the man still may not want to be involved with it. Im sick and tired of hearing women say the same stuff:

"the woman has to carry the child for 9 months"
"man up and accept responsibility for your own actions"
"if you didnt want a child dont have sex"

none of the above arguments are valid, its just another example of stupid women thinking emotionally instead of rationally, and blurting out shit that doesnt make sense.

6/26/2007 10:29:54 AM

a man needs to decide that he is going to be a man and own up to whatever action the woman decides to take. he needs to tell her that he is going to support her no matter what she chooses and that he has her back emotionally and financially.

those are his rights.

[Edited on June 26, 2007 at 11:28 AM. Reason : . ]

6/26/2007 11:28:04 AM

too bad real life isnt a hollywood movie

[Edited on June 26, 2007 at 11:32 AM. Reason : l]

6/26/2007 11:31:37 AM

While it's true that the woman carries the child for nine months, all of the arguments used against men could just as easily be used against women as well. We say that a man should not have sex if he's not prepared to assume the financial burden of rearing a child, but what nobody ever says is that a woman should not have sex if she's not prepared to assume the health risks of carrying a child to term. And abortion isn't always a convenient option, it carries its own risks as well.

If a man doesn't want the child, I do believe it's only fair that he at least pay for the child to be raised for at least the first few years of life (although quantifying the "first few years" could be tricky from a legal point of view). I say this because I also believe that if he genuinely has no interest in the child, he shouldn't be forced to help pay for it until it becomes 18. A disinterested and apathetic parent can be just as bad for a child's development as no parent at all.

6/26/2007 12:53:35 PM

Quote :

"too bad real life isnt a hollywood movie"

it isnt a hollywood movie. most men handle their business like that.

6/26/2007 1:04:28 PM

If you look at it over the course of conception to 18 years, a woman only really has to "deal" with the child 4% more of the time than the man (18 years vs. 18 years and 9 months) . Why then, should she carry 100% of the rights in determining its fate and who is financially responsible for it? Without the man's sperm, the child would not exist.

I think an interesting thing to add to this is about sperm banks. Men who donate sperm to sperm banks aren't financially responsible for a child when their sperm is used to impregnate a woman. How are they any different than a man who impregnates a woman during sex? Both voluntarily "donated" their sperm with a chance that it would be used to impregnate a woman.

6/26/2007 1:14:54 PM

Why stop with babies? Lets just extend this concept for society, if certain people are a drain on society and/or have a poor quality of life lets give them adult abortions, lets rip them from the womb of earth.
Its for the overall good, why aren't you for earth's rights. We can't survive without mother Gai so we are a part of Gai. [/sarcasm]

6/26/2007 3:35:56 PM

6/26/2007 3:49:23 PM

Quote :

"This is possibly one of the most intractable political issues there is. Both sides have validity. It seems silly to make a man pay for somthing he never wanted because, you're right, "it takes two to tango." But on the other hand, one can't minimalize the fact that a woman carries the little bastard around for nine months that the man might not even see at all, and, besides that, an abortion is a procedure that is only invasive to one gender. You can't do it fairly at all. Ultimately, you're stuck being as fair as it is possible to be, and that requires a man pay for at least part of the process. Whether or not 18 years of child support is kosher, I don't know, but at least some payment should be required, because you're right -- it takes two to tango. Because in the overwhelming majority of cases it will be the woman left in charge of raising the child, some mechanism has to exist to make the man contribute from outside. Not just for the good of the kid, but for society as a whole."

Yes.

6/26/2007 4:15:59 PM

The problem with saying "most of the time, the woman will be left with the responsibility so the man must pay" and "if the man did not want the responsibility he shouldn't have had sex" is that they generate a double standard.

The woman just as much assumes the risks of childhood as the man does before having sex. Once the woman is pregnant, she has the choice of either taking on that responsibility or not. On the other hand, you force the man to accept responsibility either way.

The fact that the woman carries the child for 9 months is irellevant as she is choosing to take that course of action. Until such a time that a man can force a woman to carry a child to term, he should be allowed to completely sever himself from all responsibilities with that child just as the mother can.

For what it's worth, this should only be true until the point where abortion is no longer a viable option, at that point both parents are "forced" into care for the child and should bear equal responsibilities.

6/26/2007 4:37:49 PM

Quote :

"they generate a double standard."

Dude

There is a double standard. It's inherent to the penis/vagina dichotomy. There is already a fundamental biological double standard that we can't do anything about.

Even if we abolished child support entirely, there would still be the inescapable double standard that a father who wants the kid can't make a woman have it. There isn't a way to make this fair. It can't be made equitable. All we can do is take legal measures to try to balance some of them out.

6/27/2007 2:02:02 AM

abortion doesnt have to be involved in this at all. you can take unwanted babies to fire stations and hospitals and they will take them no questions asked.

6/27/2007 10:58:19 AM

It's not always that easy.

6/27/2007 11:11:46 AM

^^^

That's the whole point to the argument. The nature of the laws in place means that the man can not force the woman to bear a child. That being the case, it should also be that the woman can not force the man to care for the child. Of course as I said, this would only apply up to such point as abortion is no longer an option.

6/27/2007 11:24:14 AM

Quote :

"The nature of the laws in place means that the man can not force the woman to bear a child."

That's not so much the nature of the laws. Yes, the laws say that, but they are basically just describing what is already part of the natural double standard -- the only way the man's going to force a woman to not have the baby is through physical coersion, which we frown upon in a much more general sense.

6/27/2007 12:43:16 PM