Father unable to prevent abortion

thanks for sharing that story...I'm sure it's not easy to talk about...I'm so sorry you and she went through that...must have been tough.

 

Do you really think it's that black and white TheFreak?

As it stands now, the law does side with the woman. Since it's impossible (as evidenced here) to have the law be perfectly consistent, that's where it has to be.

It's a matter of choice. If a woman decides to remain pregnant and carry a fetus to viability, she certainly has that choice. No one has the right to take that choice away from her. Your example is like saying burglary shouldn't be a crime because sometimes people give their stuff away. It doesn't work like that. If the woman makes the choice to carry the fetus to viability, then it is, and should be, illegal to hurt it-doesn't matter if it's the first month or the ninth. On the same hand, if a mother has decided to carry the pregnancy to term, then she doesn't have the right to harm the fetus. If she doesn't want the child, she should abort it, not end it with crack, alcohol, tobacco, or anything else.

It's very easy to understand why pro-choicers can be for abortion at a certain point then be against it after a certain point. Actually, it's the main difference between anti-abortion and pro-choice folks. Viability. As a pro-choice person, I believe this because I don't believe that a fetus is a person until it can live outside of the womb. Once it can, that's when I become anti-murder.

As for the father paying support if he didn't want the baby-could you imagine what problems that would cause? If you acutally made it OK for the father to skirt his duties just because they didn't want the child, two things would certainly happen. One, abortions would skyrocket. If a woman felt that she wouldn't get any support for the child, why not? That's by far the main reason people abort pregnancies now. The second thing that would for sure happen would be a rise in men saying they were pro-choice. "Oops, I got my girlfriend pregnant...we're not serious, so I think I want her to have an abortion. Oh, you don't want it, well I don't have to pay...see ya!" It's in the common interest of all involved to make the father responsible for child support, whether or not he wanted the child or not.

I know the laws seem inconsistent, but in so many cases, that's just how it is. Not everything is black and white. So, as a society on the whole, we've decided that in the cases of abortion, child support, etc., that it's better to give the benefit of the doubt to the woman since they have to bear the brunt of it. A woman can't run away from a child as easily as a man can.

FWIW, since pro-lifers like to demonize pro-choicers...I've never met a fellow pro-choice person that would ever consider an abortion (sorry if I've met you, you're pro-choice, and would consider it...we've just never had this conversation). I have never, and never will, support my girlfriend or wife having an abortion. That's just how I am. However, I don't believe it's my right, or anyone else's right, to say what someone can do with their body, unless it involves another person (and yes, I understand and appreciate the pro-life argument). That applies to everyone, not just pregnant women.

 

Friends--

I understand the arguments that the pro-choicers make. There are major issues here. I was really touched by Batman's story. I'm sure that every so often he thinks of how old his kid would be. That he could be teaching his son about the theater, how to play basketball and about the teachings of the wise and sage Refman . Seriously though, I feel awful that Batman had to face this and it will stick with him for the rest of his days.

Many of you know that I am an attoney, so I know the law. I have been Roe v. Wade'ed to death. As a Roman Catholic I have a pro-life bent. I'm not militant about it, but I would plead with a woman I was involved with to carry the child. This is why I'm worried about the father's right.

I understand that it's her body and all, but I've always found that argument to be somewhat disingenuous. There are other factors and other people at play here. you can't take the woman's rights in a vacuum in this instance. Speaking a little deeper...when does a fetus become infused with a soul, or if you prefer a life energy that makes it uniquely human? When does it stop being a scientific pile of goo and start being a souled person? I don't think we're enlightened enough to make that call. I bear no grudge against those who feel differently, but when I thin kabout abortion it really makes me sad.

There are women that use abortion as birth control. Please nobody tell me that's not true. I knew a girl in high school. She graduated high school at age 19...she had had SEVEN abortions. Each time after the 4th they told her she was too scarred to have kids...but lo and behold she kept getting pregnant. I have no idea how many more she had after that. That's just flat out unethical. Forget about legal...I know the law on this...it's unethical. I'm sure that many of the guys never even knew she was pregnant.

At the end of the day I'm, not the moral arbiter of the country...nor do I want to be. Abortion is legal regardless of my thoughts on the matter. I just don't want any of my tax dollars going to fund it. That should be the right of the people. I'm emotionally spent on this now, so I'm going to quit. Thanks for your attention.

 

Originally posted by Rocketman95
It's a matter of choice. If a woman decides to remain pregnant and carry a fetus to viability, she certainly has that choice. No one has the right to take that choice away from her.

As for the father paying support if he didn't want the baby-could you imagine what problems that would cause? If you acutally made it OK for the father to skirt his duties just because they didn't want the child, two things would certainly happen. One, abortions would skyrocket. If a woman felt that she wouldn't get any support for the child, why not? That's by far the main reason people abort pregnancies now. The second thing that would for sure happen would be a rise in men saying they were pro-choice. "Oops, I got my girlfriend pregnant...we're not serious, so I think I want her to have an abortion. Oh, you don't want it, well I don't have to pay...see ya!" It's in the common interest of all involved to make the father responsible for child support, whether or not he wanted the child or not. [/QUOTE]


You say it's a matter of choice for a woman and then essentially say it's in the common interest for men to have no choice in the matter of supporting a child they don't want. If the law recognizes a woman has the right to abort a pregnancy then why not a man's choice to abort his responsibilities to that same pregnancy? It's certainly in the interest of a child to have two parents who want it.

 

Thanks to Max, Freak and Refman for the sympathetic words. I didn't post for them, but I appreciate them. That all happened more than ten years ago. I only shared the story to make the point that this is a complicated issue and that we should maybe concern ourselves less with absolute right, since no one wins in these cases, and more with as right as possible.

Ref, the 19 year old you spoke of is a jerk. We can't legislate these types of sensitive issues on account of her. If there were a way to stop rampant, sociopathic abortion for birth control, it would have been proposed by the pro-choicers by now as a means to get your 19 year old example person out of this debate. It's not about her.

As a lawyer, you know the courts can't legislate based on collective presumptions about the arrival of the "soul" or life force or anything like that. You deal every day, I'm sure, in the rules of law, which don't always match up with what you might perceive to be the proper rules of morality. And you know, I think, that any discussion of souls is irrelevant in a legal setting, however relevant or even vital it might be in another setting.

But the main reason I'm posting now is in response to this stuff about not wanting your tax dollars to pay for certain kinds of health care for uninsured people, due to religious or other beliefs you hold. You couldn't possibly be more sick of the "woman's body" argument than I am of this one. You want to decide where your tax dollars go? Okay. Me too. And I'm not sending any more to the cops or the military. I also don't agree with farm subsidies. And since I'm vegan (and my diet IS a moral imperative to me), I don't want to pay for any school lunches iwth meat or dairy in them. Is that okay?

We elect our officials to decide where our tax dollars go. If you don't like it, you try to get someone else elected. Because of the sensitivity of this issue and the zealots who insist on seeing it in black and white (not you guys -- the ones in charge), you can bet I'll be doing just that come 2004.

 

I think this is a suitable other setting.
Sure this touches uniquely upon the law...but nobody ever talks about the other considerations.

Surely you see the difference here. This has been one of the biggest hot button issues for the last 3 decades in this country and has been extremely divisive. I would never cut funding for hospitals, etc. But I would cut funding Planned Parenthood as relates to abortions performed there. I would continue their funding as relates to building maintenance, low cost birth control and education. We could agree on some of the farm subsides and free school lunches (which end up in the garbage a lot--my Mom works in a public school and polices the cafeteria). But without the cops we'd fall into anarchy...I don't think that making people pay for their own abortions and have some reprecussions for their actions will be all that bad.

 

Ref, Vietnam was a hot button issue, too. You get my point.

We register our opinion at the polls and by working for political candidates. We don't get to withhold our tax dollars or decide where they go. I find it utterly repugnant that my tax dollars go to cattle farmers, because cattle farming is morally repugnant to me. In fact, if you really want to know, it's as close to evil as anything else in my book.

But I accept that my tax dollars go where the government decides, and I work hard to get people elected who'll spend our taxes in line with my ideas of morality and fairness.

And anyway, I'll abide some of my money going to practices I disagree with (or even abhor) as long as some of my money goes to ensure that poor women aren't performing their own abortions with wire hangers, like they used to do.

 

Also, on school lunches: you know that's not the argument I was making. I know that some people in your party would like to get rid of them or classify catsup as a vegetable to save money, but I am absolutely for feeding hungry people. I don't think there's any better use of our tax dollars. I was making a point and you got my point. And then you twisted it. Naughty.

Without the cops we'd fall into anarchy? But people should pay for their own health care, if you disagree with the choice they make regarding that care? Privatization sure does have complicated rules. Maybe I don't understand them. But I'd prefer we didn't have cops. (I'm feeling honest tonight. Forgive me. I am honestly rather radical on some subjects.) You think cops are so important? You pay for them yourself. Hire a private security force. Then the rich people can be protected and the poor people can defend themselves. Just like you'd have it with abortion.

 

I'm genuinely curious about something I've noticed with the abortion debate. It seems to me that the people that get the most angered by it are men. I'm trying to understand why that is.

I've known women who are pro-life and who know I'm pro-choice, but it was never a source of tension. I've been to a lot of women's bulletin boards (ivillage for example) and while they do have an abortion debate thread, it is not angry and accusatory in tone like the debates I've seen here. Not to mention they also have an abortion support board for women who've made the decision to have one.

The face of pro-life is often an angry, shouting male. Where is that anger coming from?

 

Most of the time they end up in the trash. Trust me...my Mom sees it everyday. She was shocked. It really changed her view on the whole program.

I never said that I was wanting to withold tax money. I was merely pointing out my preferred policy.

Two years ago a guy was trying to break into an apartment down the hall so he could beat the crap out of a woman who had cheated on him. I called the cops and they were there in 3 minutes and took him away. I could have easily stepped outside and shot him (which I actually considered for a moment), but what good would that have done?

It is not the role of government to ensure that nothing bad ever happens to you. We have taken personal accountability totally out of the equation. There would still bedoctors willing to do low cost or free abortions in their off hours because they believe in it. Just because the government does not do it does not mean that somebody else won't. That's the fallacy in that argument. And believe me if the cops were not around...I would have confronted that guy and probably would have been forced to shoot him when he turned his anger on me. I don't really think that is the world you want to live in.

 

Maybe that we don't have a say in a fetus we helped create. It's very frustrating. I don't know about other men. I can only speak for myself.

 

Men don't get pregnant, men don't raise a child like a single mother does, men don't get raped to face the decision, men don't
risk their lives giving birth.

No matter a fetus has a soul or not, women are whom being responsible to bring it to the world, it's part of her body until it comes out of birth canal, it's sucking women's bone marrow and oxygen for growth, it's a parasitic body part which is not a characteristic of human.

Let the women decide.

 

A parasitic body part. Parasitic? So a fetus is like head lice or a tapeworm???!!! You can't really expect anybody to take that seriously.

 

Ref: Not long ago, I lived in an apartment directly under a crack dealer. I called the cops almost every day for a year, many times because there were fights going on above or outside my apartment. They told me they were busy and would be there when they could. Same happened with all my neighbors. Over the course of a year and probably a hundred complaints from me and my neighbors, they came by twice. It took a year to get them out of there, while they were openly dealing crack in and around my complex. I let my car registration lapse by a day though, and they've got plenty of time for that. If I haven't shaved in a few days, they've got plenty of time to search my car as well. We have had different experiences with cops. That's not what this thread is about. My point here was that the fact of our tax paying gives us the right to vote, not to legislate.

And I find it curious that you aren't calling for total privatization (or good hearted volunteers) in health care for poor people -- you only want the government to stop donating abortion services. That indicates to me that you see them as a luxury. I can assure you the vast majority of women who make the difficult choice to have them do not see them that way.

Mrs. JB: I won't venture a guess as to why men are so heated when it comes to abortion, but I think that at least one reason for pro-life women not giving pro-choice women such a hard time is that the pro-life position is very unpopular with women. Black people who are against affirmative action don't much yell about it with their black friends either. But I think the bigger reason for the divide is that women are just generally more sensitive. As I said earlier in this thread, there are valid, heartwrenching points on both sides of the debate. I think women are just plain better at empathy, which allows them to see both sides no matter how strongly they favor one or the other. In that way, at least on this issue, I take them as a model.

 

American Dictionary of Heritage
Parasite:
An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.

 

Well thank you Mr. Webster. That does not negate the ridiculous connotation you were making.

 

You know, I can respect that argument and I would certainly be willing to agree if I were the father and the mother of the child was choosing abortion against my wishes. But, what about when you have no involvement?

Now, if this is a religious issue and you believe in the existence of a soul and life beginning at conception, I get that as well. I once believed it myself.

I'm just wondering about those who don't have the spiritual beliefs AND aren't personally involved with the mothers. Where is that frustration coming from?

 

When was the last time a gall bladder removal was controversial?

They're not necessary to sustain life or even promote health. Let me go on record as being for abortion for rape, incest and to preserve the life of the mother. I don't think that an argument can be made that a woman needs an abortion. Women need breast cancer prevention and detection. Diabetics need insulin. In that respect, women do not need an abortion. That makes it by definition not a necessity. If that makes it a luxury...then maybe it is. I've never thought of it that way, but perhaps you've broadened my thinking here.

 

I'm not involved with any of the mothers. I feel sympathetic to men who are. If the man doesn't want anything to do with the child then there isn't a problem on that account. I'm talking about circumstances where the man wants this child and has nobody who wants to hear his side of the situation. They just pretend he isn't there and that he wouldn't really want to be a father anyway. That's just disgusting. I hope that makes my position a little more clear. Sorry for any confusion.