The right to choose to become a parent

[knowitallstrikesagain]

Treading softly as I do not want to start an argument, I really want to be clear in my own mind.

I agree with a woman's right to have an abortion. I have seen many a debate about it and most of the reasons for 'pro-choice' (I have put this in brackets because I hate the term pro-choice and pro-life) is that a woman should not have to go through pregnancy and birth if she does not want to. Accepted. But people I know who have had abortions have not done so because of a fear of pregnancy and birth, they have done so because they did not want to raise a child, they were not in the right place, emotionally or financially. Accepted.

What I am trying to understand is this: Why does a man have to support a child conceived when he was using protection? (I have tried lots of different ways to type this question and am aware it sounds crap however I put it)

If a woman is using protection, so is taking the view that conception is unlikely, and falls pregnant but cannot financially afford to raise a child, she can abort. But a man in the same situation does not have the same choices. Why is the argument always, 'The man knew what he was risking when he had sex, sex can lead to children, etc.' We all know this, yet a woman does have the final say and will never end up having to support a child she does not want to have, even if the father wants is very much. Is this fair?

If the argument is that a child is an accepted risk of having sex, should that not apply to both parties?

Please just help me get this clear in my mind as I personally feel that I could not ask a man for financial support to raise a child he never expected to be conceived if I have the opportunity to abort but decide I want to keep it. Is this totally anti-feminist or is my thinking understandable, just misguided?

[FoodUnit]

I think you are missing the child's perspective in this. Every child deserves to have the best possible chance in life, and money is a large part of that, as well as care, attention, protection, etc. A new life is a massive undertaking, and it can easily be messed up - through no fault of that child.

A child doesn't choose to be born, but parents choose to have sex (unless it is rape). It doesn't matter what a mother personally feels about what she can expect from the father - the child is the one that has the right to expectations from both parents. The child is entitled to the fathers money and as a mother you have a duty to secure that for your child.

[SeaHouses]

I'm not sure there is that much moral complexity to this. You have rights in the part of the process that your body is involved with, surely?

[minipie]

On first read I agreed with you knowitall. If a pregnancy is a result of contraception failure, i.e. both man and woman thought they were taking precautions, then the woman has the choice to abort but the man doesn't. This doesn't seem fair. Why should the man be responsible just because the woman exercised her choice to continue with the pregnancy?

However, I then thought, this doesn't take account of the fact that many (perhaps even most?) women would find it very difficult to have an abortion and/or think abortion is wrong. Therefore, in a sense, it is not really their "choice" to continue with the pregnancy. Given this, the man and the woman should be in exactly the same position - i.e. they should both be responsible for the result of the contraception failure.

[BasilEatsFoulEggs]

I agree with FoodUnit.

A man should support a child he conceives by accident, because that is a child's right.

Whereas he has no right to order a woman to have an abortion, because it's her body and he has no right to tell her what to do with it.

Decent men don't have a problem with this. They understand that even if they have used precautions and the contraception fails, they are responsible for any child that contraceptive failure results in, even though they don't have a vote in whether that child is born or not. It's only entitled whiny nobbers that complain about it, I have never yet met a man I respected, who expressed the view that this is unfair and that men should be able to just walk away from their children. Normal men agree that though it may be a bummer, you just have to accept your responsibilities with a good grace because the welfare of a child comes before the injured feelings of a grown adult.

Men who really 100% don't want the responsibility of a child, should either get a vasectomy or refrain from PIV sex with women who might get pregnant.

[ecclesvet]

The concept of a 'financial abortion'/parental surrender - i.e. a situation where a father signs away all responsibilities for, and (crucially) rights to, a baby - is one that's hotly debated in MRA circles.

I definitely think there's a disparity in the reproductive rights of men and women, but really one just has to say 'tough shit' to men; yes, it's unfair, but women have more options because it's their body. It's an unfair situation, but anything other than the status quo would be worse.

Even so, it's interesting to see all the uproar over the attack on women's reproductive rights in the US. I imagine if abortion were outlawed, people would be saying to women the the exact same thing they are saying to men now: "you knew the risks, you shouldn't have had sex, now you have to 'man' up and take responsibility for your actions...".

[BasilEatsFoulEggs]

I did actually know someone who went and got a vasectomy in his early thirties, because he knew by then that he would never want children and it meant that he could never get involved with a woman who did want them. Right from the start, cards were on the table that he'd had a vasectomy and there was no negotiation room. It meant no-one would ever have any false hope and I think that's fair enough.

[WidowWadman]

The pregnancy is (in the best case) the result of a consensual act, which bore a remote risk of pregnancy, however much reduced by use of contraception. Engaging in sex means bearing that in mind, so if the sex results in a child it's only fair if both parents contribute to the upbringing of the child.

The woman ultimately gets to decide whether to abort or not, because it's her body which is affected directly by the decision.

No matter whether the woman decides to abort or to continue the pregnancy, it will impact on her body and health. Both pregnancy and abortion come with their own sets of risks - it should be down to the woman to decide which risk for her body she is willing to take.

[tribpot]

I sympathise with the point of view expressed but ultimately it does come back to: what is the alternative? What other choice is either humanly or humanely possible? The same holds equally true when it is the woman's wish to abort and the man's wish for the pregnancy to continue.

[WasabiTillyMinto]

Is this fair? its the best of the alternatives.

[TheFallenMadonna]

Well, a man and a woman need to go into things realising that the potential outcomes are different for the two of them. A man can minimise his risk by using contraception, but that is the extent to which he is in control. So he makes his decisions based on that knowledge. A woman has a further choice, and can make her decisions based on that.

Fairness has nothing to do with it. It is the way it is. There's no point making a fuss over something that you should have considered going into the encounter.

Is it fair that for my DH and I to have two children, I had to have all the pregnancies? Of course not. But fairness has nothing to do with it.

[BasilEatsFoulEggs]

ecclesvat I think only a minority of uncivilised people would take that view.

As others are saying, the consequence for women of having an unwanted baby and the consequences for men of the same, are totally and completely different and most people understand and accept that.

For a start, men don't risk death and ongoing long term health risks. That's just the physical.

And AFAICS, in general becoming a mother has much more of an impact upon a woman's social, economic and emotional status, than having a father does on that of a man.

Let's face it, on the whole, the whiners who don't want to accept financial responsiblity for their children, simply don't. End of. There isn't a problem for them really.

[BertieBotts]

I agree with the others - it's not really about choosing to become a parent or not, the abortion issue is a woman having control over what happens to her body. It is not about the child. (I guess if you do believe it is about the child, that's where the anti-abortion argument comes into it.)

Secondly, I think that in our current society it is vitally important that women have this choice, because realistically men do have the choice to walk away. Although it's considered morally right to support your offspring, many many men just don't, and they aren't judged, they aren't made to support, people don't even register it. It has no impact on their lives at all.

[solidgoldbrass]

I have always tended towards the opinion that a man should be given the option of walking away (if the conception was unplanned/result of contraceptive failure), except for the fact that men still have custody of most of the money, and tend to be happy with the idea that men generally earn more than women and that it's fine for their careers to be prioritized.

[FoodUnit]

(I guess if you do believe it is about the child, that's where the anti-abortion argument comes into it.)

No it looks similar but isn't - abortion rights is about a potential child and whether someone other than the person with the womb it grows in and who carries all the risks of pregnancy, birth or abortion has a say in how she chooses to proceed.

The OPs scenario is about an actual(not potential) child.

[SmellsLikeTeenStrop]

I agree with FoodUnit.

Abortion rights and financial responsibility to a child are two different things imv. I suppose abortion could be considered a man vs woman issue, only women can become pregnant but giving a man a voice in whether his partner has an abortion would give him greater rights over her body than she has.

Financial responsibility involves the mother, the father and the child. If anything, it's man vs child and it's not the man getting rid of his rights to the child, it's the man trying to block the child's rights to him. I think in most cases it would negatively impact the child to lose the right to be financially supported by it's father.

[knowitallstrikesagain]

Men who really 100% don't want the responsibility of a child, should either get a vasectomy or refrain from PIV sex with women who might get pregnant

I find this difficult to reconcile. Surely a woman has the responsibility to refrain from sex with a man who might father a child? Or does it not work both ways? And if not, why not?

I understand that this is just the way things are, it is down to biology. But the argument that a child has a right to be financially supported by its father, does that still apply if the woman is wealthy in her own right? Does the child (any child) have a right to more wealth than another simply by virtue of an accident?

[TheFallenMadonna]

I am very surprised to see the suggestion that a woman is responsible for not having sex with a man who doesn't want a child. How on earth does that come under any notion of fairness?

[FoodUnit]

Does the child (any child) have a right to more wealth than another simply by virtue of an accident?

This is an irrelevent diversion. This thread is about the child's right to expect parental support from both parents not a comparison of one child against another. Otherwise you could get tight, negligent parents saying they can hoard their wealth for themselves and have their children living in poverty because "well there are other poor kids too you know".

Parents have parental responsibility to share what they have with their offspring irrespective of what the fate of other children might be.

[messyisthenewtidy]

Have been thinking about this as reflects my situation. I don't receive any money from XP, and friends say I should resent it, but I don't, because of reasons similar to the OP's description.

I think the situation can never be totally fair, because the roles that men and women play in sex and pregnancy are set by biology.

In the "olden" days, men had all the freedom and the consequences lay on the women. It was the woman who was forced to go ahead with the pregnancy or face a potentially life threatening abortion, it was the woman who was forced to give up her child, it was the woman whose future was ruined by the stigma of being an unwed mother. No one ever called a man a slut for sleeping around.

Today, it is slightly unfair to the man, in that women can have (almost) consequence free sex whilst the man cannot because he has no control over the outcome of the pregnancy. But the alternative is to go back, in the same way that the US is going back, where the man has control over the woman's body and that is unthinkable and way more unfair that what we have now.

On the other hand, women still bear the consequences of terminating the pregnancy or the embarrassment of a morning after trip. We also ruin our bodies in childbirth and so it seems a bit churlish to complain that men don't have enough say.

They are simply now in the position where they should choose their partners carefully and only have sex with women who they are happy to mother their child. To have men really properly think about the consequences of having sex before having it can only be a good thing....

[BertieBotts]

I think OP means, well then if the woman doesn't want the risk of pregnancy how come she is not responsible for having PIV sex with a fertile man? Which of course she is (unless it's rape) - if you absolutely don't want to become pregnant then abstinence is the only thing guaranteed to work.

NOT "how come the woman isn't responsible for the man becoming a father".

[knowitallstrikesagain]

Thank you Bertie, I am so inarticulate at the moment!

I was just trying to put a counter argument to the point made that a man should not have PIV sex if he is not prepared to become a father, does the same not apply to a woman, in that she should not have PIV sex if she is not prepared to become a mother?

[maytheoddsbeeverinyourfavour]

I think there are some circumstances where the situation is unfair, though I would say that the majority of the time it isn't, but I agree that unfair or not what we have is the only workable solution

I just can't think of any other way that would work or would be in any way fairer. It's unthinkable that a man would get an equal say in the case of abortion, if both partners had a 'vote' it could still be a split decision and who's opinion should count the most? Can you imagine if the 'father' could force an abortion on the mother or force her to carry a child to term?

And if a child is conceived but the father says he shouldn't have to pay or have responsibility because he used contraception, how could that be verified? Wouldn't unscrupulous men use that as a get out clause, true or not? It would come down to one persons word against another

The way things are now is a fair as I believe things can be