How to reconcile two very different opinions (pregnancy/rights)

[Thurlow]

It occurred to me today that two opinions I hold quite strongly are completely different, and its bothering me.

The first is abortion. I believe that it is entirely a woman's choice whether to continue a pregnancy or not. The father can have an opinion and, in an ideal world, will support the woman's opinion but it's still her final choice whether to go through with the pregnancy or not, even if the father is absolutely desperate to have a child. I don't believe that any woman should ever have to continue with a pregnancy they don't want.

The second is about father's rights once the baby is born. Take naming the child. Sometimes I see comments like, "you carried the baby, you gave birth to the baby, you have the final say in what name they carry." I believe that just because a woman is the only person biologically capable of carrying a child doesn't mean that the child is somehow more "theirs". It's not like some sort of global conspiracy whereby men chose not to be the ones to get pregnant. So, both the mother and the father (assuming a fair relationship) are equal parents.

But these are drastically different opinions Does anyone understand or have any suggestions to help me work it out, as it's slightly bothering me.

'Obviously this is looking at it from the perspective of a healthy relationship...'

As others have said, parents have a responsibility to children, not a right.

But in a healthy relationship, isn't the mother's greater (usual) need to be with the baby after the birth not acknowledged by the father?

In healthy relationships, fathers do not expect to take the baby away from the hospital to spend 50% of the time with the baby. The father is recognising the baby's right to be with mother, and if he stops recognising that right, the law would get involved and recognise it.

Fathers are acknowledged as equal parents later on, if and when they have demonstrated themselves to be an equal parent, which involves taking into account the importance of the child being with the mother post birth.

I will also add that equal parenting between parents is just one of many options a woman may choose. It's not a preferable choice to others or some kind of ideal to be held up as an example.

Many women want to be single mothers, or raise a child with someone else other than the father, or want a father who has only small amounts of contact with the child. Many men are happy to get these women pregnant.

I don't see why a father should be considered an equal parent unless and until he earns that by supporting both mother and child after the child is born. And even then, the mother (if she isn't neglectful, abusive, or absent,) will still always be more than the father, to some degree.

Is that not a very negative viewpoint? Operating from the lowest common level, that a father has to earn the right to be considered an equal parent?

In healthy relationships, fathers do not expect to take the baby away from the hospital to spend 50% of the time with the baby. The father is recognising the baby's right to be with mother, and if he stops recognising that right, the law would get involved and recognise it.

Really? In my relationship, with a FF baby and an ELCS, my partner did spend 50% of the time with the baby, sharing the night feeds etc. Doesn't your statement suggest, to a degree, that it is a woman's role to look after the children, not a man's?

I don't think your views are contradictory, as there is a difference between the baby who is not yet born and the baby who is. I pretty much share your views.

On naming, my concern about "the woman carried it, went through birth etc etc so she should get the final say" is that it sets her up as the default parent right from the get go. How can we insist that men step up and do their fair share of parenting when they have been excluded?

Slightly different angle, but for those pp who think that women should get the deciding vote on these things, who should have decided what our adopted DD would be called? (We kept her first name but changed her middle names, as is normal) I hadn't carried and delivered her; DH had done literally the same as me to get approved and matched with her.

'Doesn't your statement suggest, to a degree, that it is a woman's role to look after the children, not a man's?'

If a mother has voluntarily carried a pregnancy to term, unless there are truly exceptional circumstances, it is her role to care for her baby.

Pregnancy is a huge great deal. Women voluntarily go through pregnancy because they want to care for a baby, unless it is charitable surrogacy for someone else.

In some cases, women get pregnant by a man who also very much wants to care for a baby, and in some cases they don't. In some cases there are people who are not the father that want to care for the baby.

'...my partner did spend 50% of the time with the baby...'

I suspect that's fairly uncommon as most couples spend their time together with the baby, not 50/50 each. Either way, it has nothing to do with the expectation that I mentioned that the baby remains with the mother in hospital, and is not removed by the father.

To clarify and summarise.

It is almost always a mother's role to care for her baby.
Many times it's also a father's role, but many times it is not.

Men get the equal opportunity to not "input" semen somewhere that a baby will be made.

But these are drastically different opinions

I don't see how they are at all. They are entirely compatible and probably common to a great many people.

Pregnancy happens entirely inside a womans body. She and only she has the right to every decision regarding the pregnancy because it his her body, and there is nothing else to be said about that. Bodily autonomy trumps all.

After a child is born, they are their own person. Neither parent owns them. All things being equal, neither parent has more rights than the other, and they have fairly equal responsibilities.

In practice, if either parent is taking on much more of the care and upbringing of the child, then there may come a point when they are entitled to more of a say in things, but that's a different discussion again.

If a mother has voluntarily carried a pregnancy to term, unless there are truly exceptional circumstances, it is her role to care for her baby

And if a father has voluntarily agreed to become a parent then it is his role to care for his baby.

Most mother's do do the bulk of caring due to breast feeding and maternity leave. Again, does that mean we should just say it is a "woman's role" to care for children?

'And if a father has voluntarily agreed to become a parent then it is his role to care for his baby.'

Why? Many women and men want to make completely different arrangements.

It's not a woman's role to care for children. Many women don't want children at all.

The biological default is that it is the woman's role.

If something happened to make water supply and / or electricity unreliable, that would become obvious again because breastfed babies would survive in far greater numbers.

Societal constructs can overlay that with expectations placed on other family members but that should not come at the price of undervaluing the biological default.

I feel like I'm erring towards territory I know I don't fully understand (and so if someone can correct/explain to me that would be great) but doesn't the biological default argument butt heads with the gender argument currently going on?

Which gender argument Thurlow?

What gender argument?

There's a difference between sex and gender.

Humans are mammals. Known for their disparity in reproduction whereby the female takes the majority of the strain.

Gender is a social construct, nothing to do with biology, mammalian or not.

I'm asking because I know people can mean different things about gender.

but doesn't the biological default argument butt heads with the gender argument currently going on?

No. People try and pretend that it does, with all this "man gives birth" bullshit, but it's all just smoke and mirrors. Men don't give birth, men don't breastfeed.
People can parent whatever way they choose to within their own context. They can assign roles as they choose. They cannot, however, change the biological realities of the universe.

notever

I think what Thurlow is saying is that we can't have it both ways: we can't complain that M&S puts a kid on the ladies' loo sign but not the men's (implying that women are the default carers) but also argue that women should get to choose a baby's name because they are biologically hardwired not just to give birth but to be the primary carer.

(Shout if that's not correct thurlow!)

And it ignores - the admittedly small numbers - of parents who are not biologically related to their children, like I am to DD. Should I have been able to insist on a name that DH didn't like because I have a vagina, even though DD wasn't born from it?

Oh, I see. Isn't that 2 separate camps arguing each position though? Aren't those of us complaining about the loo signs NOT arguing that we are hardwired to be the primary carer?

Surely the problem with the loo signs is that they fail to acknowledge that men care for children, and need facilities to take them into loos (apparently the facilities were in the men's loos, but not signposted with the child pic).

Nobody is arguing that a mother should be a primary carer above the father.

I have argued that apart from in exceptional circumstances, mothers who have given birth should be carers for their children. Who else is involved in that care and to what extent is not set in stone.

But women should not be giving birth to children they do not want to care for or cannot care for except in highly exceptional circumstances.

Sylvia - I don't want to be accused of putting words into others' mouths, but I read that the posters who said or agreed with

They cried for me, they fed from me. They knew my smell and my body. I made them with my body they were flesh of my flesh. DH contributed ONE cell - a crappy half cell at that - all their skin, blood, bones came from ME. Parents aren't equal at birth, they just aren't. Witness a newborn crying for its mothers breast and it's obvious

clearly do not feel that mothers and fathers are equal at birth.

There's two different issues.

The first is there's no reason to believe any random mother and father are going to be equal at birth, because very many fathers aren't involved with the mother at birth.

In the case where the father and mother are involved, a newborn baby in the hours after its birth should absolutely be with the mother. Of course a newborn body instinctively wants to be with the mother, and mothers almost always feel the same way. That isn't hardwired. It is a response to birth.

And unless you're actually giving birth in the M&S toilets, who is primary in the moments after birth says nothing about toilet signs.

I mean, there's not actually any reason for the father to even be at the birth, unless it is something the mother finds helpful.

There was a case recently where a father tried to get a court to force a mother to allow him into the delivery room for the birth of the baby, and he lost.

How soon, of if at all, he was allowed into the hospital to see the baby, I don't know.

But I don't think there is any reason why a father should be allowed into any kind of maternity ward or care facility unless the mother actually requests his presence.

And the assumption should always be that the baby will stay with the mother in maternity care unless there are exceptional reasons to be removed.

And that is not equality at all. It's an assumption that the baby should be with the mother, and in the case of dispute with the father, that should be dealt with later by the courts.

Sorry, should have made clear it was a US case.

I don't disagree that mothers are more important than fathers when we are talking about newborns (though I have been shouted down on other threads about fathers in maternity wards, who argue that a father's right to bond with a newborn trump those of new mothers who don't want random men on the ward)

But one of the things that the OP was pondering was who gets to choose the name of the baby. A name is something that - usually - stays with the baby all the way through their life. It's not something like bf that is of prime importance for a specific period of their life and is never returned to. So why should a mother get to choose a name over a father's wishes, just because she carried and gave birth?

Yes Olenna, that summarised it well!

Sylvia, that's just a consistently negative viewpoint of men and their role in parenting, even with a newborn. I can't help but see a long term correlation between viewing the father as so extraneous in the early days and fathers not pulling their weight later on