There has been much discussion over the inequality of abortion and whether a man should have the right to a ‘legal abortion’, i.e. opting out of the unwanted child’s life. Those in favor feel that it is unfair that when a woman does not want a child and the man does, that she can opt out through abortion but when the situation is reversed he has no choice but to pay child support. Many do not like the legal abortion idea because they believe that such an option would encourage irresponsible behavior. So how else could we create some form of equity while still forcing personally responsibility? Though not quite technically feasible, how about giving the father the option to “opt in” through fetal adoption?




I propose that we give the father a set period of time to find a surrogate after being informed of the pregnancy. Say one week. Then give him another week to set up the appointment. The father would be solely responsible for the operating costs. If the father fails to accomplish or agree to all of this after that period of time, the woman is released to have an abortion.

Questions for debate: Once scientifically possible, would you support giving the father the opportunity to force the mother into fetal adoption? Why or why not?

If you answered yes, would you still support the idea if the mother had to pay child support? Why or why not?

1.) Here is where my values blur with the scientific and natural fact of the issue. I cannot support letting a man have domain over a woman's body- for any matter. However horrible abortion is, and my personal view of it as murder aside, the ultimate decision lies with the mother. Regulation of a person's body is their responsibility: if a man did not desire a fetus to be aborted in the first place then why put the woman in the position where should could potentially abort it?

2.) No, if a man can decide to force it into adoption then neither the mother or the father should provide care, it would fall respectively to the people or person who have chosen to adopt the fetus.

Questions for debate: Once scientifically possible, would you support giving the father the opportunity to force the mother into fetal adoption? Why or why not?

If you answered yes, would you still support the idea if the mother had to pay child support? Why or why not?

No, I do not support it. This topic and related items never cease to amaze me. Talk about taking a situation and making it as complicated as possible. The conjecture is not even worth the time.

Granted, males have the disadvantage in procreation when it comes to determining if they ever become parental, regardless of their successful attempts at conception. And its never going to change, the female makes the decision once there is conception.

The best way to prevent the legal hassle is to prevent the pregnancy. And if you want to become a father, strive to develop a loving and caring relationship, adopt or enter into a legal agreement with a surrogate.

Once scientifically possible, would you support giving the father the opportunity to force the mother into fetal adoption? Why or why not?

If you answered yes, would you still support the idea if the mother had to pay child support? Why or why not?

In the interest of fairness... my answers are yes and yes.!!

VDemosthenes


Janabrute



I think both of you should take a second to really see what JLMA is saying here. In his scenario a woman still has choice over her body. Sh can have a procedure that will remove the fetus from her body. What JLMA is suggesting is that at a time when technology is greater( and such a time will come) should the fetus/embryo be allowed to remain viable so that the Father can find a surragate mother, implant the embryo then have the child.

The whole idea of "it's a woman's body" becomes moot, because she is not forced to go through with the pregnancy.

After the baby is born or grown to maturity is it then fair to make her pay child support??

I think it is, only in the sense that if we are willing to make men have and pay for unwanted children, then it certainly is acceptable and fair to make women pay and care for children she does not want.

Funny thing is... I brought this exact same reasoning to a co-worker, who was female and she told me that she would not agree with such a thing. When I asked her why... "Because a woman should not be forced to be a mother at all, knowing she has a baby out there"

Oh the hypocrisy...

I can accept that and understand. To me, it's a balance though. The inconvenience of having to inform the father and to carry the fetus for up to two weeks is a small price to pay IMO for allowing men the option of fatherhood for the child. The woman would likely need two weeks to schedule and think about the abortion anyway, so what is the harm? Plus, when we talk about personal responsibility, can we not say that if she did not want to carry the child for a little while then she should not have gotten pregnant?


How exactly is the father to procreate without putting a woman in a position where she could potentially abort the fetus? Just because the man wants to, or even is, married to the woman does not mean that she is going to want to have the child.


Since the man has no legal stake in the child's future until he or she is born, then adoption is an appropriate word for this IMO. And in line with that word, I feel that the woman must be free and clear of the child if this is going to be feasible. Fair or not, the fact that the woman is honest enough to inform the man of the pregnancy and give him the option to adopt is enough. Forcing child support would encourage secret abortions and a fear to even discuss the situation with the father at all. I don't think anyone wants that.

I'm very interested in what the women of think of this. Over something as serious as childbirth, is this courtesy a serious infringement on the woman's freedom?

I have to stand with my original position.

Sure, you use the example of a male wanting the fetus and the female not wanting it. If you give the legal right to the male in this circumstance, it will open the door for all kinds of fights for unborn fetus'. Its bad enough for the children who are born.

I do understand your inference to the hypocrisy of the above statement. At this time in history, we are forcing males to become fathers and pay support. But again, to prevent the legal hassles, prevent the pregnancy. And if you want to be a father strings free, there are other options.

Don't get me wrong, there are circumstances that started as a loving, caring relationships then became an angry, miserable existance between the two parties. The life of this involved child is truly a tragedy. Maybe we should be debating more legal resolutions for this circumstance.

NO. The whole point or logic behind women's choice is that women happen to have the right to decide what to do with their bodies..and that their ability to reproduce provides them with reproductive rights.
The government does not have the right to overstep this.

This scenario is one that does just that...a fetus at that stage of development is part of a woman's body..and part of her reproductive process. It is not something separate and independent or something that other's have ownership of....but instead part of a person's body. I personally don't understand how anyone can advocate control over a person's body like this and even believe force would be an acceptable means of such control and believe by doing so is eliminating existing hypocrisy.

This is equivalent to believing that a woman has the right to demand sperm from a man whether he wishes to relinquish it or not..and that if he is being difficult about it demand it by force..in order to then fertilize whomever's egg she so chooses...void of any say or control of the man in question.

I think what many of you are forgetting is that children once born and in this world have the right to be financially cared for by their legal parents and that it can be either the mother or the father or both who steps up to take responsibility and that the hypocrisy lies in the fact that it is so often the children who are cared for or in the custody of the mother's who are in more need of financial assistance. There is a reason more men are asked to pay child support then women are and I think it has a lot more to do with economic inequality than it does with procreation hypocrisy.

It is not an issue of fetal rights, nor a door opening it. Are you suggesting that a woman has the right to do whatever with a fetus whether it is or not in her body. If the fetus is removed from a female body how is she anymore important than a man in decisions of whether the fetus can live or not??

I agree a woman has the right to choose what to do with her body, thus she has a right to an abortion. But once the fetus is removed it belongs to the man just aas much as the women. I thin they give exactly the same amount of chromosomes to the fetus.

Bucket


How do you figure??? Demanding sperm would be equivalent to a man demanding an egg. A fetus or zygote is the combination of an egg and a sperm.

I didn't ever claim it was a matter of fetal rights...instead I claimed it was about reproductive rights. What I am suggesting is that yes a woman has the right to have control over her body...and you seem to not support this. Do tell us how would you propose a fetus would be removed from a woman's body? I would think much like we would have to remove any other part of her body. Does a man hold custody or ownership over a woman's body? That is essentially what you are claiming. And what if she refuses to go along with this demand? Do you believe taking the fetus by force is acceptable? And how is that cohesive with medical permission laws?



So if you give me a blood transfusion do you then stake claim to other pieces of my body too? What if you need a kidney? Am I then required to give one to you because you and I had an exchange of bodily fluids? What are women to you...vessels for production or individuals who are permitted their own separate and specialized rights?



I figure this because in regards to reproduction the production of sperm is as far as it goes within a man's body. So if you wish to extend your powers and ownership over the reproduction process that occurs in a woman's body why can I not ask permission to then extend my powers over your own reproductive process?

I think many of you have not considered the ramifications of such a state of affairs. What if as a pregnant woman my partner has chosen to opt for the baby..do I have to carry the baby until he finds a suitable replacement carrier? What if he fails? Am I then asked to carry the baby because the law has already recognized his rights and ownership to the baby? What if I drink or am a drug abuser? Am I then held liable to him for property damages?
Or what if I carry a gene that ends up causing mental or physical deformity..again am I liable?

I can not think of something that would be more damaging to women's reproductive rights than viewing a growing fetus as a independent object that other's outside the woman herself were lawfully able to lay claim to and ownership of.

It is without question a "door opening" this little scheme oversteps reproductive rights more than anything I have ever read before. And the idea of this paper to abort a "fetus" , that is surely a lax use of the word in this instance, at 2nd and 3rd trimesters is revolting.

The sincere problem I have with abortion debate is that it completely negates the idea that there is a staunch double standard and uses convenience as a form of logic.

Frankly, what you're saying is that a fetus is only a person at the very instance that it pops from the uterus. If this is done by a doctor in an abortion clinic, and the baby dies it's perfectly legal. However, if the baby is born, and the mother (by whatever means) allows the baby to die- it's a criminal act. Abortion debate negates the fact that there is no way for a human to come to being other than being a fetus in a woman's body. No one requires a woman to raise her children, as adoption is perfectly legal. Men don't get the glory of said luxury.

However, if the male parent so chooses to keep the baby, he has no rights? Pregnancy isn't simply an incovenience, or an expense, but more of the means by which all of us came to sit at our computers today. It's the very definition of the beginning of life on our planet.

If you were a drinker or a drug user, intentionally harming the fetus, in America there is no recourse but conscience. Funny thing is that if I drive after drinking or using drugs and hurt someone even temporarily, I can spend years in prison. A mother does it for nine months, leaving her child to suffer for their entire existence and nothing is done.

In the event that the father wants to keep the baby and adopt upon birth, leaving the mother no responsibilty after the "hatch day", I believe as Americans we should support it; considering the double standard that exists in that if the mother chooses to have the child the man is responsible financially until birthday number 18. If a man intentionally harms an in-utero child, he's held liable for criminal acts. If a woman goes to an abortion clinic, it's heralded as women's liberation. Why? Americans (and many people on the planet) have an idea that shame, responsibility, and obligation are words that have little or no meaning.

Finally, I'd love for abortion defenders to spend time in their local grocery stores, schools, churches, or playgrounds where small children might be present. Consider that until the moment that they took their first breath outside of their mothers, in America, they were nothing but a piece of theoretical property housed within the womb. Lucky they made it...

I would not support "FORCING" anyone to do anything.

There is a classic and simple solution for men who want children: find a woman who also wants children, marry her, and have children.

If, on the other hand, you just want the right to knock up as many women as you feel like, then claim victimhood because the woman you loved enough to sleep with but not to marry doesn't want to have your child, well, cry me a river.

Yes I truly, absolutely negate the idea of a double standard..in fact I negate the idea of any sort of standard because women have babies, women get pregnant and men do not. Therefore by our rights at birth..by nature of our gender we are afforded unique and special rights that do not apply to men and we should not ever seek to standardize ourselves with our male counterparts.

And it is not convenience it is biological. You as a male have FAR more freedoms and self determination when it comes to your own reproductive rights...whereas I , a woman, mine are under heavy lock and key by means of government regulation.

As a man you can wear a condom which you can purchase at many stores in any town, at any age, with out any form or need of government oversight..your birth control is readily available.

As a woman to obtain the same effective birth control I am not allowed this luxury.
I must visit a doctor..pay for medical services, obtain a prescription, visit a pharmacy which will most often not allow me immediate purchase of my prescription and will have more restrictive times and locations of availability, I then must pay a premium for my birth control as it is a controlled substance and I will be restricted to how much birth control I am permitted to obtain at any one time.

Yet this isn't enough...many men still feel as if they need more control over a woman's reproductive process. Why?



Doctor's in abortion clinics are allowed to abort a fetus only until a certain stage of the reproductive process...unless accounting for special circumstances. I think if I was to give birth to a baby at that stage usually 12 weeks or less (we actually call this a miscarriage and they do happen) that it would die and that I would not be liable as it would not be considered a "person".




No he has no involvement in this stage of the reproduction process. It is not his body and it is not his property either.
And who claimed it was an inconvenience or an expense? I claimed it was condition of my body as a woman and something that I do in fact hold sacred..but also private and an individual right.



ack!..the horrific images that flash before me when reading this. So you do feel women are vessels of production that must render their mind, body and souls to whatever the sperm desires.
As I mentioned before..you can very easily and readily purchase condoms if you are so concerned about men's roles not being properly standardized in the reproduction realm.



What a horrible (and dramatic) attempt to present your opposition as inferior in logic, morals and experience. I am a mother of two young children, I volunteer for my county school district and I have never had an abortion and would never personally opt to do so. None of that has anything to do with how I view or recognize my need for additional rights and protection as a woman when it comes to my ability to reproduce.

Aevans and Bucket

I think you both are turning this into an abortion debate when it doesn't have to be.



I do not wish to extend "ownership over the reproduction process that occurs in a woman's body."

Let it be reiterated


Once the fetus is removed from a womans body how are people dictating her reproductive rights?? If she wants to have the baby she can... If she does not want it she can have it removed. But instead of killing the fetus or embryo, they try to keep it viable so that a wanting father can raise the child.

The man only has rights to the fetus upon successful removal from you... how's that sound? You aborted it, you didn't want it, you gave up your reproductive rights when you told the doctor to "get this thing out of me" The doctor removed it, it is still alive may a man find a way to grow it to mature infant?

If you want to have the baby, the man waits for the baby to be born. You have complete reproductive control over your body

There are some logical ideas that you fail to address;
1. Birth Control is available to every person every born on the face of the planet, and it's called abstinence. If a woman chooses to engage in sexual acts with an unprotected partner, the ramifications are easily understood. If the sex is consentual, it is a mutual agreement and the biology is easily understood.

2. The argument that a fetus would die outside of the woman, thus not making it human negates the argument that no infant would make it without support outside of the fetus, carried to full term or not. This is why they are referred to as "babies". Miscarriages are the result of biological anomolies or abnormalities (or the result of outside influence), and not intentional infantcide.

3. Infants are not "property' as you non-challantly present them, yet people. I never would call my wife or family property (as much as she may refer to me!!! lol ) At what point does a fetus become an infant? If it's the point of birth, then why would we not perform abortions the week prior to full term births? hmmm....

4. My statement about spending time with children and abortion referred to the fact that Americans choose to put an arbitrary time on when a fetus become a child/person. It's compeltely concocted based upon what is easily acceptable. Why don't we have 3rd tri-mester abortions? I would presume because the fetus looks an awful like a BABY! It's probably harder for abortion proponents to make an argument against something that looks just like their children; or conversely for Doctors to abort nearly fully developed babies.

To address Droop's comment about this turning into an abortion debate, I believe that we have to understand that if we were to remove a viable fetus, and it were raised to term in some other fashion, women's rights would be infringed upon[I][/I]once more, according to bucket's logic... in that they then could be required to support the child (using US legal precedent).

It's easy to tell you're a guy, droop. LOL Without getting all Handmaid's-Tale feminist on you, let's just say that your scenario gives me the creeps, because it's such a short trip to REQUIRING a woman to keep and transfer a pregnancy, for infertile women or whatever.

We can't keep trying to make the issue of pregnancy "balanced." The simple fact is that there will never be a fair balance between a man and a woman when a child is concieved because nature has already deemed that the relationship be unbalanced. I agree that in some cases this is unfair for men, but thats just the way we are biologically and no medical science will change that.

A woman should not be forced to carry a child longer than she is willing, period. If a man is that desperate to have a child, there are many other options.

Consider this scenario. A woman is pregnant and would like to have an abortion as quickly as possible. She would like to take the abortion pill rather than go through surgery. The deadline for being able to use the pill is about 7 weeks. Her boyfriend disagrees and wants to adopt the fetus. The woman is then legally forced to wait for her boyfriend to find a surrogate and settle whatever legal matters. Her boyfriend does not find a surrogate in the alloted time, and she is now free to get an abortion; however, the time deadline for being able to take the pill has passed and she must now go through the ordeal of surgery. It is her body and yet she is robbed of the chance to have done what she wanted with it in the first place.

As for child support, biological parents dont have to pay child support in adoption cases so why should the mother?

Simply put, forcing a woman to wait to get an abortion against her will is a violation of her rights because as time wears on, her options become more limited or gruesome and she could have to put her body through an unwanted ordeal to achieve what she had originally sought

Wow. This is a very good point. I admit that I am fairly uneducated on the options available to terminate a pregnancy. Are you talking about the morning after pill here? Do you have links to the 7 week timetable(I just want to learn about it)? These types of pills offer an option that is much safer than either a traditional abortion or the future fetal adoption surgery ever could. For this reason I tend to agree that this option should not be denied the woman for any amount of time.

This is one of many sites about abortion by pill as an option for women who are early in theit pregnancy and do not want to have surgery.


Abort By Pill

another site as well:
Early Options: The Abortion Pill

To be completely forthcoming. I don't believe it right to have an abortion whatsoever. The man and the woman involved in should be held resposible for their actions. It just makes more sense.

Yes, I think the man should have the right to force the already pregnant woman into having the child. Then the childsupport issue can be sorted out later in a court of law.

If the parents don't plan on getting married to eachother. One or the other should be ordered to do so. The most financially responsible would be the best choice. We should do away with unnessisary foster children.