Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
Between the time of conception and birth a women can decide not to have the responsibilities of being a parent. A man cannot. This is in the best interests of society but it is fundementally unequal
And as stated before the correlary is that if the man wished to be a parent he does not have that choice. (this time in the best interests of the indvidual rather than of society)
So reproductive law from the time the time of conception until the time of birth is unequal. A man cannnot opt out of financial responsibilities of being a birth father a women can.
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IMO, there are the following three distinct rights involved in this difficult equation:
1. The right of a woman to control what goes on in her own body.
2. The right of the fetus to life.
3. The right of both parents to protect their own genetic material.
It's important to remember that #1 and #3 are different rights, even in the case of the mother. I think a really useful example to look at is surrogacy, where you have four parties involved: the surrogate mother, the biological mother, the biological father, and the fetus. The rights of the fetus are really for the pro-life/pro-choice debate, and so don't belong in this discussion, IMO.
My understanding is that if either the parents or the surrogate wish to abort, this voids the surrogacy contract. But the decision to abort still ultimately lies with the surrogate; the biological parents cannot force her to abort against her will, but they can remove themselves from the contract. The rights of the woman to control what happens in her body outweighs the rights of the parents to protect/destroy their genetic material, regardless of whether the parent is the mother or father.
So, that said, do you think that parental rights are more important than the right of a woman to dictate what goes on in her body? Do you think that in surrogacy cases, the parents should be allowed to force a surrogate to abort?
What it all comes down to is that it's not a case of a woman has parental rights and a man does not. They both have equal parental rights, but the woman has distinct additional rights unrelated to the parental rights, simply by these activities going on in her body.