Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
Just so I am clear, you are saying is that you want men have the right to relinquish all responsibility for a child they need to:
a) tell the woman to get an abortion, and then deal with any emotional consequences of that decision.
but for a woman to do so, they would have to either:
a) Have the baby to term, give birth and then surrender that baby to the father who has indicated that they will give full support for it. I assume you would also have some allowances to force the father into providing financial restitution for expenses, time spent off work, and 'pain and suffering', similar to that which a surrogate mother received when contracted to carry a baby. Also, what happens if the father changes his mind? Would he be forced to take care of the kid? How would that be beneficial to the child? Love, not force, right?
b) Get the father to agree to an abortion, then go have the procedure done and face the potential physical and emotional consequences of that procedure.
I might be off my rocker here, but that doesn't seem fair to the woman. The guy is getting off with nothing in that case. You solution, to a problem where the male partner in the baby making is treated unfairly, is to switch to a system where the woman is treated unfairly?
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My thought is that the goal where possible would be to treat the sexes equally while maintaining the personal right of the women to do what she wants with her body.
So Case 1:
Women wants child, Man does not want child
Man upon being informed that the fetus is likely his would sign some sort of document within a reasonable amount of time giving up all claim to the child and all financial repsonsibility. (Call it a Male Abortion) Then the women would be able to make a fully informed choice on what she wants to do keep, abort, adoot. This gives both the man and women the equal right to choose to become parents while maintaining a women's personal rights over her own body
Case 2: Both want child. Good, current law applies
Case 3: Both do not want child. Women chooses adopt or abort. This maintains womens personal rights to decide what she wants done to her body and maintains both parents rights to choose if they want to become parents.
Case 4 Women does not want, Men wants child
The womans personal rights over her body trump the mans rights to become a parent. Its unequal but you can't force a women to carry the baby. Here you have to rely on the empathy of the women. And really if the Women did not want the child and had no intention of carrying it to term then she shouldn't tell the father of the child.
I think that is as equal as you can make it while still repsecting individual rights. And since all of this occurs pre-birth the fetus is not a person and therefore has not rights. Now I don't know if this would be good for society but it would be more equal.