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Should boyfriends/husbands have any say in a woman's choice for abortion?

I'm just curious, as a guy, how women feel about men having say in whether their child will be aborted or not. Not men as a whole, but the father of their baby obviously.
I understand that I'll never know what it's like to be pregnant, have children, or for that matter, even understand what it's like to be a woman. I'd also like to add that I think of myself as pro-choice, and would never try to tell a woman what she can do with her body.
That being said, I feel it's slightly unfair that for the most part, when it comes to reproduction and child birth, until the baby is born men aren't much more than sperm donors from a legal stand point.
I'm not trying to start a debate as to the reasons why people should or shouldn't get abortions, or the morality or ethics to such decisions, simply asking if men should have any say as to whether their child can be aborted or not?

Tags: Families, Feminism, Politics

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Heather on January 8, 2010 at 7:48pm

This is a tough one... men will, of course, have an attachment to their unborn child..b ut if a woman choose not to have it, you cannot force a woman to be an incubator for 9 months.. you cannot force the emotional, psychological, and physical pain on her that would come as a result. If there were a way that the woman could say sure, go ahead and keep the kid.. without having to do all of the work then that would be different.. but unfortunately as far as fairness, the woman has all of the burden and responsibility until birth. Then there's the fact that a woman will automatically release bonding hormones during the birth which would make separation much much harder at that point. It is slightly unfair to men.. but letting men have a say would end up being much more unfair to women. I hope that didn't come off as rambling.. though it might have because I've been sick and my brain is slightly mushy.

Permalink Reply by Noah Petersen on January 8, 2010 at 7:55pm

I guess I see your point I'm not sure when I posted this if I was intending for it to be more of a moral or leagl discussion anyway. I guess legally there's nothing that a man could do to stop a woman, or at least there's no legal precedence for one trying that I've seen.
In a hypothetical situation where you and a man had been together 3 months, and you suddenly discovered you were pregnant, and you had no health reasons for termination, but definitely did not want a kid, would you discuss it with him before terminating the pregnancy, or is it not important to discuss it because it's not his decision to make.

Permalink Reply by TNT666 on January 9, 2010 at 11:57am

IF the plan with this person IS to have children and stay together for at LEAST 20+ years, then yes, one should at least confirm being on the same page about the parenting issue. If the page doesn't agree, then that is the end of the man's input.

Men who feel they want children should warn their girlfriends beforehand that they WANT children and will not take easily to an abortion of the consequence of their sperm. If that does not suit the woman, then she can get out quick.

However men who aren't on a concrete procreation plan at the moment should get a vasectomy or CONSISTENTLY use protection. People take baby making way to casually and focus on conception rather than birth. Birth is the important time.

Permalink Reply by Mary O'Grady on January 8, 2010 at 7:53pm

It depends on what you mean by "say." Do you mean veto power? Until men begin dying in childbirth, I do not think that should be allowed.

Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on January 9, 2010 at 10:42am

They shouldn't have a say in making her have an abortion, although they should have a say in whether they want to actually be fathers. I think men are technically required to pay child support, although some get out of it.

Permalink Reply by TNT666 on January 9, 2010 at 11:59am

AAAAAA ha that is too funny, you seriously think you can force someone to have a medical procedure against their will AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaa ha ha ha ha. Please.

This is the whole point here, if the man does not want to be a father, why on earth is he spreading his sperm around, come on, that is the most irresponsible thing I've ever read!

I count 5 guys in my entourage who've had vasectomies. Those are the men I respect the most on this earth.

Permalink Reply by TNT666 on January 9, 2010 at 2:58am

I think it's very sweet of a pregnant woman to ask the progenitor's opinion in the matter, but in the end, no matter what the man says about the decision itself, if the child does get born, and the man leaves, the woman still has the child.

I feel that a woman's pregnancy is 100% the woman's decision. To accommodate anyone else's input is to assume that whatever is said at the spur of the moment can be counted upon, which we know is an generally an illusion.

I know this sounds harsh for the sperm donors, but in this modern world, one can only count on oneself. Were you to have asked this question 50 years ago, I would probably have answered differently, as I feel marriages were more reliable previous to this half century, parenting was considered a very serious 2 person task indeed.

Permalink Reply by Eileen on January 9, 2010 at 9:19am

I wish that child rearing was still a serious 2 person task. Having watched too many children drifting as their parents date to establish new relationships, I think that we evolved because we had good customs and it is a shame we have lost so much stability. That being said, the child winds up being the mom's responsibility in almost all cases, and she alone has to decide whether or not to take a pregnancy to term.

Permalink Reply by Little Name Atheist on January 9, 2010 at 9:57am

I don't think the nuclear family is adequate. My immediate family fared better when my grandparents all lived within walking distance.

Permalink Reply by TNT666 on January 9, 2010 at 12:06pm

Absolutely! The nuclear family is a direct longterm consequence of christianity which focuses/emphasizes the mother/father monogamy bond. We have reached that loneliest of human stages where the normal adult lifestyle path is to be in a box on a street with 2 adults and 1-2 children. We as a society have attained the climax of ridicule in this matter.

I would add that not only grandparents, but the entire extended family and community should be a part. In years before christianity, parenting was an entirely different matter, and monogamy was not near as normal.

Unfortunately, this trend is not reversible as the entire legal structure of our Western civilisation is predicated upon this chrisian concept. Disbelievers in god and religion don't seem to be getting on the bandwagon to change society to any relevant degree at all.

Permalink Reply by Little Name Atheist on January 9, 2010 at 10:00am

I"m only just 50, but the only role I saw a lot of men taking when I was growing up was to generate income, come home, and be a petit tyrant. A man who actually fathered his children was rare. Since then, thankfully, I've met men who actively parent their children. It does my heart good to see things changing.

Permalink Reply by TNT666 on January 9, 2010 at 12:10pm

In millenia past, I'm not sure men had much to say in child rearing at all... at least that's my understanding of history. Men have long been the ones 'going away'

In these sorts of conversations, people often focus just on the last couple of hundred years. But humans are biological entities with an evolutionary history, and in this context, the last couple of hundred years are pretty irrelevant.

In the history of humanity, I doubt sperm contributors were very relevant at all to child rearing. FATHERING for the human species I feel is a result of a recent process of diminishing family size.