Fathers and abortion

[bab]

Simply because it's her body, she can do what she wants. He can do nothing about it short of pushing her down a flight of stairs.

 

 

I never said that he should be able to force her to actually abort the baby, but that he should have some choice about financial responsibility for the next 18 years.

[Buttaflyy]

I agree that both are factors, but even in your statment you said an unwanted child. I'm saying that it is very rare (aside from serious health issues) for a woman who is pregnant to decide to terminate the pregnancy because she doesn't want to be pregnant but would actually want the child if she didn't have to be pregnant for 9 months. I just think the deciding factor in most abortions is that the woman doesn't want to raise a child.

 

I agree with this.

[Buttaflyy]

I never said that he should be able to force her to actually abort the baby, but that he should have some choice about financial responsibility for the next 18 years.

 

I know, but I'm saying that he has no choice because he can't force her to do either (keep it or abort it).

[RecordProducer]

It really bothers me how some people relate sex to giving birth to a child. The line that divides protected sex from pregnancy is very vague so what you're basically saying is that women shouldn't have sex. Or men shouldn't have sex because women can trap them into having a baby.

 

If the law required from me to ask the guy who screwed me for a permission to abort the fetus, hell I would rather not have sex at all. Same if I were against abortion. Unless I want a child from that particular guy.

 

All this boils down to limiting the freedom of sexual encounters, which in my book means limiting my choice to find the right man for me. No, I wouldn't want to go that far as to pray to god that the father signs the stupid paper.

 

As I said I would claim that he is not the father. I would go to Mexico and pay whatever money to abort the child. But no man would force me have his unwanted child. Just like I wouldn't and I didn't force anyone to have my baby.

After all, women get pregnant only because men ejaculate. So maybe YOU men should be deprived from your biggest pleasure if the woman doesn't want the child. If you agree to use BC protection and it blew up, it means you didn't want the baby. The woman didn't want the baby either. And now all of a sudden, the man says he wants the baby? If nothing else, where is the logic here? It's deception.

 

OK, men have rights. But what about women's rights? ONE has to decide if they disagree on the decision. Which one? Well I vote for us women.

 

And finally, if you think that the baby should be born if the guy sticks the thumb up even if the woman doesn't want it, it means that if the guy doesn't want the baby and the woman wants it - she MUST abort it? Is that what you're lobbying here?

[norajane]

It really bothers me how some people relate sex to giving birth to a child. The line that divides protected sex from pregnancy is very vague so what you're basically saying is that women shouldn't have sex. Or men shouldn't have sex because women can trap them into having a baby.

 

If the law required from me to ask the guy who screwed me for a permission to abort the fetus, hell I would rather not have sex at all. Same if I were against abortion. Unless I want a child from that particular guy.

 

All this boils down to limiting the freedom of sexual encounters,

 

Welcome to 1950's America when abortions were illegal and there wasn't much birth control beyond condoms. People married young, young, young even if they couldn't possibly know they were right for each other because otherwise, sex was fraught with peril.

 

Ah, those were the days! The days when good girls didn't have sex for fear of pregnancy and for fear of being considered 'loose', when women 'held out' until marriage so they'd have someone to support them and the child. Men had sex with prostitutes, or the bad girls whom they would never marry. Or they got carried away with the good girls in the back seat of dad's car and she became pregnant and they had to have that shotgun wedding with the neighbors counting months on their fingers.

 

Enter the Pill and legal abortions, and whoosh! Women have options! They don't have to keep their legs closed until some man decides he wants to have sex with them badly enough to get married. Women could choose their partners and discard them if they turned out to be jerks, abusers, or just completely incompatible. Babies didn't have to decide their futures. Biology did not have to be destiny.

 

Debates on sex, procreation, and marriage have always been about controlling behavior...of WOMEN. Even now when we are spending so much time talking about father's rights and responsibilities, it's still about controlling WOMEN's behavior, women's bodies, women's decisions, women's rights, women's responsibilities.

 

Bottom line - babies are a possible outcome of having sex. If men can't handle that the woman has the ultimate choice about that, then keep that dick in those pants.

[Woggle]

I'm surprised that a4a take the position she does. I actually disagree though. Feminists for years have wanted remove fathers out of the picture and out of the family and if men start bailing this will give them all the ammunition they need to do it. I think both parents have a responsibility to be parents to a child. This is why so many kids are screwed up these days.

[Mlynn]

What you all seem to forget is the child. The legal system will not legally "basterdize" children. The only way any fathers rights will be terminated is if adoption or step parent adoption occurs...and in cases of abandonment(if choosen by the mother or state...he can not tpr his own rights), abuse, or neglect(usually fallowed by adoption or guardianship). Sorry guys the laws will not change nor should they.

 

I think men are being incredibly selfish here....sure knock up a woman who you "cared" enough about to have sex with, leave her pregnant, with a 30,000 hospital bill for the birth, leaving your child a bastard, to be on welfare and suffer his entire childhood....sure just as long as you save a buck. Horrible!!!!

 

Children should never have to suffer for the mistakes of their parents....and a woman's health should never ever be put in jeprody just for the convience of the man who impregnated her. A womans health decisions are up to her and her OBGYN and maybe her counsoler or therapist exc. Pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth all pose grave dangers to the health and life of a woman....many many things can go very wrong...no man should have any say in the health choices of a woman. Pregnancy is about the health and saftey of the woman (and the child should she continue her pregnancy) and only SHE knows what is best for her body.

 

It would be a violation of a persons basic human rights to have their reproductive choices and freedoms taken away.....this would be like a man having to submit to being neutered at the whim of his wife because she didn't want kids....do you really want someone else to have controol over YOUR reproductive organs ? Didn't think so.

 

WOMEN ARE NOT BREEDING MACHINES. If a man wants a child it is up to him to find a mature responsible woman, enter into a commited relationship, and find a woman who wants to bear his offspring. A man should not be allowed to prevent a woman from making the correct health choices for her body...including abortion. He has no rights to the fetus/child until it is out of it's mothers body. No one can force a mother to give birth (a painful, risky, life thretning thing resulting in sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hospital bills exc) or abort a baby. It is her choice. Hers only.

 

Men will never and should never have equall rights when it comes to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. They can not because they are not women...their health...life....and body is not comprimised by pregnancy, abortion, or childbirth. They undergo no risks and are unable to sustain the result of their actions. The outcome of intercourse is up to the woman.

 

I feel sorry for all the men who feel trapped into fatherhood.....but everyone has choices. Men can choose many diffrent means of birthcontrool from condoms, to abstinence, to a temp. easily reversable vascetomy exc. Being dumb, neieve, drunk, permiscuious in your youth is not a good enough reason to abandon your offspring...you will have to live with your mistakes for the sake of the child for the next 18 years.

 

Acidential pregnancy's are a fact of life. It can and does happen. Its no more the womans fault than the mans...men can push abortion or birth....but they will never ever know what it is like to make such a choice or endure such a choice so their oppinions don't count for much. In a perfect world no child would be born unwanted....but as long as we have irrisponsible adults we will have unplanned pregnancies and children who suffer.....men already have enough out's they should not be allowed another. If you feel trapped....think about the mother who has the baby all by herself works 2 jobs just to make ends meet exc and only gets 100 bucks every 2 weeks from the father....(that won't even pay for formula and diapers none the less other essentials for a baby) and is struggling from health issues like post pardom depression. You think you have it bad because you have to pay her a few bucks for YOUR CHILD.

 

 

...Fathers will not be able to just sign away their rights and be done with it. A child has a right to be supported by both parents and raised in a financially, emotionally, and physically stable home. The rights of the men are not as important as the rights of a child. The Mother & the Father are the least important things in cases like these....it is the fully born child whose rights trump his. A REAL man would be responsible for his child and stop trying to pussy out of a situation her helped cause.

[Woggle]

What you all seem to forget is the child. The legal system will not legally "basterdize" children. The only way any fathers rights will be terminated is if adoption or step parent adoption occurs...and in cases of abandonment(if choosen by the mother or state...he can not tpr his own rights), abuse, or neglect(usually fallowed by adoption or guardianship). Sorry guys the laws will not change nor should they.

 

I think men are being incredibly selfish here....sure knock up a woman who you "cared" enough about to have sex with, leave her pregnant, with a 30,000 hospital bill for the birth, leaving your child a bastard, to be on welfare and suffer his entire childhood....sure just as long as you save a buck. Horrible!!!!

 

Children should never have to suffer for the mistakes of their parents....and a woman's health should never ever be put in jeprody just for the convience of the man who impregnated her. A womans health decisions are up to her and her OBGYN and maybe her counsoler or therapist exc. Pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth all pose grave dangers to the health and life of a woman....many many things can go very wrong...no man should have any say in the health choices of a woman. Pregnancy is about the health and saftey of the woman (and the child should she continue her pregnancy) and only SHE knows what is best for her body.

 

It would be a violation of a persons basic human rights to have their reproductive choices and freedoms taken away.....this would be like a man having to submit to being neutered at the whim of his wife because she didn't want kids....do you really want someone else to have controol over YOUR reproductive organs ? Didn't think so.

 

WOMEN ARE NOT BREEDING MACHINES. If a man wants a child it is up to him to find a mature responsible woman, enter into a commited relationship, and find a woman who wants to bear his offspring. A man should not be allowed to prevent a woman from making the correct health choices for her body...including abortion. He has no rights to the fetus/child until it is out of it's mothers body. No one can force a mother to give birth (a painful, risky, life thretning thing resulting in sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hospital bills exc) or abort a baby. It is her choice. Hers only.

 

Men will never and should never have equall rights when it comes to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. They can not because they are not women...their health...life....and body is not comprimised by pregnancy, abortion, or childbirth. They undergo no risks and are unable to sustain the result of their actions. The outcome of intercourse is up to the woman.

 

I feel sorry for all the men who feel trapped into fatherhood.....but everyone has choices. Men can choose many diffrent means of birthcontrool from condoms, to abstinence, to a temp. easily reversable vascetomy exc. Being dumb, neieve, drunk, permiscuious in your youth is not a good enough reason to abandon your offspring...you will have to live with your mistakes for the sake of the child for the next 18 years.

 

Acidential pregnancy's are a fact of life. It can and does happen. Its no more the womans fault than the mans...men can push abortion or birth....but they will never ever know what it is like to make such a choice or endure such a choice so their oppinions don't count for much. In a perfect world no child would be born unwanted....but as long as we have irrisponsible adults we will have unplanned pregnancies and children who suffer.....men already have enough out's they should not be allowed another. If you feel trapped....think about the mother who has the baby all by herself works 2 jobs just to make ends meet exc and only gets 100 bucks every 2 weeks from the father....(that won't even pay for formula and diapers none the less other essentials for a baby) and is struggling from health issues like post pardom depression. You think you have it bad because you have to pay her a few bucks for YOUR CHILD.

 

 

...Fathers will not be able to just sign away their rights and be done with it. A child has a right to be supported by both parents and raised in a financially, emotionally, and physically stable home. The rights of the men are not as important as the rights of a child. The Mother & the Father are the least important things in cases like these....it is the fully born child whose rights trump his. A REAL man would be responsible for his child and stop trying to pussy out of a situation her helped cause.

 

So you are saying that fathers do matter? If so we agree and you should go and tell the feminists that. If the concept of fatherhood hadn't been under attack for the last couple of decades their would be many less deadbeat dads.

[RecordProducer]

Welcome to 1950's America when abortions were illegal and there wasn't much birth control beyond condoms. People married young, young, young even if they couldn't possibly know they were right for each other because otherwise, sex was fraught with peril.

 

Ah, those were the days! The days when good girls didn't have sex for fear of pregnancy and for fear of being considered 'loose', when women 'held out' until marriage so they'd have someone to support them and the child. Men had sex with prostitutes, or the bad girls whom they would never marry. Or they got carried away with the good girls in the back seat of dad's car and she became pregnant and they had to have that shotgun wedding with the neighbors counting months on their fingers.

 

Enter the Pill and legal abortions, and whoosh! Women have options! They don't have to keep their legs closed until some man decides he wants to have sex with them badly enough to get married. Women could choose their partners and discard them if they turned out to be jerks, abusers, or just completely incompatible. Babies didn't have to decide their futures. Biology did not have to be destiny.

 

Debates on sex, procreation, and marriage have always been about controlling behavior...of WOMEN. Even now when we are spending so much time talking about father's rights and responsibilities, it's still about controlling WOMEN's behavior, women's bodies, women's decisions, women's rights, women's responsibilities.

 

Bottom line - babies are a possible outcome of having sex. If men can't handle that the woman has the ultimate choice about that, then keep that dick in those pants.

Fantastic post, Norajane!

[RecordProducer]

....and a woman's health should never ever be put in jeprody just for the convience of the man who impregnated her. A womans health decisions are up to her and her OBGYN and maybe her counsoler or therapist exc. Pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth all pose grave dangers to the health and life of a woman....many many things can go very wrong...no man should have any say in the health choices of a woman. Pregnancy is about the health and saftey of the woman (and the child should she continue her pregnancy) and only SHE knows what is best for her body.

 

It would be a violation of a persons basic human rights to have their reproductive choices and freedoms taken away.....this would be like a man having to submit to being neutered at the whim of his wife because she didn't want kids....do you really want someone else to have controol over YOUR reproductive organs ? Didn't think so.

 

WOMEN ARE NOT BREEDING MACHINES. If a man wants a child it is up to him to find a mature responsible woman, enter into a commited relationship, and find a woman who wants to bear his offspring. A man should not be allowed to prevent a woman from making the correct health choices for her body...including abortion. He has no rights to the fetus/child until it is out of it's mothers body. No one can force a mother to give birth (a painful, risky, life thretning thing resulting in sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hospital bills exc) or abort a baby. It is her choice. Hers only.

I agree. Very nice.

[hotgurl]

I am the perfect example of why it should be the woman's choice. I got pregnant young my boyfriend wanted to keep the baby, I was not so sure.

 

he pressured me saying please don't kill my child. If you have an abortion I will see you as a baby killer. blah blah blah. He said let's have the baby. So I choose to kept it.

 

Now 11 years later I have a beautiful daughter but he is gone. He took off after a year because It wasn't fun and was hard work. I am owed over $26,000 in back child support. Will I ever get it no. Will he ever step up no. So who is raising my child me, alone. It is total crap to let a guy decided for a woman. she is the one who deals with the consequnses not him.

[audmc911]

Congratulations on choosing to have your daughter.

 

I'll bet you two are really close.

 

Watch him show up after all the hard work is done - by you.

[blind_otter]

So what if men think it's unfair. boo farking hoo. It's biologically unfair that women have to go through pregnancy. We can't equalize biology through legislation.

 

In fact you can't really legislate private morality, although the government makes attempts to do so. You can make laws but if it involves a personal's personal morals, they will find a way around those laws.

 

Thus, the horrible legacy of botched abortions prior to abortion being legalized.

 

Or worse, prior to birth control when women literally died from having too many children.

 

It's so easy to sit in judgement when you don't remember these things.

 

And even though I, myself, would not be able to abort a baby because of my personal beliefs, I very much understand why OTHER women would want this option and I also very much understand that forcing a woman to carry a child to term because of the father's wishes would be a horrific experience of victimization and objectification.

 

Somewhat like rape.

[alphamale]

We can't equalize biology through legislation.

I believe the right-wing extremists are trying exactly that.

[Guest]

There is no such thing as fetus support, is it? Actually current scientific proof says that men don't carry and deliver babies.

 

If you know of someone who did, he must be an exception! .

 

I didn't say it was the fathers pregnancy, I said it was the fathers baby. I didn't say we deliver and carry them. I said we concieve them. And there IS such a thing as fetus support. Should the mother decide to keep the baby, the father is held responsible for at least half the medical bills relating to the pregnancy.

 

As Genegri said PREGNANCY IS NOT SHARED. It's going on in our bodies, not yours. It's the woman who can die during labor (or abortion), not the man.cOnce the baby is out - it's yours, too.

 

If you're of the opinion that fathers are also not held responsible for anything during the pregnancy as well as having no rights in decisions regarding it, then you have a pretty fair and sound argument.

 

At this point in time though, fathers are still held responsible for costs and consequences relating to the pregnancy. My opinion is still that if we are held responsible, we should have rights to go along with those responsibilities.

[blind_otter]

At this point in time though, fathers are still held responsible for costs and consequences relating to the pregnancy. My opinion is still that if we are held responsible, we should have rights to go along with those responsibilities.

 

Fathers are responsible for the CONSEQUENCES of pregnancy.

 

But not for the pregnancy itself. The hospital bills the mother if you're single. I had to pay for everything myself. Medicaid covered the rest. THe father wasn't responsible for anything, and he isn't until his name is on the birth certificate or there is a paternity test.

 

AFAIK.

[Buttaflyy]

Fathers are responsible for the CONSEQUENCES of pregnancy.

 

But not for the pregnancy itself. The hospital bills the mother if you're single. I had to pay for everything myself. Medicaid covered the rest. THe father wasn't responsible for anything, and he isn't until his name is on the birth certificate or there is a paternity test.

 

AFAIK.

 

Another reason why it is ultimately the woman's decision.

[a4a]

Fathers are responsible for the CONSEQUENCES of pregnancy.

 

But not for the pregnancy itself. The hospital bills the mother if you're single. I had to pay for everything myself. Medicaid covered the rest. THe father wasn't responsible for anything, and he isn't until his name is on the birth certificate or there is a paternity test.

 

AFAIK.

 

 

Ehhh .... in two cases I know of the fathers were forced to pay for the medical care of the woman during her pregnancy. One partial and one full. They were not married. Not covered by insurance either. One went with govt. funds..... Wic and the other things medicare or caid......(I am not familiar with that process) One paid outright to the docs. Money was due just post birth via the court.

Maybe different states have different laws??

[hotgurl]

At this point in time though, fathers are still held responsible for costs and consequences relating to the pregnancy. My opinion is still that if we are held responsible, we should have rights to go along with those responsibilities.

 

But try making them pay if they don't want too. It is so easy for fathers to avoid responsibility financially & otherwise. You can try to force them but the laws aren't enforced strongly and if the dad decides to cut and run your stuck with years of legal battles that result in nothing.

 

But the woman has to take responsibility because the fetus is inside her.

[blind_otter]

Not covered by insurance either. One went with govt. funds..... Wic and the other things medicare or caid......(I am not familiar with that process) One paid outright to the docs. Money was due just post birth via the court.

Maybe different states have different laws??

 

I'm not sure I understand. father's can't apply for medicaid or WIC -- only mothers with children can participate so I'm not sure what that was referring to? Medicare is for the elderly. If the mother is covered by medicaid there should be no out of pocket expenses for the birth - everything should have been covered, unless she had some extra stuff because of complications?

 

The mothers must have taken legal action to recoop their monetary losses but I can't see how the court would have ordered the unmarried father to do this without a paternity test, and he wouldn't have been responsible for the entirety of the bill, either.

[hotgurl]

I'm not sure I understand. father's can't apply for medicaid or WIC -- only mothers with children can participate so I'm not sure what that was referring to? Medicare is for the elderly. If the mother is covered by medicaid there should be no out of pocket expenses for the birth - everything should have been covered, unless she had some extra stuff because of complications?

 

The mothers must have taken legal action to recoop their monetary losses but I can't see how the court would have ordered the unmarried father to do this without a paternity test, and he wouldn't have been responsible for the entirety of the bill, either.

 

In my state if the mother is on state aid the state will go after the father to reimburse the cost of the aid.

[blind_otter]

So if you receive WIC and medicaid you have to pay it back? I'm confused. I never had to pay anything back. And I know for sure they never went after my ex for money. He's in prison.

[hotgurl]

not wic or medicaid and not the mother. At least in NH if the woman is on food stamps or gets cash aid the state will seek child support from the man to cover it's costs.

 

I think the theory being that if the giuy paid child support the woman shouldn't have to get state aid and therefore the guy should help defray the costs.

 

But I have never heard of them doing it for medicaid or WIC

[blind_otter]

ah ha that makes sense. I smoked my morning cig so I can think more clearly now....

[Guest]

But try making them pay if they don't want too. It is so easy for fathers to avoid responsibility financially & otherwise. You can try to force them but the laws aren't enforced strongly and if the dad decides to cut and run your stuck with years of legal battles that result in nothing.

 

But the woman has to take responsibility because the fetus is inside her.

 

The risk of the father running to avoid the responsibility would be there, just as the risk of the woman going to Mexico to have the abortion is there. There are always going to be people like this around.

 

My opinion on BC is that it's a shared responsibility. If both are using it, the chances of pregnancy are so miniscule as to be non-existent. If it's shirked and a pregnancy occurs, the responsibility is equally shared.

 

This discussion has kind of diverged into a dozen loosely related subjects which are becoming confusing. The main argument was that, if fathers are equally the parent in a conception and are expected to support the pregnancy and resulting child as a responsibility, they should also have equal rights in that pregnancy and child which they are held responsible for.

 

It's about the rights being divided equally as well as the responsibility. I'm not saying a father should be able to force an abortion, but rather that they should be able to stop one if they want their child. This of course, only being if the pregnancy does not risk the mothers health. They should have the right to be able to have their child, be the primary custodial parent, and get child support, if the mother doesn't want the baby. It's asking for the same options available to the mother, to be available to the father.

 

The only problem with this otherwise completely reasonable viewpoint is that the mother has to bear the burden of the actual pregnancy and labor. This is what makes it so hard to come to a consensus. I'm sure many fathers would take the burden too if they could, but they can't. Would financial compensation be appropriate in this case? It's interesting to think about to say the least.

 

My other point is if, you can't bear the father having rights in the pregnancy, then you can't expect to exact the responsibilities either. It's completely unfair to do this a social norm. It's either YOUR pregnancy and YOUR responsibility for it, or OUR pregnancy and OUR responsibility for it.

 

Just my humble opinion.