Men Abortion and Choice

Originally Posted by DanaC

rk, honey, I lova ya, but that's fucked up. You would seriously want a law that gives a man the right to dictate to a woman whether or not she was able to have an abortion?


From the original article on the proposed law change :

Well, fuck me sideways if I didn't tripover and land in the Handmaid's Tale. Rk, next time you call European laws on racism fascistic in nature I'm just going to laugh in your face, because this beats any Holocaust Denial laws into the ground, for me. How can you so vehemently defend the rights of people to spout racist filth and yet not seek to defend a woman's right to have the final say over her own body? And if you want to point at Fascist German and say, well hey they limited freedom of speech, I can point you to the German Maids whose job was to bear blond haired, blue eyed, master-race babies. And I can point you to the pregnant women whom the nazis experimented on.

First of all, I did not say I agree with the bill as proposed... I stated that a man who wishes to stop a abortion should be able to.
Fresh, back down when you are wrong... I do it all the time.

[kerosene]

Yikes. I thought we were suppose to be getting away from the archaic idea of men controlling women.

I respect your opinion, rkzenrage, but I am a little shocked.

Perhaps my problem is my inability to trust what a man would decide for my body (or our child.) This is a time when people don't have sex just to procreate and we can no longer fool ourselves about that. Don't get me wrong. If the law were this way and my husband and I got pregnant, I would trust him because I know he would respect me and we would make this decision together. If I had chosen to marry a different man? If I were not married and a surprise pregnancy came about? Who the fuck knows? Makes me even more happy about who I married. A bit of a scary thought, though.

I see a lot of problems with this law:

- If a man has the final say in whether or not to abort the baby, as someone else stated above, what is to keep some of them from abusing this law to control a woman or to "punish" her? I won't believe that this would be a small minority of situations. Many people cannot handle responsibility, so they use it to control another person. This happens already in so many other ways.

- Once the child is born, what of him/her? Can you honestly say you believe that all fathers are going to be supportive, loving, whatever for that child? What portion of those children do you suspect will end up in the state cycle, unwanted? Who pays for these services already, and whose taxes will increase as a result of further "strain" on the system? I hate to put it this way, but it is a factor.

- There are ways around this law for pregnant women, too. "I don't remember who I slept with. Here's a list, but he might not be on there."

- Who needs more laws to control us? If the man is not considered in the decision about the life of a fetus and he has a problem with that, perhaps he should have considered his partner's perspective on that ahead of time and used a condom? Or, perhaps he might have determined his partner's perspective on having children, before he started having sex with her? Same goes for the woman. If she didn't want to get pregnant, perhaps she might have taken precautions? Both parties have responsibility in this, but once a woman gets pregnant, she has full physical responsibility for that child. Only she can eat right, not lift really heavy things, etc. to take care of that child while in the womb. If she chooses to abort the baby, obviously she isn't prepared for the responsibility. The man has no physical obligation to the child, so naturally his perspective is going to be different.

- What about situations where the man makes the woman keep the baby and she later decides she wants to be a mother? I have heard of this happening in situations where the intent is to give the baby up for adoption.

This is so case by case, therefore, putting a law around it is just dangerous. I realize my points are "obvious" but they are still valid and need to be addressed.

Rage, like I said, I respect how you feel about this, but I suspect you are putting yourself in the place of one of the men whose child is aborted without your consent and thinking "what would I want?" Not all men have the same connection to their emotions that you do. Not all men would respect a woman enough not to control her or use her. I don't believe you are archaic or domineering. I just think you are looking at this without considering other perspectives.

[Clodfobble]

- There are ways around this law for pregnant women, too. "I don't remember who I slept with. Here's a list, but he might not be on there."

Not to mention the really obvious way: pick any random male friend, assert he's the father, have him sign the permission slip, and go on your merry way. Paternity tests are expensive and take a long time, there's no way they could legislate it to be a requirement for every abortion.

[Cicero]

I thought my "possession for dummys" post was pretty clear.
So blind they can't interpret their own laws anymore. Or provide any valid justification.
Just don't spit in my coke and think it's yours.

[smurfalicious]

Isn't there a fairly high risk associated with paternity tests performed in utero? I know that invasive prenatal testing, such as amniocentesis, which detects genetic disorders or chromosomal abnormalities, carries with it a high risk of infection or complication.

And what about the old oops-I-"accidentally"-fell-down-the-stairs-and-lost-the-baby trick?

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

rage, you're all fucked up here.

i'm slightly disgusted by your willful disregard of a woman's rights. does it really need to be laid out as literally as stormie does in her post for you to get it?

you sir, should be ashamed of yourself for taking the stance you've taken.

Wow someone said it....and it was LJ. Awesome!

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

That is the whole point of this entire thread. The law would force the woman to get permission from the man.

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Nope, the law would make the man stop an abortion if he wished to take full responsibility for his child.

Here, you say that the law doesn't force the woman to get permission. When you are reminded that it, in fact, does, you say:

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

First of all, I did not say I agree with the bill as proposed... I stated that a man who wishes to stop a abortion should be able to.
Fresh, back down when you are wrong... I do it all the time.

Now might be a good time for you to do so.

But let's take your proposed alternate law into consideration:

I stated that a man who wishes to stop a abortion should be able to.

If you don't agree with the "woman needs permission" part of the law, how do you propose that this should work? How would he know? If the woman tells him that she is pregnant, she risks losing her ability to make the choice herself. It would be much safer for her to make the decision without his input, which I think most would agree would be a bad outcome.

And if the man decides that she can't have an abortion, how would the doctor know?

[DanaC]

I fail to see any moral or ethical difference between the proposed law which imposes on the woman a need for paternal permission, and rk's proposed paternal veto.

[Clodfobble]

Forget moral and ethical, there is no practical difference. Exercising a veto power is the same thing as refusing to grant permission.

I, of all people, have always been hugely in favor of father's rights (you want to see some angry women's rights proponents, find the thread where I argued that in many cases child support is merely punative, and actually contributes to a worse situation for the child,) so I am sympathetic to your emotions on this one, rkz. But you're wrong. The best you can hope for is that the woman would be reasonable and choose to take the man's feelings into consideration.

[yesman065]

Just an aside - Where is that thread Clod? I've been dealing with that issue personally.

[wolf]

Unless it's a virgin birth, the male contributor of DNA should have a say in the decision-making, with the balance weighted towards completing the pregnancy (i.e., man cannot force an abortion that the woman does not want and vice versa).

[wolf]

Originally Posted by DanaC

There are laws in place to limit the circumstances in which a woman can seek an abortion. These laws are mainly to do with ensuring that abortions take place at the earliest possible point in the pregnancy.

Not in the United States.

The "up to the end of the first trimester" is a matter of convention, not law.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by wolf

with the balance weighted towards completing the pregnancy

Why?
Is there a baby shortage?
More importantly, is a there a baby shortage among people who don't fully have their shit together in the relationship/family unit department? I don't think there is....

[DanaC]

That'd be fine as long as the only body in question was that of the foetus/baby. As long as the woman's body is having decisions made about it, its the woman's decision. End of story.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by yesman065

Just an aside - Where is that thread Clod? I've been dealing with that issue personally.

Here it is. Ah, good times.