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Abortion: does the man have a say?

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Rudolph Quin said:
So, what you're saying is, if we give a man a choice about abortion for a child that is his, it doesn't matter what he says because the woman will always do whatever the hell she wants either way? That was my question in the OP. How much of a say does a man get if he gets one at all?
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I don't think a man should be allowed to force the woman to do anything, but I think that there should be at least some form of discussion. The way you worded it made it seem like 'discussion' was not really a discussion, but that the man was making the decision.

Medical science may be at a point right now where this situation is 'keep or abort' but I think, in the future, if there was a less invasive way for something like a surrogate mother (or in the future father(?)) to take a pre-fetal child on without requiring major surgery (far way off, if ever possible) I'd imagine that in that future, the man could have some say.

As it stands today, I can't imagine forcing an unwanting mother to carry a child to term would be good for her, or the baby.
 
Dameon said:
Rudolph Quin said:
So, what you're saying is, if we give a man a choice about abortion for a child that is his, it doesn't matter what he says because the woman will always do whatever the hell she wants either way? That was my question in the OP. How much of a say does a man get if he gets one at all?
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I don't think a man should be allowed to force the woman to do anything, but I think that there should be at least some form of discussion. The way you worded it made it seem like 'discussion' was not really a discussion, but that the man was making the decision.

Medical science may be at a point right now where this situation is 'keep or abort' but I think, in the future, if there was a less invasive way for something like a surrogate mother (or in the future father(?)) to take a pre-fetal child on without requiring major surgery (far way off, if ever possible) I'd imagine that in that future, the man could have some say.

As it stands today, I can't imagine forcing an unwanting mother to carry a child to term would be good for her, or the baby.
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Dameon has a point about this. As it stands right now with the only options we have being live or die then it makes the ground really shaky. But we don't know the future so we can't really help them, all we can do is help the now. And thats what we should focus on. I hate to say it but the only way to assure the man can even have a grounded say is if they appear in court before a judge like a divorce of sorts. I don't like the idea but to me its all that makes sense is to have a third party determine whether the abortion is worth carrying out or not. If the mother's excuse it just "I don't want kids" then adopt it out. Don't be selfish, its your mistake in the first place. If her excuse is "I can't afford to feed a child" then well... you might have a point...
 
Adoption isn't always the best route unless you have a family in mind when/if you plan on doing it.

We already have third parties deciding on abortion. Sorry, but I don't want some fuckface judge telling me what to do anymore than the government already does.

Also, getting an abortion isn't just a "1-2-3 I'm free!" decision. It's HUGE. I have a friend who still thinks about hers and it was four years ago.
 
I want to appologize if I made abortion seem like a light subject. Its not. And I said LOGICALLY the only way to for it to make sense is third party. Other than that the male can have no say legally or logically without a moral debate firing up. Sadly as it stands, the man should have a say, but logically can't have a say. Not right now anyway.
 
The only way men will have a real say is when they have to carry it or are able to carry it so that point is pretty moot. As I've said, depending on the situation, yes, the man should be able to have a discussion with the woman and the two of them come to a conclusion together. It doesn't always happen that way, especially when the man is either a deadbeat or the woman is unfit to be a proper mother/whatever reasons people come with up. And honestly, who are you to judge to say "I don't want kids" isn't a good enough reason? There could be a multitude of reasons behind that one statement. And please, don't throw in the whole "if you don't want kids then don't have sex," argument that some people have. It doesn't make sense at all.

As you said, "don't be selfish, adopt it out, it's your mistake," that sounds even worse. Some people see abortion not as a "Get out of parenthood free card" but as the most logical and responsible thing to do. In some cases, it's an accident because it does happen no matter how many precautions you take. The system is messed up and there are a lot of stories that kids won't get adopted or end up abused. As I see it, it is the potential for an eventual child but isn't one. It takes the weight off everyone's shoulders that are involved if none of them want the kid when it's born. It's not forcing anyone to do anything that they aren't prepared for, especially when they know they aren't and sometimes things just happen. If everyone decided that instead of an abortion, they put their kids up for adoption, you know how insane of a number that would be of human beings on the planet? It would double.

Allowing a third party means you can't make a decision by yourself when it involves the two of you. As I also said, a third party may seem "logical" but it steps on your own ability to think and learn for yourself. Come to a decision you both can live with or shut the hell up and deal. It's a big decision, not whether or not to vote on such and such a president. It sits with you the rest of your life.

And most people who are against abortion happen to be pro-fetus and not pro-life. Pro-life is wanting that kid to grow up and be happy, etc, etc, etc. After that kid is born, no one gives a damn.
 
Hahvoc The Decepticon said:
And most people who are against abortion happen to be pro-fetus and not pro-life. Pro-life is wanting that kid to grow up and be happy, etc, etc, etc. After that kid is born, no one gives a damn.
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Smartest. Fucking. Sentence. About this topic. Ever.

Honestly I never thought about it like that but you have a point. At the end of the day no one wants human blood on their hands, not necessarily that they don't want to destroy life. Despite the fact that you beat the TAR out of my argument, you brought up many valid points. But I think we agree on one thing, no matter what, its a moral argument not a logical argument. By trying to take anything logically in this situation one party gets shafted. I personally am pro-life. I also have a shred more faith in humanity. I don't know why but I do. Faith only gets you so far, but facts are facts. I hate to admit it but you have a very valid argument Hahv.

Though playing devil's advocate, abortion should only be legal if the parents can FOR FREE sign up to donate the fetus to stem-cell research. Honestly, I feel its just a waste otherwise. There's not reason not to fund it and if we are legalizing one the other should be legalized and funded without question. Kinda off topic but kinda not.
 
If she doesn't want to have the baby, he should not have the right to make her go through the grueling task of child birth for a kid she doesn't even want.

If she does want to have the baby, however, he has just as much say as she does, because the child will be as much his responsibility as hers, and if he feels he isn't ready to be a father, that needs to play a role in her decision.

Long story short, the decision to have a kid is hers alone, but the decision to start a family is theirs, as a couple.
 
Raze said:
If she doesn't want to have the baby, he should not have the right to make her go through the grueling task of child birth for a kid she doesn't even want.

If she does want to have the baby, however, he has just as much say as she does, because the child will be as much his responsibility as hers, and if he feels he isn't ready to be a father, that needs to play a role in her decision.

Long story short, the decision to have a kid is hers alone, but the decision to start a family is theirs, as a couple.
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Or as two individual people who aren't a couple but had sex.

That's also an important situation to take into account.
 
I don't mean couple in the romantic sense. I just mean couple as in two of anything.
A couple of pens. A couple of punches. A couple of people.
I am the furthest thing from a romantic.
Just clarifying.
 
In response to the original question, I think they should be able to talk about it. I'm not saying the man should have the 'automatic veto' power that some of the people on this thread seem to think 'discussion' means. I'm just saying, he should be allowed to voice his opinion, make his case, and that they should arrive at a decision together if possible. I'm not going to get into anything beyond the original question, because I don't see the relevance of 'factors that influence the decision to have the baby or not' to the base question of 'should the man have a voice?' He should. I'm not saying the woman has to listen to him, just that he should be able to make his opinion known and that the people in question should be willing to have a mutual discussion about it to at least try to reach a decision jointly.
 
The man should be able to opt-out of all future payments to the child before the child is born. If he doesn't want to have the child, why should he pay for it?

Except from that, it's the woman's choice.
 
Allowing men to opt out of child support if a woman refuses to abort a child on his demand will never happen. A child has the right to food, shelter, clothing, education, and any other necessities of life. If those needs aren't met by the parents, then it falls on everyone else collectively via government. And government is going to turn to the mom and dad and say cough up regardless of what discussions mom and dad may have had before junior popped into the world and became his or her own little person.

Even when getting divorced, you can't opt out of child support. The child has a right to be supported by its parents (you can agree not to get child support, but if you fall on hard times and look to the state for help, the state will knock on the door of the non-custodial parent and say pay up). What should happen and doesn't always happen is that after the child is born (the woman's ultimate choice whether that happens, though, ideally it would be a mutual discussion and the man should be involved in the decision) is that men should have a level playing field when it comes to issues such as custody, visitation, and support. While a man can't "opt out of child support," the woman has just as much of an obligation to support her child as the man. The man has just as much right to be involved in the raising of the child as she does.

Messy, complicated, fact specific situations.
 
You're not really debating against my position, as much as you're just listing up how things are right now.

It's a true injustice to force a man to pay up for a child he never wanted to begin with. Today, men's rights are thought to be ridiculous and obscure, cus' feminism. I don't like that. I don't like that at all. As of now, if you end up getting tricked by a psychotic woman, you have to cough up to the child she's made with you for the next 18 years or so. This is despicable. Even if you don't get tricked and it happens in some kind of stupid drunken stupor, I still can't see how this is fair. The man literally has no voice in this matter.

Besides, you don't force aborts just because the parents can't take care of the child; so, if you don't do this with two supporting parents, why should it be any different with one? If that one woman decides to say 'fuck you mate, Imma have this baby' then she should take care of the child on her own, state support or not.
 
I feel for the poor tricked men, forced to take responsibility for things done by them when drunk. The world is so very unfair.

But turning back to the original question, I still feel a man should have no legal say (though the idea and most ethical way to handle an unexpected pregnancy would be discussion and mutual decision) whether a woman aborts his child or not. He doesn't even get to hold the hammer withholding child support to try and push her into an abortion if she chooses to have the child.

And I now surrender my position and flee the field, because as pointed out, I really do suck at debate. I know other posters can run rings around any arguments I might trot out.
 
It's not like it's only men that get drunk and do such things, tho. But if it's a woman, I guess it's okay?
And it's not really responsibility, it's more like a 18-year-long period where they have to pay a fine for one act that they did one night, forced out of their wallets by the woman, because she actually wasn't prepared to take care of the child she wanted to have. Or just because she want to have a laugh at the man. Whatever suits the situation.

He shouldn't be given a hammer, really. He should just be given the option to run away before the woman turns his life upside down.
 
This subject is a very complex one, but I tend to sit on the fence. If a woman wants to have a child, that's her choice. If a woman wants to abort a child, that's also her choice, adoption is an option after all if the man really, really wants to have a child... But my mother literally left me to die when I was younger, and yet still took in child support from my father. The same father that she had already divorced and taken half of the family's money from without taking any of the family's debt.

Needless to say, my views may be coloured, but considering women can work just as often as men can, and women absolutely insist on having absolute and exclusive rights over whether the child developing within themselves is going to be born or not, the man should not be punished for eighteen years to paying what is essentially a slave payment for a child they may have never wanted, or a child they may only get to see on weekends because... Gender inequality. (It goes both ways. I'm not saying one gender sucks more than the other--they both suck in their own way.)

I also take the same position about women paying men child support--if the woman never wanted the child, and gave the child up, she should not have to pay child support on that just because the father chose to do his damn duty as being a parental figure. The only time I'll consider an exception is if the situation in which the child came to be a thing was a fairly ridiculous one. Like if a guy and a girl do a thing without any protection, then don't abort the child or really think about the problem until the child is born. That's just idiotic and the child should not be punished for the parent's lack of forethought in that regard.

As I said. Complex topic.
 
I totally agree although I have experienced the opposite. My father tries to slack off from payments, although him and my mother was married until I was five years of age. >.<
Either that or he's consistently absent-minded and pays my mother too late. Believe it or not, that's actually an option.

The best way to tackle a complex topic is to ignore the fact that it's complex. By bursting out what you think is right, you're almost certain someone will correct you if you're wrong; hence, you will learn faster by blurting out your raw opinions. That's my take on it, anyway. :)
 
Laa said:
I totally agree although I have experienced the opposite. My father tries to slack off from payments, although him and my mother was married until I was five years of age. >.<
Either that or he's consistently absent-minded and pays my mother too late. Believe it or not, that's actually an option.

The best way to tackle a complex topic is to ignore the fact that it's complex. By bursting out what you think is right, you're almost certain someone will correct you if you're wrong; hence, you will learn faster by blurting out your raw opinions. That's my take on it, anyway. :)
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Oh lord. Hahaha don't worry about it. So long as y'all survive at least there's that.

I typically tackle complex issues by learning what makes them complex. A complex issue is only a series of simplistic problems combining and threading together to weave the complex issue. So addressing as many of the threads individually as possible, then combining and compromising all of the thread solutions to a single solid complex answer, will typically give a good answer.

It's not always correct, but once you have a solid base, you can work your way from there in adjusting it until you have the best possible answer.

And to me? The best possible answer on this topic is don't punish either side. If women want full reproductive rights, they must take full responsibility for all that comes with it. If they cannot support the child without essentially enslaving a man for eighteen years to paying them to support the child they can't otherwise support? Then maybe they should consider not having the child for the child's benefit and for their own benefit. We have way more than enough children in adoption homes. We don't need to add to that number.

I mean seriously. We have like... What was the last count... Seven billion people on the planet? Do we really need to add more to that number? Thinking from a purely numerical perspective here? And if we do, do we seriously have to look at one gender and tell them that they have no choice in the matter and that they must pay, even if it might cause them to financially collapse in the process because they might not be able to afford to pay?

Overall... It's not right to give the finger to one gender over the other. It should be a case by case basis where it has to come up. We shouldn't judge by gender. We should judge by what occurred: By history, by a person's sense of ethics and morality, by the situation at hand. For example, your father sounds like the type who didn't plan things out at all, whom was highly irresponsible. You shouldn't be punished for that. In my case, I went homeless for three weeks because we couldn't afford to pay for our house and had to move into a smaller one, but couldn't get it soon enough. (So I had to live with my aunt, in a dark room in the basement for three weeks, without a home to go to. Not fun.) All so that my mother could... Start a lingerie shop... I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. That's what she spent the child support payments on.

However, we cannot afford to judge every single case that comes through the door. Therefore, we should take the simple libertarian root that many western countries are founded on: The more responsibility you hold, the more rights and freedoms you've earned. Children for example slowly earn more and more rights as they grow older. Get a part time job? You can start buying more things by yourself, you can open your own bank account, you can start drinking or smoking once you've hit certain age brackets, etc.

If women want full reproductive rights to the total exclusion of men, they need to take the full responsibility that comes with it. In essence: Deal with it, you chose to take on that responsibility, and only in certain cases should it be exempted and dealt with otherwise. :p
 
In order not to continue the agree-fest for too long, I will simply say: Aye! :D
 
I think this has taken a turn from the original question. You are no longer talking about abortion, you are talking about child support.

In my case, my mother left us when I was 4 but completely agreed to pay child support to my father (who, without it, would have been perfectly capable of supporting us) because she wanted to be apart of our lives. Saying this, I must add my parents are military and my mother in particular went on tour every couple years. So we did not see her often, but she sent us gifts and money, helped my dad out when he needed it, and her family was always around to take us if my dad had to go away. Which was a pretty good deal.

I my best friends case, her father left her mother because she was fucking crazy and had three other children all by different men. He refused to pay support on the children who were not his, and only paid for her support. (which I think is fair) This said, he had no clue when her mother kicked her out and sent her to live with her grandmother and continued taking the child support money. By 16 my friend was living on her own, working full-time to pay for rent and food, while trying to go to high school at the same time. which is no life for a child. That is an example of the system failing.

That said, when I see someone say "Just because he got drunk and fucked a willing woman and got her pregnant he shouldn't have to pay" I get a little mad. It takes two to tango. What if, this mother was deemed unable to take care of the child and it was sent to the father? The mother would have to pay support, n matter her social or economical status. It goes both way, it all depends on who has custody. Which means you have a few options: suck it up and raise the child together, leave the child and deprive them of their mother/father relationship but pay a sum of money, or try to fall off the edge of the world and get forced to make payments, or! My favourite: wear a condom, use protection, don't have sex with strange crazy ladies who just want your sperm and money. And if they do want you to pay, ask for a paternity test, if it's not your baby, don't pay for it.
 
The problem we stated is that it doesn't go both ways, as the man doesn't have a say in anything at all. Did you even read our arguments?

Also, one question often closely relates to another. To take one without the other would result in ignorance.
 
I did read them and I disagree. Because it does go both ways. If the mother has the child and fucks off she has to pay for it just the same if she were a man. Perhaps you don't see that but as I said it was the case for my family. And if a man is so against having to pay child support simpy keep it in your pants because unfortunately even with protection the possibility of producing a child is still there.

I only mentioned that it wasn't the op's question because its not. They were talking simpy about the process of abortion and if a man can a, force a woman to abort or b, have no say at all.
 
Well, perhaps we're having a misunderstanding then: My idea was that a man had the right to financially abort before the child is born (Or perhaps before the woman is too deep into her pregnancy), not after.
Besides, the woman decides if the baby is born or not in the first place; that is the uneven part of the equation. The idea above is to even out the choices.

Thanks for making this simple for me. I can be absent-minded. I disagree with both those options; a man can't force a woman to abort, but he does have a say in the process.
 
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