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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

That "spawn" is half his!

John Hawkins at Right Wing News is pointing to the Democratic Underground today, which has a poll going on whether or not men have any rights concerning abortion. Here's the poll, and some of the responses:



Mondo Joe: There are no men's or women's rights in abortion. There is the individual's right over their own body. In practical terms this applies only to women because they are the only people capable of pregnancy.

But if a man finsds himself pregnant he should have the same rights over his own body.

Deep13: The right to an abortion is a right to bodily integrity. It has nothing to do with who has a choice about having a baby. Bodily integrity is a pretty basic right and the financial and time-commitment interests the father has are trumped by that basic right.

Melody: Well, when their body is ravaged by nine months of pregnancy, they can have a choice. They don't have the right to tell a woman they want to force her to keep the child. That oversteps the
whole concept of parsimony at the heart of law -- doing the thing with least impact. A man who wants a child can adopt. A man who wants to stop an abortion is consciously preventing a woman from exercising the right to control her own body.

Incidentally, I voted "no, but he should be informed".

HypnoToad: Abstain? You're joking, right? Abstinence policies do squat.

femrap: You certainly aren't some kind of animal that is governed only by instinct, are you? If that is the case for males, I believe they are not capable of holding high political office. All they can think of is humping...just like a tom cat.

Yes, the decision-makers of the world require estrogen, progesterone and just a tad of that crazy hormone, testosterone!

genie_weenie: Men, if you don't want a kid don't F---.

One person challenged the DU abortion gospel:
TheWraith: The right to at the very least talk to someone and try to persuade them to a different course isn't a violation of anybody's rights, and pretending like the woman in this scenario is some weak-willed moron incapable of taking dissenting opinions is mommy-knows-best protectionism at its worst.

By the way, you both seem to operate on the implicit idea that getting pregnant is something nasty that men do to women, and that women are powerless to stop--conveniently forgetting that women have several times more contraceptive options than men do. Try giving the women you're talking about measures of credit and responsibility as well as sympathy. In case anybody forgot, it takes two people to make babies. The idea that maybe both sides of that interaction should at least have input on the final decision is not unreasonable.

Of course, this one sane person was derided and overlooked. Next to no one agreed with him.

Now, I am not pro-choice. I am pro-life, all the way, and not for religious reasons. But that's another argument for another day. Let's just pretend that there's nothing wrong with abortion and women should be able to have it whenever they want to.

Should the father be part of that decision?

The answer is a resounding yes. That "spawn", as DUers like to refer to it as, is half his. He helped create it. Yes, the woman is carrying it, but it didn't just magically arrive from the pregnancy fairy who just decided to make this poor, innocent woman's life miserable. A woman had sex with a man, either not using proper birth control or experiencing a failure in birth control, and his sperm joined with her egg. That baby is created with half of the father and half of the mother. While yes, the mother does carry it, she couldn't have created it without the father, and half of that child's genes come from the guy who supposedly has no rights in this situation.

How does that work? Honestly -- how is it that a woman carrying a baby can just kill it get rid of it abort it without ever consulting the other person who made that child? Pregnancy is a two-way street. Two people helped make that baby, two people should be responsible. The father should absolutely be notified and should be given the option to halt the abortion. What if he wants to keep the baby? Mommy may not feel anything for the life growing inside of her, but what if he does? To be fair to the "ITS MY BODY!!!!!!" crowd, if he's willing to take responsibility for the baby and the woman's medical bills until it is born, then they don't have an argument.

It's also interesting how these same "feminists" will screech with outrage if men decide they don't want anything to do with the baby. Basically, the position for men is that they have to bend over backwards to accomodate whatever position the woman decides to take, and they better not ever complain, not even once, or else it's "mysogyny". And it's all "men, if you don't want a kid don't f---", while women, apparently, should be able to f--- to their heart's content without having any consequences, whatsoever. It's all fun, no responsibility for women.

What a load of crap.

Anyways, that's my position on the issue. Men should absolutely be able to make that decision with their partner as long as abortion remains legal. The "ITS MY BODY!!!!!!" crowd needs to just relax. Yes, its your body, and if he starts telling you to cut off your limbs for him, then we'll talk. But that "spawn" you're carrying inside of you is half his, and therefore the decision is half his as well.

Here's a poll for you guys too. What do you think?


Should men be able to halt an abortion if they want to keep the baby?
Yes; it's half his.
No; but he should be notified.
No; it isn't his body and it's mysogyny to say he should be able to.
I don't know; it's too sticky a situation.
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

1 comments:

Christopher said...

I don't think that abortion should be allowed except for extreme cases of health to the mother, rape, incest, etc.
I think that society would do itself a favor and support birth control and common sense. This isn't a religious belief I have, I don't think that it is a human thing to do, especially killing something that is in your body, it's not like the baby is a cancer.

I guess some people are just going to do this no matter what, so 'legalizing' it has it's benefits but the American society can not survive if we continue to support killing of babies and letting criminals go free out of prisons. What a mess.