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Another post about fetuses.
DH and I had this conversation the other night and now for some reason I feel a need to discuss it with others.
At dinner a couple weeks ago DH told me that one of his guys had gotten a girl pregnant. It wasn't a one night stand but it wasn't exactly a well-established relationship either. (Definitely they were not married)
So what happened was the guy had no idea that a pregnancy had occurred. She called him one morning, told him about the pregnancy and that she was going to get an abortion later that day because she didn't want to keep it. He begged, he pleaded, she went through with it. The guy was devastated and I hope that from here on out he really watches who he has unprotected sex with.
DH expressed to me how bad he felt for the guy and how he really feels like paternal rights get the shaft in the US.
So this is another case where clearly, things have to be all one way. Nobody I know would ever support letting the father of a baby force a woman to have an abortion but in turn it also means that the father has no rights to prevent one either.
What does MN think? I don't feel like it's fair, but aside from pretty extreme advances in the field of medicine I don't see any way around it.
Re: Another post about fetuses.
That's all that I can seem to think of either. :-/
I've tried to write a response to this four different times now, but realize it would turn into a novel. I'm hoping Stan responds, because I think she will be able to say what I want to say but do it with fewer words. I'm just going to say this; Slippery Slope.
If we give the father a right in this matter, aren't we essentially giving the fetus rights as well? Slippery Slope, people.
Now, I will leave you with an excerpt from someone on P&CE on why giving a fetus personhood status is bad. She says it way better than I ever could.
swimbikepuke:
Here's where what you believe meets what actually is. The Constitution recognizes three basic rights: life, liberty, and property. In order to avail yourself of any of these rights, you must be a person. "Person" is not used in it coloquial sense, but in a legal sense. So the issue of whether a fetus is a "life" is irrelevant. The real issue is whether it is a person. If it is a person, then it has a right to life. If it is not a person, it has no constitutional rights at all. The woman is a person. There is no issue with that. It is not a matter of debate. So she has certain liberty interests that are constitutionally protected. One of those is privacy: the right to be left alone. The issues of abortion, pregnancy, and family are private matters which the woman is entitled to control and safeguard against government interference. So what you have right now is a situation where a non-person would have greater rights than a person. At a moral level, this may not bother you. You may be thinking, great, all we have to do is assign fetuses "personhood" status and then they have a right to life and we're good.
Only we're not good. There are major major problems with defining a fetus as a person, specifically because it would entitle a fetus to Constitutional rights. Some of those problems include the government suddenly having the ability to control everything about a pregnant woman's life from her diet to her workout schedule specifically because the fetus now has liberty and life rights. The slippery slope there is too great. Every study that came out saying that mothers who watched TV while pregnant had a higher incidence of miscarriage would potentially result in government intervention in the TV-watching habits of pregnant women - you know, because they have to protect the person that is the fetus.
... Because the minute the government steps in and starts legislating on the thing, the personhood status of women who are already here, already independent human entities, has to be eroded. You cannot have both women and fetuses be considered persons. It is a legal impossibility.
IF has caused me to become way more pro-choice than I ever thought I could be. My solution to your scenario is that the female shouldn't have bothered informing the male if it wasn't up for discussion.
If you don't mind my being terribly intrusive, but how has IF caused you to become more pro-choice? I'm just curious, you don't have to answer if you don't feel comfortable.
Yeah, it definitely sucks that she got pregnant and had an abortion if it wasn't something that he was okay with - sucks for him, I mean. But the only solution to that is for him to not have sex with women who would be willing to have an abortion. It doesn't really, as I see it, have anything to do with paternal rights so much as it has to do with bodily autonomy. Paternal rights would be if she was trying to adopt the baby out without his consent, and that would really be a terrible (and, I think, illegal) thing.
I do agree though that she probably shouldn't have told him that she was going to get an abortion, since he really couldn't do anything about it. I know that gets into a weird area as well - does he have the right to know that he got her pregnant? - but it seems a lot kinder to not tell him. I guess that as well, though, comes down to not having sex with someone if you don't know or agree with their opinion on what to do in case of a pregnancy.
Thank you for responding. Please forgive me for being thick-headed, but I'm failing to see the connection between legally granting a fetus status as a person and government intervention in the TV-watching habits of pregnant women.
I can imagine, though, the government intervening on a pregnant woman who smokes or binge drinks. I can also see the need to attempt to define some type of boundary. Like, you wouldn't want to prosecute someone for smoking before it was too early for them to even know that they were pregnant.
Because if the fetus is a person, that person's safety needs to be protected. The smoking and binge drinking examples would be on the same spectrum; if a woman watching tv is shown to potentially threaten the life/safety of the fetus inside of her, and if that fetus was a person whose safety needs to be protected, then that woman, by watching tv, is violating that fetus' safety.
I'm on my phone, so I won't go on and on, but for starters, knowing if we ended up with HOM that we may need to selectively reduce. This Prop 26 threatening to take away IVF and embryo freezing. Having to fight for a chance to have a family has highlighted that people who aren't as passionate about it shouldn't be forced into it. And heck, I'm not very far into pregnancy and it sucks already. I've been straight up ILL for three weeks, forcing myself to eat, and pregnancy has caused a steady flow of diarrhea. My uterus stretching effing hurts. I don't mean to sound whiny, I can get through it because it's a means to an end for my family. A woman who's not in it by choice shouldn't have to be. Also, the constant revolving door of people with their hands in my vagina gets pretty tiring. I can't blame someone for wanting to keep their body to themself.
Really, I have the opportunity to do IVF because the law doesn't equate making reproductive choices to "playing God," like so many people like to think. Abortion isn't playing God, ART isn't playing God, we're making choices about our bodies.
Not in parts of Utah!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWOUqFqx67M&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Not that we considered sending my teenage sister to Utah to have her baby or anything.
Yeah, that's the part I have a problem with. Assuming there are no drug or abuse problems, either or both biological parents should have the option to raise their child.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but this bolded statement above.. She agreed to it when she slept with the person, no?
I agree that she shouldn't have told the man if it wasn't open to discussion, although I don't think the woman should have ALL the rights when it comes to aborting a baby. How we go about changing that? I have no idea.
When she had sex, the woman agreed to have sex. She agreed to risk potentially getting pregnant. She did not agree to carry the fetus to full term, and even if she did at the time it is fully within her rights to change her mind.
When you say that you don't think the woman should have all the rights in terms of abortion, could you be a little more specific? What rights shouldn't she have? What rights should go to men instead?
Pretty much what PP said. It's an extreme example, of course but just goes to show how much of a slippery slope it could be. The government would be able to legislate on whatever frivolous "study" they want as long as they are protecting the life of the fetus.
I changed my name
I guess I feel differently. If she (or I or anyone for that matter) has sex you risk getting pregnant and if you do I think it should have to be a joint decision to abort a baby.
Meh.. I haven't really thought about it enough to know the boundaries of rights and who has what, but I do feel it should be a joint decision.
Ditto. She consented to sex, not spending the rest of her life caring for his child. WTF.
ETA: I can think of way too many good reasons to terminate a pregnancy that consent doesn't even begin to cover it, and frankly, "meh, just don't feel like it" is a damn good reason.
I guess I see it as she took that risk when she decided to sleep with the guy.
I changed my name
I changed my name
Personally, I'm all for women being able to abort under pretty much any circumstances, but I can see that you're not. So how about this:
What if a woman is in the very small percentage who used hormonal and barrier forms of contraception perfectly, and they failed? Even though she did everything in her power to not get pregnant short of just agreeing to never have sex, should she still have to go through the pregnancy and give birth if the man wants her to?
The problem with trying to make this a joint decision is that there isn't a compromise possible. Either she goes through with the pregnancy and gives birth, or she doesn't. It's not like she can just give the fetus to him to take care of instead.
Actually, no. I'm usually pro-choice all the way, but idk, something irks me about a father who is completely willing and capable of taking care of a child, HIS child, and is denied the opportunity because the woman 'just doesn't want to'.
Marie, I don't think courts tend to see it as consent when a woman has a baby without telling the father, then hits him up for child support. If someone wants to be a single parent, good for them, but they need to find a willing donor, and carrier in the event it's the guy who wants to procreate.
Slightly related, after Joe finally trusted an HPT, we had a discussion about how we're literally stuck with each other forever if these embryos make it. We have a great marriage, but holy crap, that can be a lot to digest.
Word.
But like I said, there's no room for in-between rights. You can't give men -some- rights over abortion.
I think I understand your disapproval of a woman having an abortion when the father of the fetus doesn't want it; that would really be a terrible thing for the man. But it's not his choice to make.
You say that you think that women should accept that there's a possibility that they could get pregnant when they have sex. At the same time, men should accept that there's a possibility that they will get a woman pregnant, and that she might choose - as is her right - to have an abortion.
Also, there might be some women who are really irresponsible about their reproductive health, but honestly? The vast majority of women aren't going to ignore all contraception and just get an abortion every time their wishful thinking fails. As I understand it, abortions can be pretty unpleasant, as well as being a lot more expensive than a box of condoms. I think you might be making up this woman who gets an abortion three times a year (or, more likely, you've absorbed it from the strongly anti-choice politicians and the like, who try to frame abortion as the most selfish thing possible).