Reply #31: You're confusing two separate issues. [View All]

[wickerwoman]

1.) When we're talking about a woman's right to choose we're talking about an internal physical process that has life-threatening consequences. It's absolutely necessary to give women the final choice about whether or not the embryo will become a baby because the alternative is to either force her to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term (and risk her own life and health in the process) or to seek an unsafe back-alley abortion. Forcing a woman to become a parent when she doesn't want to be one puts her health (and the baby's health) at risk. What's the motivation for a woman in that situation to give up drinking alcohol and smoking? Why should she take care of herself when she's lost control over her own body? The result will be more babies with fetal alcohol syndrome, birth defects, low birth weight, etc. Forcing a man to become a parent when he doesn't want to be one doesn't have the same risks either to his physical health or to the baby's. The only thing at risk is his wallet.

2.) When we're talking about a man's right to choose we're talking about a baby who has already been born. There's no ambiguity here about whether we're talking about a living thing or a clump of cells. And child support is about the child, not about the mother. Why should he or she be punished because of things his or her mother did that were dishonest? It's in the interest of the state that somebody foot the bill for the baby (otherwise the mother and the child will probably be plunged into poverty and it's the state that will be paying). So either the sperm donor or the man who married the woman when the kid was born is going to have to take financial responsibility for the kid.

So to sum up, it's a biological problem. You have to give women the final choice about whether the conception will result in a baby or not because the alternatives are monsterous. So men's choices have to come in at a different time. Either make damn sure that conception doesn't happen in the first place, or take responsibility for the life you half-created.