Quote:
Originally posted by Eternium
Yes.
Politically, we don't base who can vote on certain issues depending on whom it affects. That just wouldn't work.
In terms of a personal relationship, the man would be responsible for the child if the woman kept it, even if he didn't want it (that's why we have child support). What sense does it make that the man has no rights to the child before birth?
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Nonsense. With the rate at which men produce sperm cells, ascribing rights to those sperm cells or giving that man such rights to that sperm while it is in another person's body is impractical. If a man wants a child, then there are a hell of a lot more ways that he can go about it - forcing a woman to keep a human being inside her against her will is not one of them. Go have one with someone else. If you're in a committed relationship then find a way to deal with the fact that your partner doesn't want a child. If it's an issue of her not being ready then wait until she damn well is before using her body as a tool.
The reason we hold men responsible if a child IS born is because they have quite a bit of control over whether a fetus or embryo is produced in the first place; yes, that's their sperm, and if the pregnancy is carried to term, then they did have a place in that decision to some extent and do have a responsibility for their actions as any human being would. The reason women should be given sole discretion as to terminating a pregnancy is because of the ease with which men contribute to child production in comparison to women and the total lack of the man's body being involved at all after sex.
A man, when a child is born, consciously knew that his sexual actions could produce that child even with protection (all people should be aware of the risk of contraception failing), and that is why he is held accountable for a child that is born. The same is true for a woman. A man, when fertilization occurs, is contributing a tiny cell out of an innumerous amount of those cells which he will produce in his lifetime and is experiencing on of an equally innumerous opportunities for him to fertilize an egg. A man, when a pregnancy exists, is not the bodily host for that pregnancy for nine long months and he does not have to experience birth. Neither of those last two sentences is true for a woman and that is why the decision is entirely hers.
Giving weight to the man's feelings about having a child over a woman's feelings about her body is not logical. The man is giving a value to that hypothetical child that is entirely intangible in nature and can be applied to literally any fertilization that occurs with his sperm - letting him decide gives significance to the insignificant. The woman, however, is tangibly and significantly
pregnant.