Unplanned pregnancies are not rare in the United States. In fact, unplanned pregnancies account for about half of all pregnancies. Though sometimes this can be a welcome surprise for couples it is just as often not. In these cases ideally the women and man are on the same page about moving forward and continuing pregnancy or choosing to terminate. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. When women choose to continue their pregnancies the father has no say and is legally responsible in most instances (at least financially) for the child. If a women decides to terminate her pregnancy the father not only has no say, but he can also claim no right to have his wishes supersede hers. I understand that this may not seem fair to all men, I mean after all is said and done women have the option of terminating or continuing their pregnancies without even informing the biological father if she so chooses. That is reality.
Men do not bear children, not in this society and not in any other human society that I am aware of. We would live in a very different world if that they did.
There is a HUGE difference between fathers of existing children and potential fathers of potential children. If you are a father of an existing child then your rights are different from potential fathers who have no physically existing children. If you don't believe women should have abortion rights period, than we are at odds from the starting point. I'm moving on to the point of this post which is when all is said and done if a women is pregnant it is her decision alone that decides whether or not she continues or terminates her pregnancy.
Realistically the relationship between men and women are not always a simple one. Everyone is different and what works for some sexual partners may not work for others. Do you have the "what happens if pregnancy results from this instance of intercourse" conversation with each and every person you have ever slept with? Perhaps you do and in that case you are less likely to find yourselves at odds if an unplanned pregnancy occurs and that is a good thing. But I think the reality is that few of us have those conversations in advance and even if we do the circumstances can always change. Actually being pregnant is different than potentially being pregnant and women can't always know in advance what that will mean to her. So I admit that the only way to ensure that you never end up at odds with your sexual partner in terms of pregnancy is to abstain from having sex or practice the safest sex possible.
Women get to decide whether or not to continue or terminate a pregnancy because women are the ones who are physiologically affected by pregnancy. Making the vast assumption that men and women are created equal, women alone can be the only ones who choose whether or not to bear children. First of all, continuing a pregnancy has much higher risks on a woman's body than terminating that pregnancy. Before modern medicine and even with it women die in child birth, it can be very dangerous to have a baby. Men do not face that risk when having contributed biologically to the creation of a potential child. There are no physical side effects or dangers for men who have impregnated a women.
As explained in a recent article by Marcus Lee, men having abortion right's comes from the notion that fetuses are property jointly owned by men and women. This argument insinuates that if fetuses are physical property, it is unfair for a woman to have complete control over whether or not a potential piece of property can exist if she shares ownership with a man. There has been legislation aimed at making this way of thinking the law, for example the “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act” (PRENDA), would authorize civil actions for verifiable money damages for injuries and punitive damages by fathers and maternal grandmothers. This dangerous rhetoric aims to link the women and her uterus as property in which men exert rights over that of the actual woman.
Men's Rights Activists suggest that like the institution of slavery- men are powerless with the regard to impregnating women and therefore need state intervention in order to restore the power imbalance (Reality Check. No one can own a human being and certainly no one can own something that exists solely INSIDE of another human being. The very core idea behind justifying slavery was that black bodies could be owned, sold and traded like economic commodities. This notion in its entirety has to be discarded if human rights are to remain intact.
Men have overwhelmingly written and enacted the laws that effect women's bodies. Men have overwhelmingly caused abortion stigma to be perpetuated in society and it is men that can never claim that they will ever be pregnant. Just as biological reasoning exists for men to claim inherent physical and mental superiority over women, we can take that same biological reasoning and say that until a child is BORN, the fact that men provided one part of the equation that can bring about a child is not reason enough for them to claim ownership over the women who's body is housing that potential child. There can be no such thing as father's rights until there is a child born. Their part in human reproduction ends long before any physical entity exists and if women are to be equal autonomous human beings that is the way it must stay. That is reality.
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