What do you think of men passing abortion laws?

[Lovely Mixture]

1. Pro-Choice.
2. As long as they have some good arguments I guess.

If a woman is raped, the baby was forced on her.
If a woman's contraception failed, she had no intention of having a baby.
If the woman is weak, she can die from having the baby.

I want women to have the choice and be free, they shouldn't be forced to have a baby because of what a man says. Yet at the same time but I don't want some Godfather II situations where the the woman aborts the child just in order to hurt the father (though if you follow the later novels not written by Puzo you find that she lied in order to hurt Michael). Cause that will just make the situation worse and bring in more controversy.

But... it's the woman's body, she has the right to do what she wants whether we like it or not. If the controversy must be had, then let it come.

 

[fireaura08]

I maintain that if the law in question deals with women's rights (ex. abortion) then they should be passed by women who actually know what they're talking about, rather then men like Rush Limbaugh who don't understand the other benefits of things such as birth control pills (they don't just stop ovulation, they also keep periods even).

 

[Beautiful Tragedy]

yes women SHOULD have the right to choose.

No men should have no say.

to add- I understand if a woman gets pregnant and the man wants it, and she doesn't that can be hard, but if you're gonna have sex with someone shouldn't it be with someone you love, and you've discussed having children... dream i live is pretty by the way.

Why should a man not have any say? (I take it you meant "No, men should have no say" instead of the double negative you wrote.) The child is as much the man's as it is the woman's. Yes, she carries the child, but it could still be in the man's heart. And what if a man isn't ready to be a father? He shirks the responsibilities thrust upon him by society and is instantly the devil incarnate.

I stand by what i said. you should not engage in sexual intercourse with someone unless you have a devotion to the person. Like being married. If some guy and some girl are both drunk, meet at a bar and she ends up pregnant, she has every right to do what she wants, it's her body..as soon as men can carry babied to term, then they can have a say.

 

[Arakasi]

Question 1: Yes, women should be able to choose.

Queston 2: The gender of the person attempting to pass or stop the legislation is entirely irrelevant.

 

[Vykrel]

Q1: I'm Pro-life
Q2: Yes I think it's fair. Leaving out the moral implications, women are not the only one's affected and as Esotera pointed out they're elected officials, it's their job.

please elaborate. who else is affected? don't say the fetus, because it has no memory and it wont suffer the slightest, thinking about what could have been.

if your argument is that the fetus is technically alive, the same can be said of sperm cells. using the same argument, one could suggest that male masturbation is basically mass murder. it isnt really fair that pro-lifers such as yourself consider a clump of cells to have the right to live, while at the same time considering a massive group of separate cells to not have that same right. aborted fetuses and spilled seed would both have wound up becoming the same result, had things been different.

anyway, regardless of whether or not that is your argument, its the first thing to consider.

second, over a million abortions occur in the US alone PER YEAR. it is safe to assume that the majority of those abortions take place because the woman is not ready or willing to have a child and raise it. imagine if abortion were to become illegal. birth rates in the US would rise by about 20%. that is a STAGGERING number. also, a good chunk of children born due to abortions being illegal would probably be put up for adoption, or would live unhappy lives, due to the fact that their parents werent prepared or up to the task of taking care of them. i should also point out that theres a chance of the woman having twins (and the twin rates are rising, by the way), so you can imagine what it would be like for a woman unprepared for even a single child being forced to give birth to two or three.

third, the woman's feelings and well-being need to be taken into account. childbirth is one of the scariest and most painful things i can imagine. i can completely understand having an abortion just to avoid it. and there are all kinds of complications that can go along with giving birth.

anyway, if abortion were illegal, i can promise you that there would be a lot more suffering in the world. i do believe, though, that the choice should be made very early on. after 10 weeks or so, the fetus really starts looking like a baby, and i dont like the idea of something so far along being terminated. i dont think it should be illegal, but i think its messed up for a woman to take her sweet time to decide whether or not to abort.

Edit: i would also not personally want my child aborted. i am a guy, but i would own up to the responsibility. i would leave it up to the woman, though. its her body, not mine. i only really have a say in what happens to the kid after it is born.

 

[The Great JT]

Personally I think the only people qualified to say wether it should be legal or not require a uterus.

However, if I may be allowed to throw in my two cents, I say make it the choice of the person. No one's forcing you to abort it.

 

[AlphaLackey]

This "should men be allowed to legislate?" question routinely comes up whenever abortion threads come up, which is surprising, because there are so many obvious holes in this reasoning that they really only bear enumerating for the sheer perversity of it all. But to wit:

#1) Are women allowed to vote on war-time measures, despite literally filling up one tiny fraction of one percent of soldier's coffins? Despite never having been conscripted in history and likely never will? Despite not being able to fight on the front lines (in the USA, at least)?

Are women allowed to vote on paternity fraud legislation?

Are women allowed to vote on testicular or prostate cancer funding?

If anyone were to suggest that women should not be allowed to vote on these issues, they would be rightfully pilloried as ignorant bigots.

#2) Inasmuch as it "takes two to tango", and inasmuch as the decision to abort or carry to term is a fixed-sum conflict between male parental rights and female parental rights, abortion legislation *does* affect men. I know the phrase "male parental rights" might look odd, given that men have none, but I'm speaking hypothetically here, so bear with me.

#3, and this is really the big one) When you look at opinion polls about abortion, the gender divide is incredibly tiny. In this 2003 poll (as seen on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States#By_gender.2C_party.2C_and_region), we notice that 39% of people overall are in favor of abortion being generally available. When broken down by gender, men are actually HIGHER than women (40% vs 37%) as being in favor. This divide pales in comparison to the differential by political affiliation (29% to 43% range) or even geographic region (33% to 48%)

Give that a moment to sink in. The gender that is supposed to be so virulently anti-woman as to be opposed to abortion are actually MORE in favor of freely available abortion than women are. It's almost as if there's no justification at all for such wanton bigotry, and really, that's all it is. The "should men be allowed to legislate on abortion?" question is nothing more than the latest installment in the modern view that masquerades man-bashing from a male point of view as "self-enlightened introspection".

PS: if I give off a vibe as being damned mad about this nonsense, then I congratulate your astute observational skills.

 

[Risingblade]

I think it should be legal but I also think life starts at conception...so yeah go ahead and get an abortion but don't say that aborted fetus wasn't a person...

As for these men passing these laws, we live in a democracy so vote for someone else next time.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

-snip

I think it should be legal, and I see no problem with having men involved in this. Should we stop straight people making laws about gay marriage or stop average politicians from making laws about mentally handicapped people? Seems silly when I put it like that isnt it? Thats because it IS silly.

 

[chadachada123]

1. Yes, I think Abortion should be legal. I also think the woman should not receive any money or possessions from the man if he wanted to abort but she refused. It's a mutual fucking decision, you're entitled to nothing.

HOLY FUCK THIS.

That women can abort without input from the man is acceptable, since there's no other option other than forcing a woman to carry to term. However, that men have no option to 'abort' their status as the father and are COMPLETELY bound by whatever the female wants is, frankly, disgusting.

Why, if the women became pregnant through consensual sex, should the father not have a right to the life of his child? Im not having a go at you but it confuses me that a woman cannot be forced to carry a child to term if she is not in mortal danger or was not consensual. Its not like she somehow has the right to opt out of a decision she made.

The issue is that pregnancy can kill a woman, especially a young or small woman not prepared for pregnancy. It absolutely sucks that a guy could lose a chance at fatherhood if the woman wants to abort, yes, but I consider it far, far worse to force a woman to put her life at risk for a guy, when the guy could, to be blunt, 'simply' find another partner that wants children. Not to mention the huge cost that child birth has if you don't have good insurance.

Even if death was impossible, the physical pain that a woman has to endure (and the psychological effects of forcing a woman to carry what amounts to a parasite inside of you) would be orders of magnitude worse than a guy losing a chance at fatherhood with a woman that doesn't want kids to begin with.

 

[FoolKiller]

Finally some food for thought. I live in Japan and an unmarried foreign friend of mine got pregnant. She went to the clinic to get an abortion and was handed a form... which required consent from both the woman AND the man in order to get an abortion. Yup, she couldn't get an abortion unless she got the man's permission too. I was pretty shocked.

I gotta move to Japan.

I've been arguing (for a long time now) that my main problem with the issue is that it is a decision that both potential parents should be involved in but only the female gets to make. I understand that it is her body, but if she were to keep the baby and he doesn't want it, then he shouldn't have to pay child support or have any connection if he doesn't want it.

 

[ecoho]

ok sheild up!

im pro-life and i think abortion is wrong but i dont think any government has the right to make it illegal.

I would argue that most pro-choice folks don't particulary like abortion much (in fact, I have seen some state that they outright hate it), but that they see it as a necessary evil. Then again, maybe you were aware of this.

(except for late term abotions. yeah you support that your not human in my eyes.)

I remain ambivalent. I do however think that if the woman suddenly develops a crippling illness, or becomes critically weak, during late-term pregnancy, to the point that childbirth could kill her, then I am definitely giving abortion a shining green light.

if you can save both you should try if its one or the other family has the right to chose. now what i was speaking about is what china does were they wait till the child is almost born then jam a nedle in the head and kill it because its much cheaper.

 

[Stripes]

1. Yes, I think Abortion should be legal. I also think the woman should not receive any money or possessions from the man if he wanted to abort but she refused. It's a mutual fucking decision, you're entitled to nothing.

HOLY FUCK THIS.

That women can abort without input from the man is acceptable, since there's no other option other than forcing a woman to carry to term. However, that men have no option to 'abort' their status as the father and are COMPLETELY bound by whatever the female wants is, frankly, disgusting.

Why, if the women became pregnant through consensual sex, should the father not have a right to the life of his child? Im not having a go at you but it confuses me that a woman cannot be forced to carry a child to term if she is not in mortal danger or was not consensual. Its not like she somehow has the right to opt out of a decision she made.

The issue is that pregnancy can kill a woman, especially a young or small woman not prepared for pregnancy. It absolutely sucks that a guy could lose a chance at fatherhood if the woman wants to abort, yes, but I consider it far, far worse to force a woman to put her life at risk for a guy, when the guy could, to be blunt, 'simply' find another partner that wants children. Not to mention the huge cost that child birth has if you don't have good insurance.

Even if death was impossible, the physical pain that a woman has to endure (and the psychological effects of forcing a woman to carry what amounts to a parasite inside of you) would be orders of magnitude worse than a guy losing a chance at fatherhood with a woman that doesn't want kids to begin with.

I did say that its different if the woman's life is in danger, not sure why people are missing that. If the woman became pregnant through consensual sex then she would have known the risks to begin with. If things dont go as planned for her but the father wants his child not to die then why should she be able to deny him said right? Its not like she was forced or didnt know it could happen so as far as I can see she accpeted the consequences of her actions when she did them. If she might die, or was manipulated or something then fine but for the most part we're on about a woman volutarily having sex and then not accpeting there were consequences. A man has a right to his childs life, if he didnt want to have the child but she did then he would still have to support it and she is forcing him to keep it, she would be taking control of his life. Isnt that equally wrong? If that reality is fine then cant it work the other way as well? Seems only fair to me.

 

[Stripes]

Why, if the women became pregnant through consensual sex, should the father not have a right to the life of his child?

Because it's not just the child's life he's gaining a "right" to. He is gaining a right to control the life of the woman the child is currently inside. What you are proposing has the unfortunate side effect of removing a woman's autonomy and handing the reins of her life over to the man who had sex with her.

The woman is the one who is at risk in a pregnancy. She is the one who deserves the right to decide to take that risk. "But I really want you to give me a baby" is an insupportable counterargument.

No one seems to care for the child here, also I did say it was different if the woman's life was at risk. If a woman gets pregnant through consensual sex then why the hell should she be able to just opt out if her own life isnt in danger? She knew what she was getting into so why on earth is she able to just say 'I dont feel like having a kid, therefore I can kill it'? Why can a oman opt out but not a man? If a woman wanted to keep a child but the man didnt then he would still have to suport it, as he should support his child. If your going to get pregnant, or chance it, then you need to have the responsibility to accpet the consequences. A man does not have the right to the life of his child, only a woman has that despite being only 1 of 2 parents. She handed the 'reins of her life' over to fate when she had sex. she had sex with a man, its not as if she was a victim of fate when she got pregnant and you cast a man who wants to keep his child as if he is somehow in the wrong. You say 'the man who had sex with her' to infer she somehow didnt have a choice in the matter. she did, so why can decide she doesnt feel like it? If a man said one day 'I dont feel like being a parent' and stopped supporting his children he would be a monster, if a woamn does the same she is some sort of victim.

 

[Stripes]

Why, if the women became pregnant through consensual sex, should the father not have a right to the life of his child?

Because it's not just the child's life he's gaining a "right" to. He is gaining a right to control the life of the woman the child is currently inside. What you are proposing has the unfortunate side effect of removing a woman's autonomy and handing the reins of her life over to the man who had sex with her.

The woman is the one who is at risk in a pregnancy. She is the one who deserves the right to decide to take that risk. "But I really want you to give me a baby" is an insupportable counterargument.

No one seems to care for the child here, also I did say it was different if the woman's life was at risk. If a woman gets pregnant through consensual sex then why the hell should she be able to just opt out if her own life isnt in danger? She knew what she was getting into so why on earth is she able to just say 'I dont feel like having a kid, therefore I can kill it'? Why can a oman opt out but not a man? If a woman wanted to keep a child but the man didnt then he would still have to suport it, as he should support his child. If your going to get pregnant, or chance it, then you need to have the responsibility to accpet the consequences. A man does not have the right to the life of his child, only a woman has that despite being only 1 of 2 parents. She handed the 'reins of her life' over to fate when she had sex. she had sex with a man, its not as if she was a victim of fate when she got pregnant and you cast a man who wants to keep his child as if he is somehow in the wrong. You say 'the man who had sex with her' to infer she somehow didnt have a choice in the matter. she did, so why can decide she doesnt feel like it? If a man said one day 'I dont feel like being a parent' and stopped supporting his children he would be a monster, if a woamn does the same she is some sort of victim.

 

[Stripes]

1. Yes, I think Abortion should be legal. I also think the woman should not receive any money or possessions from the man if he wanted to abort but she refused. It's a mutual fucking decision, you're entitled to nothing.

HOLY FUCK THIS.

That women can abort without input from the man is acceptable, since there's no other option other than forcing a woman to carry to term. However, that men have no option to 'abort' their status as the father and are COMPLETELY bound by whatever the female wants is, frankly, disgusting.

Why, if the women became pregnant through consensual sex, should the father not have a right to the life of his child? Im not having a go at you but it confuses me that a woman cannot be forced to carry a child to term if she is not in mortal danger or was not consensual. Its not like she somehow has the right to opt out of a decision she made.

The issue is that pregnancy can kill a woman, especially a young or small woman not prepared for pregnancy. It absolutely sucks that a guy could lose a chance at fatherhood if the woman wants to abort, yes, but I consider it far, far worse to force a woman to put her life at risk for a guy, when the guy could, to be blunt, 'simply' find another partner that wants children. Not to mention the huge cost that child birth has if you don't have good insurance.

Even if death was impossible, the physical pain that a woman has to endure (and the psychological effects of forcing a woman to carry what amounts to a parasite inside of you) would be orders of magnitude worse than a guy losing a chance at fatherhood with a woman that doesn't want kids to begin with.

A woman who consented to sex also consented to the possibility of a child. Therefore she consented to carrying through with that child, if she wasnt willing to do that then she shouldnt have had sex. If she was raped, or her life is in danger, then fine. However if thats not the case then she has no right to end the life of the child if the husband wishes to keep it. If neither want it then im not sure, but thats not the issue right now. Once she has it she can be done, it can be solely the mans responsibility if she desires, but it is not fair to end the life of a child when the father wanted to keep it. It is not unreasonable for someone to carry out the consequences of their actions, men might be able to 'simply' find another partner (though thats a horrible assessment of such a situation) but the fact that their child died because the mother didnt feel like carrying it to term is not something one can get over, nor is 'I dont feel like it' a viable reason for abortion in general.

 

[JimB]

No one seems to care for the child here.

I don't think you read my first post on this topic. It's back on the first page of this thread, if you want to go looking for it. I also think you've skipped over all the posts made by people who explicitly say things like, "A baby is a human being and abortion is murder."

That said, no, I don't especially care about the baby. If there comes a conflict between the rights of the mother and the rights of the fetus, I will prioritize the mother every time because she has already been born. She is unarguably a person; the fetus's status as a person cannot be described with a similar consensus. More than that, any decisions made about one mother will ripple through society to affect all women, who already suffer from enough problems with objectification in the world without us mandating that their free will be considered secondary to our perception of what's best for their babies.

I did say it was different if the woman's life was at risk.

A woman's life is always at risk during pregnancy. In a healthy woman, the risk is minimal--probably equivalent to the risk of driving a car--but there is always a chance for complication.

If a woman gets pregnant through consensual sex then why the hell should she be able to just opt out if her own life isn't in danger?

Because if you criminalize abortion in the instances you mention, you require women to have to prove to a legal authority that their lives are in danger from pregnancy, which will require tests the woman might not be able to afford and take time she might not have before the pregnancy has progressed too far to stop; or you require her to prove the sex wasn't consensual, which means her attacker will have to be convicted of rape in a court of law, which proceedings can take longer than a pregnancy does and which accusations are extremely difficult to prove as a matter of law. What you are proposing is a tribunal of people who sit in judgment of all women and pass out permission for a woman to not risk her life or to carry her rapist's child, and this tribunal is likely to be made up of people who have a political stance to further.

It is unconscionable.

She knew what she was getting into, so why on Earth is she able to just say, "I don't feel like having a kid, therefore I can kill it?"

Two things.

First, I think you definitely need to prove that a woman who gets an abortion in situations of consensual sex without predictable medical risk is doing so because she "doesn't feel like it." Without that proof, this is a horrible thing to say.

Second, you need to define things like "life," "kid," and "human" before you can argue that an abortion can reasonably be described as an act of killing; then you have to make your opponents agree with those definitions. Good luck with that. People have been stuck on that for ages.

If a woman wanted to keep a child but the man didn't then he would still have to support it, as he should support his child.

...What? What law are you referencing that says men have to support a child?

A man does not have the right to the life of his child, only a woman has that despite being only one of two parents.

Oh, spare me the tired "men are being oppressed by a woman's right to have an abortion!" claptrap. Yes, he's one of the two parents, but guess what? She is one of the one people involved whose body will be permanently changed by the process of pregnancy. The man can suck it up on this one. His desire to have a child is nowhere near as important as her right not to be secondary to his will.

You say "the man who had sex with her" to infer she somehow didn't have a choice in the matter.

Oh please. Words mean things, Stripes. If I had meant that she didn't have a choice in her sexual partner, I would have said "the man who raped her." I describe him as the man who had sex with her because that is all he is. That is all the sex act can explicitly or implicitly be inferred to mean. If you think it means she agreed to carry his child or to the possibility of having to submit to his desire to have a child, then I think you need to provide proof of her consent to those things.

If a man said one day, "I don't feel like being a parent," and stopped supporting his children, he would be a monster; if a woman does the same, she is some sort of victim.

I beg you to point out where I said or even implied women are victims. I have been arguing about who suffers the most risk and who therefore has the primary right to decide to take or inflict that risk.

 

[TWEWYFan]

Q1: I'm Pro-life
Q2: Yes I think it's fair. Leaving out the moral implications, women are not the only one's affected and as Esotera pointed out they're elected officials, it's their job.

please elaborate. who else is affected? don't say the fetus, because it has no memory and it wont suffer the slightest, thinking about what could have been.

if your argument is that the fetus is technically alive, the same can be said of sperm cells. using the same argument, one could suggest that male masturbation is basically mass murder. it isnt really fair that pro-lifers such as yourself consider a clump of cells to have the right to live, while at the same time considering a massive group of separate cells to not have that same right. aborted fetuses and spilled seed would both have wound up becoming the same result, had things been different.

anyway, regardless of whether or not that is your argument, its the first thing to consider.

second, over a million abortions occur in the US alone PER YEAR. it is safe to assume that the majority of those abortions take place because the woman is not ready or willing to have a child and raise it. imagine if abortion were to become illegal. birth rates in the US would rise by about 20%. that is a STAGGERING number. also, a good chunk of children born due to abortions being illegal would probably be put up for adoption, or would live unhappy lives, due to the fact that their parents werent prepared or up to the task of taking care of them. i should also point out that theres a chance of the woman having twins (and the twin rates are rising, by the way), so you can imagine what it would be like for a woman unprepared for even a single child being forced to give birth to two or three.

third, the woman's feelings and well-being need to be taken into account. childbirth is one of the scariest and most painful things i can imagine. i can completely understand having an abortion just to avoid it. and there are all kinds of complications that can go along with giving birth.

anyway, if abortion were illegal, i can promise you that there would be a lot more suffering in the world. i do believe, though, that the choice should be made very early on. after 10 weeks or so, the fetus really starts looking like a baby, and i dont like the idea of something so far along being terminated. i dont think it should be illegal, but i think its messed up for a woman to take her sweet time to decide whether or not to abort.

Edit: i would also not personally want my child aborted. i am a guy, but i would own up to the responsibility. i would leave it up to the woman, though. its her body, not mine. i only really have a say in what happens to the kid after it is born.

Alright.
First, I was referring to fetus and here's why. Left alone, a sample of sperm will always be a sample of sperm, nothing else. Over the course of his lifetime, a man will produce many units of sperm and most will simply be destroyed like any other set cells in his body. You were right on that mark. Meanwhile a fetus, if left alone, will grow and mature into a fully formed infant. It's not just a collection of cells, no more than we are anyway. They are not the same thing.
And if we want to stretch things further, there's also the father to consider, at least in most cases. He may not carry the child to term but the father is still losing their son or daughter.
Second, that is speculation, not a valid argument. The same could be said for standard births; maybe the parents find out they aren't ready and give the baby up, maybe they'll just be crappy parents and the kid will be miserable. It's also possible the adopted child will be happy with their new family or even the birth parents will step up and raise a happy if unexpected child. What you have raised is the possibility of unhappiness, and the same could be said for everything in life. It's not justification.
Third, you're right, it is. I'll be the first to admit that the circumstances around childbirth and abortion are rarely black and white. I'll even go out there and say there might cases where abortion could even be justified; for example if the process would actually put the mother in mortal danger. Still it's the nature of child birth and the case of normal pregnancies the pain will pass, as will the infant if the parent don't care to take of it; they put it up for adoption and never think of it again. For reasons I've stated above I believe the cost is too high.