Okay, I'm sure I'm going to stir up a storm with this article, but this issue has surfaced several times in my life, and I just can't understand it. Let's discuss a couple of hypothetical situations about abortion, totally gender neutral, by assigning the titles of Parent X and Parent Y (with no relationship given to chromosomes for gender determination). Both of these situations have basic assumptions, which are that the couple are a "traditional" couple (one male, one female), the female in the relationship is newly pregnant (meaning not far along in the pregnancy, and late term abortion is not an issue), and there are no medical concerns for the mother if it is decided to bring the child to term. It doesn't matter if they are married or not. I'm also not concerned with the whole dispute of whether abortion is right or wrong. It's legal, and thus there is no ethical judgement about abortion itself in these scenarios.
SITUATION 1:
Parent X decides that they want the child. Parent Y decides that they do NOT want to have the child, and would rather have an abortion performed. They disagree, and go to court to fight it out. It is determined that based on our current laws, Parent X has the right to have the couple have the child, and Parent Y is responsible to help financially support the child until the child reaches 18 years of age.
So, the determination is that if even one parent wants to have the child, then the other parent has no legal right to change the situation, and must be responsible to help (at least financially) raise the child (it does take two to tango after all, and both parents should be held responsible for their actions).
Okay, that is all fine. Now on to SITUATION 2:
The same Parent X decides that they do NOT want the child, but this time Parent Y wants to have the child. Parent Y even goes so far as to say that they will raise the child alone, and have sole responsiblity for raising the child, if Parent X will only allow the pregnancy to come to full term. They disagree again, go to court again, but this time there is a different result. The court rules that Parent X can decide to not go through with bringing the child to term, and Parent Y has no right to disagree.
So, in this case, even though Parent X was responsible enough to help create a child, they are not held responsible for it, and can decide to choose abortion as an option for the pregnancy, regardless of what Parent Y wants.
How is this fair? How does Parent X get to make all the decisions?
In case you haven't figured it out, in our current legal system, Parent X would be the woman in the relationship, and Parent Y would be the male. So, in situation 1, the woman can decide to have the child if she wants, and the male is required by law to help support the child. But, turn the tables around, and if she wants to have an abortion, she legally has that right, REGARDLESS of what the father wants. What happened to being responsible for your actions? If the male is responsible for supporting the child for 18 years, why can't the female be held responsible to bring the child to term for 9 MONTHS?
Now, before I'm labeled as an anti-woman, anti-abortion fanatic, let me explain my point. I'm all for women having the right to choose if they want. I just want the system to be fair. I think the laws should change to represent one of two options. Either 1) women are free to choose to have the child or not, but then the men can't be legally held responsible, or 2), if men are going to be held legally responsible, then the women should be too, and should have to carry the child to term if the father wants (given that he is then legally responsible to contribute to raising the child, and not just financially).
Now sure, I know that the second scenario probably doesn't happen all that often, but I guarantee that it does happen at least occassionally. I just can't fathom how our system has all of these laws set up to protect "mothers' rights", yet very little to protect "fathers' rights". Am I the only person to not understand this?