I have not waded into the debate over abortion, for many reasons. But today we should recognize that one person in the equation has been ignored, even dismissed as irrelevant. What I will write will mark me as anti-feminist, anti-woman, anti-abortion and probably more antis than we can think of. Who is forgotten? The father of the fetus is not even spoken of as the decision to abort is taken.
Biology is not my forte, but without the father, there is no baby in the womb. Basic logic then sees three people intimately involved in the abortion process. The mother, the baby and the father — yet in all the heated rhetoric over abortion, we never see the father’s side or consider his rights.
Those on the far left, believe that Roe v. Wade mandates that abortion on demand is the law of the land. When a woman wants an abortion, she can get it. Now two states have even decreed that it can take place through the third trimester of the pregnancy. The woman, and she alone, has the right to make this decision.
To posit that the father must have a say in such a procedure will elicit a cry from the far left’s women to keep our hands off this procedure. Yet I have seen fathers who have deep and abiding love for their children, especially when illness strikes or trouble engulfs one of their own. To paraphrase Shylock, in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, “Do we not love as mothers love? Do we not hurt for our children as they do? When you prick ours, do we not feel the pain?”
A man becomes a father when he impregnates a woman. That is simple biology. Many have been the times when his child is aborted, even against his wishes. Any claim that only the woman has rights here is a canard. Three are in the equation, mother, child and father. It is an undeniable fact of life that when a child is born, the father becomes liable for the financial support of that child. If the father is so responsible after birth, it is not a stretch to consider his rights as to the continued life of the child in the womb.
Of course, many fathers have no problem with aborting his child, but there have been many instances of fathers trying to prevent the killing of his unborn child.
Since heartbeats of a fetus can be detected as soon as 21 days after conception, I propose a change in the laws concerning abortion. This change will recognize the rights of the father, who must be informed of the proposed killing operation, and give his consent before it can be performed. Financial support of the woman during the pregnancy will be mandatory if the father refuses permission, but the third person in the equation, who has a uniqueDNA structure, will be protected from the abortionist’s knife.
Men have been ignored too long where abortion is concerned. Let us begin the process of balancing the scales of justice where our children, our unborn children, are involved.
If you read this and disagree, please let me know where my simple logic and reasoning have gone off the rails.
On a related subject, abortion supporters have long talked about the “right” to an abortion, which is enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The seven Supreme Court Justices who made the Roe v. Wadedecision in 1973 went through legal contortions to justify their decision. Because it is regarded as a right, then no law, either federal or state, can diminish it. These same people also talk about the right to free speech, the free exercise of religion, the freedom of the press and of assembly.
Yet when another right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights come up, no such purity is demanded. That is the Second Amendment, the right to “keep and bear arms.” Far left politicians will demand that no diminution of abortion rights can take place, but will attempt to limit the right to bear arms or even confiscate weapons.
Can anyone say hypocrisy? You can’t have it both ways — if one right is “sacred”, than all rights are. Those defending an absolute right to an abortion must, in order to be consistent in their thinking, also agree that there is an absolute right to bear arms. I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen.