A Man’s Right to Choose?

Fifty-five MILLION babies have been aborted in the United States since Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. Fifty-five MILLION human beings, a large percentage of whom were already moving and living, albeit in the womb. That means fifty-five million times, a woman decided to end what most Americans agree was a human life.

In each of these fifty-five million deaths, the baby did not have a choice about whether he or she should live or die.

But there is another forgotten voice in these deaths; whether he agreed or not with the mother’s decision, fifty-five million MEN were denied the right to choose to be a father. That means one person, in every single case, was given the right to make a choice that affected THREE people profoundly.

Here’s the truth: in most of these cases, the mother and the father both decided to have sex, often unprotected sex, which led to a natural, normal, and entirely predictable consequence: a human life was created. In every case where a human life is created, both the mother and the father also have an equal responsibility to nurture and care for that human life, and a financial responsibility to ensure the child is materially cared for. This is well-established in case law.

But the father is denied the right the mother has been given by law: the right to choose whether or not to bring that life into the world. Even if the man offers to take full responsibility for that child, allowing her to sign over all legal rights and responsibilities toward it, he still has absolutely no say in whether or not to abort that child. While she may take his feelings into consideration, she has the full right to make a decision that affects not just her life but his.

In cases where the mother’s life is not threatened, she was not impregnated through rape, and the father is willing to shoulder the entire responsibility of caring and providing for the child, why should she not be required to continue that pregnancy for the remaining months? There is no longer any shame attached to childbirth out of wedlock; today more than half of American children are already born to parents who are not married. Over seventy percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers. Far from being shameful, it has become the norm.

So the mother should have say over her own body, argues Roe v. Wade. Should not the father likewise have say over HIS own body? Mother and father both made the same error in judgment that led to a baby’s conception. Up to this point, they are equally responsible. But if the mother chooses to bear the child to term – another choice the father can NOT make – he becomes financially responsible for that child until it reaches maturity. Eighteen years of child support surely matches, in hours, the amount of time a woman is required to carry the child under her heart until he is born.

Does it not make sense that the man should have an equal say in the effective enslavement of HIS labor that a woman has in hers?

If a woman has the right to choose not to be a mother, the man should have the right to choose not to be a father.

This is, of course, nonsensical, though it is logically consistent with the arguments in favor of unilateral abortion (that is, abortion where the mother alone has the right to choose). When a child is conceived, a mother and a father are also created. Both should live up to their respective responsibilities instead of shirking them. It is by taking responsibility for one’s errors that one becomes an adult. And it is by having a committed mother and father that emotionally and psychologically healthy children are created. When the dodging of these responsibilities becomes acceptable in a culture, it becomes a cancer on that society’s collective soul.

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