Should men have the choice to terminate their parental rights and responsibilities prior to week 24?
I think they should have the right to terminate their rights and responsibilities so long as that doesn’t include terminating the child. I also think it should include giving up the rights to sire any future children, as in irreversible surgery. I don’t think a traditional vasectomy would do that. So it would have to include either full removal of the vas deferens or castration. If you aren’t willing to raise a child, keep it in your pants.
This is a situation which can never be 100% fair. Women SHOULD have more rights because the fetus is inside their bodies, and whether a woman chooses to get an abortion or go through with the pregnancy, it’s going to affect her body, not his. So, letting a man just shrug off his responsibility by just saying so is much easier than it is for a woman. On the other hand I understand that, once pregnancy starts, it’s also unfair that only the woman has any choice in the matter. I believe that if this choice is given to men, they will become even more irresponsible than some of them already are.
Hell no. there are already too many men who don’t bother to support their kids as it is. Giving them a legal option to be deadbeat dads is not the answer. I can truly empathize with men who were forced to have children. My ex wife was on birth control pills and secretly stopped taking them. She then hid the pregnancy from me until well after an abortion would have been an option, yet I did not hesitate to own up to my responsibility. no matter how much it sucks, the baby did not make itself. If there were a way for these men to switch the baby to their bodies so they would have the option, i would be all for that, since that would level the playing field some. Otherwise, no matter how the baby got here, nothing changes the fact that there is a living child that you helped create.
Ah, now THIS question is guaranteed to stir the pot, THAT’S for sure! +5 right off the bat for it! (I already gave you the points a couple hours or so ago…I just haven’t had a chance to come back and post my own answer!) I am not for a man “terminating his parental rights and responsibilities” at all. Mostly because the flip side of this question, that of the woman’s legal right to abortion, is something I’m not all that crazy about either. Before people automatically jump in and DR me, I’ve already made my stance known previously on the subject of abortion, and it’s NOT quite so simple as most people assume it to be. Feel free to visit my profile for the appropriate links under “ETHICS” and “Abortion”. But to put it in short terms here: I am against elective abortion for the sole purpose of convenience of the woman OR the man. For details, as I said, visit my profile. But the subject of fairness is one of great concern here, with respect to any unborn child and BOTH the parents. It
