Abortion, Parenthood and Responsibility: The Double Standard

LifeNews has a thought-provoking article reprinted from  Secular Pro-Life about the double standard men face when it comes to abortion, parenthood and responsibility.

Don’t pro-aborts tell us that a woman shouldn’t be forced to become a mother if she doesn’t want to?

Is the same true of a man? Should a man be forced to become a father if he doesn’t want to?

After all, if a woman has sex and gets pregnant but doesn’t want to be a mother, she gets to unilaterally make a decision to kill her own child in the womb. Can the father force the mother to abort the child? While some men do indeed pressure the woman they impregnated to kill their own child, the father has no legal recourse to demand an abortion if the mother of his child does not want it. If the woman insists on giving birth to the child and keeping it, can the man legally just say, “Hey, I didn’t want it” and walk away? Ah, no. Not even close.

Nor should he be able to. He has a moral and legal obligation to provide for the material well being of that child, even if he won’t own up to the responsibility of caring for and raising the child.

So why does the mother get all the choices, and the father gets no choices? Didn’t they both agree to have sex together (if both don’t agree, we have a legal/criminal problem, don’t we)? So why does only one of them have any say in what happens to the natural outcome of their sexual union?

Why do we leverage the force of government and law to force a man to meet his material responsibility for the child he created?

Is it because we’re prudish puritanicals who, using President Barack Obama’s language, want to “punish” people people for having sex? Of course not.

It’s about responsibility.

When you create a new human life, you have a responsibility to ensure that human life is cared for until it can do so on its own–usually until around the age of 18.

When you consent to have sex, you take on the responsibility for the outcome. And contrary to what Planned Parenthood tells you, even the best form of contraception isn’t always effective (I have two children conceived on the pill to prove it). Reproduction is the obvious purpose of our sex organs, and is the natural outcome of their mutual use, if no outside factors intervene. If you aren’t willing to risk the responsibility of caring for a child, keep your pants on.

And let’s not get into the “vehicle” many pro-aborts make of rape and incest. According to numerous sources of data, abortion for rape and incest typically makes up at most less than 3% of abortions and often less than one percent.

But even in cases of shattering crimes involving rape and incest, pro-aborts usually seek to punish the wrong party with a death sentence. While the rapist has certainly earned harsh punishment, what rational and compassionate person advocates punishing a child for the crimes of it’s father?

Yet this is precisely what pro-aborts advocate when they insist on the “right” to kill an unborn child because the child’s father raped the child’s mother.

No, it isn’t fair that a woman should have to carry a child–a rapist’s child–that she didn’t ask for and didn’t consent to. But the child didn’t ask for its father to rape it’s mother either; the child is completely innocent, and a healthy society does not kill the innocent. It isn’t fair when an adult child has to care for an ailing and elderly parent, nor is it fair when one spouse receives a devastating injury and must be cared for by the other spouse. Is it fair when a person gets injured in an accident and an innocent passer-by gets confronted with the obligation to render aid?  There is a nearly endless list of things which prove life isn’t fair.

When a person is helpless and in need of help, we’re all counting on someone to take up the slack. That’s what civilized, compassionate people do. And who is in the best position–who is most responsible–to take up the slack for an unexpected child? The answer is obvious: one or both of its parents.

Can we make life more fair by slaughtering an innocent child for the crimes of its father?

No, we can’t.

The one person in a pregnancy who has no say whatsoever in the situation is the child. The child has no say in who its mother or its father is, or the circumstances of its conception, or even whether it wanted to be conceived in the first place. Isn’t such a situation itself enough to garner an enormous amount of sympathy for the child?  It certainly seems reasonable.

So why would we even consider the possibility of taking a person in such a situation and condemning them to death via chemicals or being chopped apart?

ADVERTISEMENT

This article is printed with the permission of the author(s). Opinions expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the article’s author(s), or of the person(s) or organization(s) quoted therein, and do not necessarily represent those of American Clarion or Dakota Voice LLC.

Comment Rules: Please confine comments to salient ones that add to the topic; Profanity is not allowed and will be deleted; Spam, copied statements and other material not comprised of the reader’s own opinion will be deleted.

Similar Posts:

• Abortion’s Hard Case Exceptions
• RINO Attack on Pro-Life Republican Candidate
• After Botched Abortion, Hospital Leaves Newborn Baby to Scream in Pain and Die
• How Can We Tell Other People Not to Kill One Another?
• Living, Racial Radiance at the Values Voter Summit

Bob Ellis has been the owner of media company Dakota Voice, LLC since 2005. He is a 10-year U.S. Air Force veteran, a political reporter and commentator for the past decade, and has been involved in numerous election and public policy campaigns for over 20 years. He was a founding member and board member of the Tea Party groups Citizens for Liberty and the South Dakota Tea Party Alliance. He lives in Rapid City, South Dakota with his wife and two children.

Bob Ellis

View all articles by Bob Ellis