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To say that a father should have some say in whether or not a woman has an abortion is to say that it is alright for a man to use a woman's body as a vehicle for producing a child for his own purposes. This is clearly an abuse. A man may justify this by saying that it is his child as well, but the onus of childbearing and child raising will always fall on the mother.

Any time a man chooses to have sex with a woman he runs the risk of creating a child. He knows this, as much as he may argue that he was tricked or wants to keep a baby that he has through random chance fathered. There is a very simple way to avoid this risk: don't have sex! Unless the mother is holding a gun to his head, he is choosing to risk an unwanted pregnancy.

The one exception to this would be a married couple that has agreed that if the woman becomes pregnant they will keep the child. In this case the mother has already thoughtfully taken on the risk, as has the father. Both have agreed to take on the responsibility of any child their union produces.

Is this an argument against having premarital sex? Absolutely not. This is an argument for men taking on part of the risk for an activity that brings them enjoyment, knowing that there is always a chance that a pregnancy will occur. In a sense, this is really no different than accepting that driving while drunk could end up with an involuntary manslaughter conviction. It is called assumption of the risk.

When a man chooses to have sex with a woman, he is doing so with the knowledge that if a pregnancy results this will occur in the woman's body, an area over which he has no control. Until we have a law that requires men who father children they don't want to have a vasectomy, we can only see the father's rights movement as another example of men believing that their wants and needs are more important than a woman's.

Learn more about this author, Frances Simon.
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