Biology, Deal With It

Anytime the abortion discussion comes up there's someone who chimes in about how men should "have a say" in whether or not a woman keeps their child or has an abortion, blah blah. And, yes, in some ideal world where biological differentiation between the sexes wasn't exactly as it currently is that would certainly be nice. If we could star trek transport out the fetus into an incubating pool, or something, then perhaps some sort of compromise could be reached. And, yes, the whole "oops... I owe child support again!" thing might seem a bit unfair, and I certainly sympathize with individual circumstances I'm aware of where for various specific reasons the male in the situation is probably being treated unfairly.

But, much as with the "abortion is icky crowd," there really just aren't compromises that make any sense. There just aren't ways to split the difference. Either women control their bodies or they don't. Either the state determines that males are responsible, to some degree, for what develops from their seed or the state doesn't. Within that structure we can all imagine various situations where the ultimate outcome seems to have a whiff of injustice about it but those situations don't undermine the basic principles.



...ah, I couldn't find this before I hit publish but what I had in mind was this NYT column from wanker Dalton Conley:

That is her right, of course, and nobody should be able to take that away. But when men and women engage in sexual relations both parties recognize the potential for creating life. If both parties willingly participate then shouldn't both have a say in whether to keep a baby that results?

...

The bottom line is that if we want to make fathers relevant, they need rights, too. If a father is willing to legally commit to raising a child with no help from the mother he should be able to obtain an injunction against the abortion of the fetus he helped create.

In a word, uh, no.