Men and women who engage in sexual congress most often do so simply because it feels good physically and emotionally. They seldom do so to conceive a new human being. That is the truth.
The rights of the “father” and the fetus are not considered before, during, or after the sexual act.
When a women becomes pregnant after the act, the burden to bare the impending “child” is almost always assigned to the woman. The man can (and often does) walk away from bearing the child or rearing it or even providing funds to support it. Deadbeat dads.
The developing fetus inside the woman is solely the woman’s burden. She knows that she will be the one to grow the fetus inside her body and then to bear the baby. The birthing is not without some major dangers. The rearing of a child takes enormous time and money. That is also her burden.
When a woman is forced to confront these burdens she may decide that the fetus growing inside of her is taking over her life and freedom and possibly going to ruin both because of the social and monetary costs.
She, not some casual sexual partner or conservative senator, must either bear the new burdens or terminate the fetus before it takes over her life.
She, alone, has the right to decide if she can and or will bear the burden of birthing and raising a child.
Passing laws to force her to bear a child that she neither desires or can afford will not cause her to not seek to terminate the pregnancy. She will get an abortion either legally or illegally. If the abortion is legal, she will probably not be injured or die because a trained medical professional will take the necessary precautions to preserve her health.
If she seeks and finds an illegal back alley abortion, her chances of injury and death are very high. She may, and probably will, suffer injury or death. What starts as just impulsive and innocent fun may end up as a disaster on a kitchen table somewhere in a back room.
The people who demand that a woman carry an unwanted fetus inside her womb have no right to demand anything. They are wrong to demand standing in a woman’s decision to bear or abort a fetus.
As for the rights of the father. The father should make his rights and desires to become a father be known before impregnating a woman. That is something that won’t and doesn’t happen during casual sex.
As for the rights of the unborn “person.” A fetus is not a person until it is born. It is a potential person. While it is inside of a woman, it is totally dependent on the body and mind of the woman. It is nothing more than a blank slate. It may have potential, but it does not have the capacity to live on its own without the woman that feeds it through the umbilicus. It is not a person and may never be a person until it is born. And even then it may die at birth.
For you who wish to cause the enslavement of women by forcing them to bear babies that will further enslave them for life, please draw up a contract to pay the woman for her time during pregnancy and for the risk during pregnancy and birthing. And if she decides to give up the baby, then the person or people who demand she bear the child will be held responsible for the rearing of the child to the age of majority. If those who demand the pregnancy go to term do not wish to make such a commitment, then they must find suitable placement of the unwanted baby with foster or adoptive parents. Every such baby must be so cared for by those demanding pregnancies go to term.
If those demanding all pregnancies go to term do not wish to accept the responsibility of paying for medical care for the woman and baby and rearing the child, then they shall remain silent as to whether the woman wishes to carry the fetus to term. The fact is that no one other than the woman should have any say in whether she wishes to carry a pregnancy to term. A woman’s body does not belong to the state or the man who made her pregnant. No religionist body shall have dominion over a woman’s body or her decision to bear a child. She has total dominion over her body always and in all respects.
Tom Beach is a resident of Waimea.
