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Male freedom of choice?
Should men be legally able to opt out of supporting a child that is the product of an unplanned pregnancy?
That is, if a woman and a man are not planning to have children and the woman gets pregnant and decides not to abort, should the man be forced to pay child support?
Consider: once the woman is pregnant, she has the choice as to whether she will ultimately become a mother by carrying to term, but as of now (legally), the man has no choice as to whether the woman carries to term and makes him a father. Forcing him to pay child support is, in effect, holding him responsible for a decision that the woman makes, the decision not to abort.
You might say, "No, he is being held responsible for his decision to have sex!" But this is the exact same argument used in favor of forcing women to carry a child to term and denying them abortion rights: if they would rather not carry a child to term, then they should just not have sex in the first place.
The arguments are symmetrical here, but the legal situation is not. In order to be logically consistent in the case of unplanned pregnancies, you must affirm both abortion rights for women and opt-out rights for men, or deny both rights to both parties.
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dang i just said that
