Quote:
Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
No, the "opt out" concept is premised on that fact that (i) you can unilaterally trump the "rights" of the mother over the fetus, but (ii) the father has no say in the matter.
1) The argument that "it's her body, she chooses" really doesnt work, because he then has a legal obligation to pay for 18 years thereafter.
2) I would also suggest that it if is indeed a defined right or entitlement, then declining the male any say in the matter - when his fiscal rights are seriously at issue - violates the Equal Protection clause
3) The repsonse "well, he chose to do it" can easy be countered with the argument "well, so did she". Yet you chose to give her an easy out, and he has no say for 18.75 years.
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As a threshold issue, the "opt out" can only exist where abortion remains legal.* Where abortion is illegal, its mooted. You can't illegalize abortion and opt out of responsibility when you impregnate someone. So if you support the opt out, by necessity, you support the right to choose. The opt out, I think, is a way of crediting the man (by decreasing his financial obligations) for the fact that he does NOT want the child, i.e., he wants the woman to abort. If she can't abort by law, then she's not having the child against the man's wishes. Therefore, he can't get any "credit" for the fact that he wants to her to abort (either logically, or as a matter of contract law, since one can't get credit for another's refusal to engage in an illegal act [no cosideration]).
The "opt out" is also limited and non-applicable to our debate. It addresses a situation in which the woman wants to keep the child and the man wants her to abort. The situation we've been arguing for days involves a woman wanting to abort.
You haven't made any case for allowing a man to force a woman to bear his child where she wants to abort. The law looks to competing interests, and in that hypo, the woman's interest wins every time.
*I assume you didn't raise the opt out idea until you were asked to explain it because you realized it didn't apply to what we were discussing.
