I would like to first set the scope of this article; this is about abortions in cases where the couple had consensual sex and there is no life-or-death health risk to the pregnant mother. In regards to cases of rape or life-or-death risks to the mother, I think it is best for a panel of women (both pro-choice and pro-life) to discuss it. The panel should include people who have gone through those situations and who have taken either direction. No man (pro-choice or pro-life) should be included in that panel and meetings. I also want to clarify before we being that I am pro life in that I believe life begins as soon as the baby starts forming in the womb.
Having set the scope of this article, it is important to address the fact that it is very important to point out that when a baby is conceived, the couple is pregnant not just the mother. The responsibility falls to both the man and the woman. Paying child support is not even near the share of responsibility that the father should take on. It is sad that the justice system makes it seem that by just paying child support, the father is off the hook. The father should be forced by the justice system to have more responsibly such as baby sitting, spending sleepless nights, taking the child places and cleaning diapers. My suggestion is that if the father fails to comply with any of those, he should pay a fine and also be sterilize. This might sound like the government intruding on areas it should not, but I prefer that than having women abort their children because they will not have the support they need. By sterilizing the bad fathers, we as society can ensure that they won't be doing that to another woman.
Sterilizing procedures might sound a little bit extremist, but it can help curve spending on social welfare. I do believe in having some sort of safety net for poor children and poor elderly, however we as society need to be smart about it. Allowing people to have a large amount of children and then ask for welfare assistance sounds really dumb. People might disagree on how many children is too much for families assisted by the government. I suggest that two is enough. If a family has two or more children and they need welfare assistance the government should sterilize the couple to prevent them from having more kids. This will free up more welfare resources for other children, like those with severe health challenges who might otherwise be aborted by couples who believe that abortion is a way to avoid the cost and time associated with taking care of a child challenged with severe health problems.
This bring another excuse people often use to justify abortion. Some people believe is OK to abort a child if the child is going to have severe health problems during his/her life. We don't often see (or even allow) parents to go their child dying of cancer and killing him/her to "spare" him/her from the pain. Many people who are born and live through sever health challenges do not commit suicide, which could mean that even if life is very tough there is either light at the end of the tunnel or there are some aspects in life that are worth living for. The same could be said about the "undesired" children, children who grew in families were they were not loved like they should. Many of them have had a terrible childhood life; but many of them are able to break away and find happiness even if it is at latter point in time or a reason to live for.
If couples are not willing to take care of their children if they are born with severe health problems, then I suggest they don't try to have babies on their own at all. There will always be risks with new babies and many parents are willing to receive their new babies as they are. If some couples are not willing to take that responsibility, then I suggest they sterile themselves to "spare" themselves from that risk. I then suggest they find an orphan toddler who looks healthy and adopt the child. I am not being sarcastic, I think this is a better solution than having the couple abort a child because the child happened to have some health problems.
Unplanned pregnancies can be avoided by abstinence or by using any kind of contraceptive. I truly believe abstinence works 100% of the time, but for people who do not believe in abstinence, contraceptives like condoms should be a no-brainier. There is no excuse for not using one. Thanks to movies, TV shows, schools, peers and the Internet, pretty much everybody knows what they are and how to use them. This responsibility should fall 100% on the man; no condom, no sex. If you are stupid enough to decide not to use them, please do society a favor and have a vasectomy (yes I am suggest this a lot, but it is very effective). Human kind does not need your stupidity genes in our Gene Pool, we have plenty enough.
If a couple do not have money to buy contraceptives, then they have bigger problems than trying to get contraceptives. Instead of spending time having sex, they probably should be spending all their spare time on finding ways of earning more money; like a second job or inventing something everybody needs. Sexual relationships are not unnecessary to human survival like food or medicines, so I do not support the government subsidizing contraceptives. We might as well subsidize video game consoles and music downloads. However, if it really comes down to either using tax money for contraceptives or aborting children, then please take my tax money and spare the babies.
The final excuse that I want to address is probably the most prominent. Women's right to choose what they want for their bodies. I do believe on individuals on having the right to do whatever they want o their bodies. If they want a tattoo or chop the ears, let them do it. Because of biological reasons, women are the ones who host the development of new humans beings in their bodies. Yes, nobody asked them, but that is just reality. So even though women do have the right to do anything they want to their body (arms, ears, liver, lungs, etc), the new human baby developing in their womb is off-limits because anything damaging the baby inside is violating the baby's right to his/her body.
This brings another popular excuse: the baby is not really a person and is just a fetus and equivalent to a liver or to a kidney and therefore has no rights. The baby inside feels pain, moves, has a brain, has a palpitating heart, digests food and breaths. To me, that pretty much shows he is a human child. I really don't understand when people give this excuse since most of that same people would rightly fight tooth-and-nail to protect a child that is outside the womb. One of the excuses is that the baby inside the womb is completely dependent on his/her mother and therefore cannot be classified as a person. This argument is moot if you consider that newborn babies are also 100% dependent on another human being for protection and for food and they are classified as persons. I honestly do not see the difference between a newborn outside the womb and a child developing inside his/her mother. They are both humans and they both depend on their mothers to survive. They should have the same rights, including the most important one: the right to life.
Having set the scope of this article, it is important to address the fact that it is very important to point out that when a baby is conceived, the couple is pregnant not just the mother. The responsibility falls to both the man and the woman. Paying child support is not even near the share of responsibility that the father should take on. It is sad that the justice system makes it seem that by just paying child support, the father is off the hook. The father should be forced by the justice system to have more responsibly such as baby sitting, spending sleepless nights, taking the child places and cleaning diapers. My suggestion is that if the father fails to comply with any of those, he should pay a fine and also be sterilize. This might sound like the government intruding on areas it should not, but I prefer that than having women abort their children because they will not have the support they need. By sterilizing the bad fathers, we as society can ensure that they won't be doing that to another woman.
Sterilizing procedures might sound a little bit extremist, but it can help curve spending on social welfare. I do believe in having some sort of safety net for poor children and poor elderly, however we as society need to be smart about it. Allowing people to have a large amount of children and then ask for welfare assistance sounds really dumb. People might disagree on how many children is too much for families assisted by the government. I suggest that two is enough. If a family has two or more children and they need welfare assistance the government should sterilize the couple to prevent them from having more kids. This will free up more welfare resources for other children, like those with severe health challenges who might otherwise be aborted by couples who believe that abortion is a way to avoid the cost and time associated with taking care of a child challenged with severe health problems.
This bring another excuse people often use to justify abortion. Some people believe is OK to abort a child if the child is going to have severe health problems during his/her life. We don't often see (or even allow) parents to go their child dying of cancer and killing him/her to "spare" him/her from the pain. Many people who are born and live through sever health challenges do not commit suicide, which could mean that even if life is very tough there is either light at the end of the tunnel or there are some aspects in life that are worth living for. The same could be said about the "undesired" children, children who grew in families were they were not loved like they should. Many of them have had a terrible childhood life; but many of them are able to break away and find happiness even if it is at latter point in time or a reason to live for.
If couples are not willing to take care of their children if they are born with severe health problems, then I suggest they don't try to have babies on their own at all. There will always be risks with new babies and many parents are willing to receive their new babies as they are. If some couples are not willing to take that responsibility, then I suggest they sterile themselves to "spare" themselves from that risk. I then suggest they find an orphan toddler who looks healthy and adopt the child. I am not being sarcastic, I think this is a better solution than having the couple abort a child because the child happened to have some health problems.
Unplanned pregnancies can be avoided by abstinence or by using any kind of contraceptive. I truly believe abstinence works 100% of the time, but for people who do not believe in abstinence, contraceptives like condoms should be a no-brainier. There is no excuse for not using one. Thanks to movies, TV shows, schools, peers and the Internet, pretty much everybody knows what they are and how to use them. This responsibility should fall 100% on the man; no condom, no sex. If you are stupid enough to decide not to use them, please do society a favor and have a vasectomy (yes I am suggest this a lot, but it is very effective). Human kind does not need your stupidity genes in our Gene Pool, we have plenty enough.
If a couple do not have money to buy contraceptives, then they have bigger problems than trying to get contraceptives. Instead of spending time having sex, they probably should be spending all their spare time on finding ways of earning more money; like a second job or inventing something everybody needs. Sexual relationships are not unnecessary to human survival like food or medicines, so I do not support the government subsidizing contraceptives. We might as well subsidize video game consoles and music downloads. However, if it really comes down to either using tax money for contraceptives or aborting children, then please take my tax money and spare the babies.
The final excuse that I want to address is probably the most prominent. Women's right to choose what they want for their bodies. I do believe on individuals on having the right to do whatever they want o their bodies. If they want a tattoo or chop the ears, let them do it. Because of biological reasons, women are the ones who host the development of new humans beings in their bodies. Yes, nobody asked them, but that is just reality. So even though women do have the right to do anything they want to their body (arms, ears, liver, lungs, etc), the new human baby developing in their womb is off-limits because anything damaging the baby inside is violating the baby's right to his/her body.
This brings another popular excuse: the baby is not really a person and is just a fetus and equivalent to a liver or to a kidney and therefore has no rights. The baby inside feels pain, moves, has a brain, has a palpitating heart, digests food and breaths. To me, that pretty much shows he is a human child. I really don't understand when people give this excuse since most of that same people would rightly fight tooth-and-nail to protect a child that is outside the womb. One of the excuses is that the baby inside the womb is completely dependent on his/her mother and therefore cannot be classified as a person. This argument is moot if you consider that newborn babies are also 100% dependent on another human being for protection and for food and they are classified as persons. I honestly do not see the difference between a newborn outside the womb and a child developing inside his/her mother. They are both humans and they both depend on their mothers to survive. They should have the same rights, including the most important one: the right to life.
Comments
How did you come to take such strong views on the issue of abortion, enough to write an article about it?
The desire to write an article in my blog was born out of several things: I saw a video about lawmakers discussing abortion outside the womb, an anti-teenage pregnancy campaign in NYC that I happened to read in an online article. What brought me to write about the "bad" fathers was seeing in my local area how many girls (many under 20) are abandoned by their boyfriends when they find out they are pregnant. It just made so mad that those boyfriends turned away from them when they were most needed and I just don't want those boys doing that to any other girl, ever.