Saturday, August 25, 2012

Autonomy and responsibility

Apparently the Democrat convention is going to load the speaker roster with abortion apologists. This is to reinforce its demagogical claim that Republicans or conservatives are waging a “war on women.”

Here I’d like to venture a brief observation. On the one hand we’re told that whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term should be entirely up to the mother.

On the other hand, we also hear the complaint about “deadbeat dads.” Men who father kids, then abandon them.

However, you can’t expect men to assume responsibility for the kids they sire if, at the same time, you deny them any say in the process. If our society demands from men that they support the kids they father, then fathers ought to have an equal say with mothers.

Of course, I don’t think either fathers or mothers have the right to kill their children. My immediate point, however, is that you can’t blame men for impregnating a woman (through consensual sex), then deserting her if, at the same time, you say the mother should have the sole say on the fate of the child.

It’s understandable that women don’t want to be stuck with raising a child alone. (Of course, they can usually avoid single motherhood by avoiding premarital sex.) But if they expect the man to stick around and fulfill his paternal duties, then they can’t cut him out of the decision-making process. They have to forfeit their autonomy if they expect the man to pitch in and do his part. Don’t disempower fathers at the same time you complain about irresponsible fathers.  

1 comment:

  1. On a related note:

    On the one hand, many secularists think it's morally wrong to teach children creationism. For example, while Richard Dawkins thinks it's tantamount to child abuse, others like Bill Nye believe it's morally wrong because (so goes the argument) teaching children creationism makes them believe what's false (creationism) over what's true (neo-Darwinism) and somehow turns them into blind faith adhering automatons rather than reasonable freethinkers, all of which in turn deprives our nation of its future intellectual capital. Not only are we robbing these children of a potential future career in science but we're also robbing America of its future scientific leaders and innovators.

    On the other hand, many secularists think it's morally permissible for a woman to kill her unborn child. Why doesn't killing our children in utero rob our nation of its future intellectual capital in a more egregious way than teaching them creationism could ever do? We're not even giving our children a chance to do a single thing in life by killing them before they're born.

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