Is abortion only the womans right to choose?

If its a womans body to do with what she wants,then she is also responsible for ALL financial obligations,no matter what those obligations are,for whatever decision she makes.
If she keeps the pregnancy secret,then the father is not obligated to pay support.
If she has an abortion,then the man is not obligated to pay for it.

How hard is that?

mysteryman wrote:

If its a womans body to do with what she wants,then she is also responsible for ALL financial obligations,no matter what those obligations are,for whatever decision she makes.
If she keeps the pregnancy secret,then the father is not obligated to pay support.
If she has an abortion,then the man is not obligated to pay for it.

How hard is that?

It's extremely hard if you articulate no basis for your conclusions.

Mills75 wrote:

Ideally, an argument should not be structured like an O. Henry short story or an M. Night Shyamalan screenplay. In other words, an argument shouldn't have a surprise ending. I suggest that, if you have a rationale, you divulge it rather than keeping us all in suspense.

We now know, as a result of your response to my hypothetical, that the reason why you consider it "unfair" for the man to pay more than just his share of the cost of an abortion is not because you consider it unfair for one person to pay when another person chooses. There must, therefore, be some other explanation. As far as I can tell, you have offered three: for convenience, I'll label them "reasonable expectation," "participation vs. imposition," and "viability of options."

Reason No. 1: Reasonable Expectationlogically hold." Furthermore, you claim that "it isn't logic that forces parenthood on men at the discretion of women once conception has occurred, it's an irrational moral code based in antiquated religious belief." I'm not sure how that constitutes a logical argument (you have neither laid the foundation nor followed the requirements for a deductive argument), but we'll ignore that deficiency for the moment.

As I see it, your goal here is to set forth an objective standard for judging whether a woman's choice is "reasonable" or not. If a woman, in other words, chooses to have a child rather than have the abortion that the potential father would prefer, that choice would be objectively unreasonable. And that may be so: I offer no opinion on that point. But you fail to explain why an objective standard, in this case, should be privileged over a purely subjective standard.

Reason No. 2: Participation vs. Imposition. My guess is that you'd answer that, in the case of the woman deciding whether or not to have a child, she is not a victim.

Rather, she participated in the initial "accident," so she bears partial responsibility (unlike the Pedestrian in my hypotheticals). In that case, your "reasonable option" argument is merely subsumed under your "participation vs. imposition" argument (which I suspect is the case).

The "participation vs. imposition" argument only works if one assumes that the pertinent decision is the woman's decision whether or not to have the child.

But, as I pointed out before, one could also look at the pertinent decision as the one to have unprotected sex in the first place. If the focus is placed on the sex rather than the aftermath, then we see two willing, informed volunteers, not one. In that case, neither the man nor the woman can complain about bearing the costs of their decision, whatever that might be.

Your task here, Mills, is to explain why the focus is on the woman's decision to have the child rather than the man's decision to participate in unprotected sex. You've had one opportunity to do that and failed to offer a persuasive rationale; I'm offering you a second chance.

Reason No. 3: Viability of Options. You've now raised another reason for exempting the man from paying for the woman's choice: the man should only be held to pay for his share of any "viable" option. But this is simply a red herring argument. As you've already stated, in response to my hypothetical, a person can choose even a "non-viable" option as long as she is a victim rather than a participant. Or, as you point out, "if the male had somehow misled the woman about contraceptive usage (perhaps it was a dark room and he said he was wearing a condom when he really wasn't, or maybe he said he had a vasectomy), then he would be obligated to whatever consequences may arise from the woman choice in the event of pregnancy." The "viable option" reason, therefore, is entirely subsumed under the "participation vs. imposition" rationale: if someone has a choice imposed upon them, then they can require the "imposer" to pay for the choice regardless of its "viability." There is, consequently, no reason to explore this rationale any further: it is irrelevant to your argument.

Addendum: The Unexplored Complication. As I see it, you really have only one rationale: the "participation vs. imposition" argument. And, as I mentioned above, there are actually good arguments to be made in support of this rationale. But those arguments can only be made if there are two parties involved in the equation: the injured volunteer and the putative injurer. Things get much more complicated, however, if there are three parties involved: a volunteer, an injurer, and an innocent bystander.

In the case of a woman choosing to give birth, the innocent bystander is, arguably, the baby. We can say that the woman has been injured by the father, but in truth the injury is done to the child, who is the one who truly suffers if the father does not provide any financial support. Furthermore, like most innocent bystanders, the baby has no say in this matter: if he is injured, it is the result of the decisions made by both the parents.

The question, then, is: why is the baby not treated like the Pedestrian in my hypothetical, i.e. as a victim rather than as a participant? Since victims (but not participants) get to make any decision they want, and the injurer is required to pay (as you yourself admit, Mills), why doesn't the baby get to make a decision here? We can assume that, from the baby's perspective, the best option would be the one that yielded the largest amount of money, and so the baby would presumably want both parents to pay the maximum. Your task, Mills, is to explain how the baby fits into this picture. Is it a victim or a participant?

This is an inaccurate oversimplification. You seem to have a great desire to break things down into their elements and try to make them work individually as the whole does; do you frequently dismantle the engine in your automobile and then wonder why you have trouble starting it?

The "reasonable expectation" derives from other already clearly elucidated factors. The "viability of options" and "participation vs. imposition" support and define what makes an expectation reasonable.

This isn't a logicalargument at all but a statement of fact. I would have thought you'd have recognized the difference.

That our moral code is rooted in religious doctrine-- not rationalism, objectivism, or science--is elementary.

Favoring the objective over the subjective is at the very heart of fairness and justice. To be subjective is to be biased, to be objective is to be unbiased. Fairness and Justice require a lack of bias and, thus, they require objectivity. I no more failed to explain this than I failed to explain that the sun dawns in the east and sets in the west. It is something every grammar school child understands, and one would not be remiss to expect such knowledge on the part of those with whom he or she converses.

joefromchicago wrote:

Reason No. 2: Participation vs. Imposition. My guess is that you'd answer that, in the case of the woman deciding whether or not to have a child, she is not a victim.

You don't have to hazard a guess, you just have to read more attentively. I explicitly state this numerous times.

Actually, the fact of her willing participation is part of what defines what would be reasonable or unreasonable for her to expect, but this has already discussed.

joefromchicago wrote:

The "participation vs. imposition" argument only works if one assumes that the pertinent decision is the woman's decision whether or not to have the child.

There isn't a single "pertinent" decision, but a succession of decisions each giving rise to the possibility of the next. The first decision, for our purpose, is whether or not to have sex. The second is whether to have protected sex or unprotected sex (the protection, however, isn't always effective so this decision is sometimes moot). The last decision, for our purpose, is whether to abort or carry the pregnancy to term should conception occur.

You seem to have confused yourself again. The debate is about justice and fairness, not what is legally or socially required under the current system. The debate isn't over whether or not either party to coitus can complain about bearing the costs of their decisions (which, of course, they can if they so choose regardless), but rather what those costs should be.

The decision to participate in consensual unprotected sex (which isn't really germane to the argument to begin with) is a joint decision, not the man's decision alone. The decision to abort or carry the pregnancy to term is solely the woman's. Science and nature have empowered the woman to make the final decision in procreation, thus the focus is on her. This has, however, been adequately addressed already so you may retain your proffered "second chance" (you really should try to be a more active reader).

I'm beginning to question your sincerity. The above shows a gross level of misunderstanding one wouldn't have thought possible on the part of an adult literate in the English language. Or is this obtuseness feigned and merely a rhetorical strategy?

"Participation vs. imposition," as you call it, does not subsume "viable option," but rather it is the exception to "viable option." "Viable option" relates to fairness/justice (even a child understands this concept) while "participation vs. imposition" delineates those instances when what is fair/just change.

And yet another example of clouding the issue. The baby is neither victim nor participant. The baby is a nonentity in this debate because the baby has no identity or existence separate from that of the mother until well over halfway through the pregnancy. If, however, the woman simply doesn't realize she is pregnant until it's too late to abort (it's fairly rare but does happen), then adoption would take the place of abortion in this argument.

Those conclusions are based on my opinions,along with a basic sense of fairness.

The position: If conception occurs as the result of consensual intercourse, and there is no prior agreement between the parties concerning what would happen in the event of conception, then the male's only obligation should be to pay half the cost of an abortion.

The argument: Given that the female partner can choose to have an abortion instead of carrying the pregnancy to term, she has no reasonable expectation of long-term financial support from the male partner should she choose to carry the pregnancy to term.

The justification: If one is presented with a choice between alternatives that are equally viable to one's person (equal in financial cost, safety, etc.), and if those alternatives represent differing viabilities to another person, and if one has not been placed in the position to make said choice unilaterally by that other person, then one is required by any rational sense of justice to choose the alternative that is most viable to the other.