Alright, so its been a while since I've written an opinion piece. And why not go with the touchy subject of why I don't think fathering a child necessarily (key word) means having to be financially responsible.
I was born to a single mother and have never met my father, my mother was also a complete failure as a parent and I was raised in foster care. Just to give you a small understanding of where I'm coming from.
We don't live in a perfect world, and if we did ... well, everything would be perfect and there would be no need for this post. But alas, we don't.
I think women have an unfair advantage because we bare the children and we are responsible for the decision to bring that child to term or not. We can 100% decide whether or not to keep the child or to abort the pregnancy.
We live in a world, where unfortunately, women sometimes trick men, and end up getting pregnant. Whether it be a casual fling or a committed relationship ... women have lied about being on the pill, being infertile etc. When they are not, and they are hoping to get pregnant. Sometimes just because they want a child, sometimes because they just want to trap someone else into staying with them.
These are primarily the situations I am referring to, where the male is under the impression that measures are being taken to protect there are no unwanted pregnancies, and have expressed that they don't desire to have any children at this point in time.
An unwanted pregnancy is an unwanted pregnancy, whether on the behalf of the mother or the father. And I'll state now that I am pro-adoption, and believe that abortion shouldn't be the first choice, but that it should be left as a choice ... there are too many factors and unique situations to advocate wholly pro-life or pro-choice ... ideally adoption is the answer for unplanned or unwanted pregancies, but not everything is ideal.
The male counterpart, right now, has no option when he finds himself in a situation where there is an unwanted pregnancy and the mother wants to keep the baby. He is SOL, he has 18 years of child support ahead of him. Whereas a woman does have the decision to end a pregnancy she does not want to be responsible for.
If I could create legislation, I'd try to make it optional for a father to sign off on his rights to parent hood, when it has been clear from the start that they weren't ready for a child, and a mother is insisting on keeping the child. A bad choice shouldn't make someone responsible for the rest of their life. Nor should a woman be forced into giving up that child, but if she is aware that she'll be doing this all on her own, she might give it a little more thought. Because once again, I'm talking about situations primarily where a woman is being deceitful about her intentions. Forgetting to put a condom on should never been an excuse.
I'd say then the opposite should also be true, if a woman doesn't want the pregnancy and the father does, she shouldn't be allowed to abort, but should be allowed to sign off on her responsibilites. Unfortunately, the flaw in that, is that the woman would have to carry an unwanted child, and tests have proven that there are effects to a fetus when a woman is emotionally stressed (for lack of a better word). And I believe the the mother's health and well being (emotional or physical) should take priority.
Those are my thoughts, I know not many feel the same.
