Pregnancy and the lack of authority the man has over his child's life is one of the arguments that really gets me riled up. As a father I couldn't imagine being told "I'm pregnant. I don't want it. And I'm not discussing this, period" is a fear of good men who want children.
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I can appreciate you wanting some kind of autonomy over a child in the making, however since it's not your body that the foetus grows in - and you would only have half the responsibility of raising the child - it makes sense for you to make sure the woman you're intending to get pregnant is on board with you having a say. If she wants the pregnancy just as much as you do, she's more likely to want your input.
If you're talking about you being careless and accidentally getting a woman pregnant, well, that's on you. If you feel so strongly about it, you should be careful enough to not get into it in the first place. Men are less likely to end up in a pregnancy situation that they don't want. While woman on man rape happens, I'm willing to bet the figures for men ending up making their rapist pregnant is pretty damn unusual compared to women being raped and falling pregnant.
After all the above is said, though, accidents do happen. If it was a genuine accident, then both parents really do need to be on board and if they're not, I still reckon the woman has a right to terminate. It's too big a life-changer for a woman just to shrug and say, "oh well, it doesn't really suit me to have a kid but if you want to..."
I understand your fear, but you are not the one whose body becomes captive to a pregnancy. You are not the one who will have her health and perhaps even her life endangered. And in most cases, you are not the one who will spend the next eighteen years fulfilling the needs of a child, forever on call to deal with emergencies big and small, a combination of cook, laundress, teacher, enforcer, soother of fears and wiper of tears.
In short, your risks and your efforts are unequal to those of your wife. Her contribution is greater. No babies UNLESS SHE AGREES. The alternative is you being a slave-master and a bully, and I don't give good odds for the success of your marriage.
I also notice you mention "authority" over your child's life. Apparently you are not one of the "good" men who want children.
Well, you should come to an agreement before she gets pregnant. It's her body so she still has a say in what happens to it. And when you say "authority a man has over his child's life," it makes me think that you shouldn't have kids in the first place because it sounds like you don't want children, you want perfect little clones of yourself.
When pregnancy affect your body, you can have a say. If you are opposed to abortion, I know this will be a difficult concept for you to understand but I'll try to explain it simple, talk to people before you start banging. Ask a potential sex partner what she would want to do should your contraception fail. If you do not like the answer, do not have sex with her. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Took me a while to understand the last sentence, which he probably intended to read:
As a father I couldn't imagine being told "I'm pregnant. I don't want it. And I'm not discussing this, period". That is a fear of good men who want children.
Shame he's a father, really.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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