Men Should Have No Say Womens' Abortion Decision

Thank you to Con for his response.When I talk of 'power imbalance' in sexual relationships, I'm not talking about rape or "coercion" particularly. I'm talking about ordinary, everyday sexual politics. For example, in a 2006 survey of Canadian women [1]:"Of these 2751 women [who had sex but didn't want to get pregnant], 410 (14.9%) never used contraception. Among contraception users, the most frequently used methods of contraception were condoms (54.3%), OCs (43.7%), and withdrawal (11.6%). Newer contraceptive methods were used by less than 4%. Choice of contraceptive method varied by age. Only 65.2% of respondents who were sexually active and not trying to conceive “always used” contraception." (my emphasis)How can it be, in this day and age, that women are still allowing these situations? How can they still be so much on the back foot? And, to my mind, the high incidence of abortion is a symptom of women's lack of power in ordinary, everyday sexual relations.Con thinks that "[t]he real solution is to raise boys to be better men and treat women with respect..." My own view is that women need to take control more. It's OK for us to disagree on the best means to improve the situation because it's not central to the debate.Con gives the example of Fat Fred and the wallet which, I'm afraid, I find confusing. Is Fat Fred the woman, the wallet the foetus? Or is it the other way around? But the overall principle is sound. We don't have absolute right over our bodies. We have only the rights that society/government gives us. And societies differ in terms of what rights are granted. That's the whole point of this debate, I suppose.My argument is that women should be able to decide whether they want to donate their own biological resources to another person (foetus) or if they want to keep those resources for themselves. Con is arguing that they should be forced to donate those resources against their will. This has been preamble. I will now address Con's arguments directly.P1. Foetal rightsCon argued that abortion in theory is separation of mother and foetus, but that the procedures are often direct killing methods. This is quite true. And if Con insists, we could legislate against these direct killing methods and allow only "pure" separation methods. But why? Is it more humane to have a foetus come out live and die in a kidney dish? To my mind, there's not much difference. Presumably, the doctors go for the quickest, safest, cheapest method.Abortion is "withholding support" and it's also "killing". Which term you use depends on what you want to say. In terms of foetal rights, it's withholding support. Because we do not allow any person the right to take biological resources from another against her will. Women have the right to terminate pregnancies. Is it moral for them to do so? These are two quite separate issues. It's not uncommon for women to use abortion quite casually, as a form of contraception. I can understand Con's distaste for this. I don't like it much myself. But what should we do about it? Con would like to intervene. He would like to impose his own morality on women, and force them to continue the pregnancies against their will. I find this sort of position difficult to understand. You can't end evil in the world by forcing others to comply with your own view of right and wrong. Goodness. Hasn't history shown us this over and over?P.2 Killing humans is [prima facie] immoral No, no, of course I meant "privacy" in quite a different way. I didn't mean it as the opposite of "public". That would make no sense at all. What I meant was that as a society we allow individuals freedom and control over certain moral decisions. For example. I think that bystanders should help at an accident, if they can. I think that nobody should lie to their mothers. I think people should be faithful to their partners. That everyone should make sure to pay for their fair share of drinks. That nobody should mention sociobiology at parties. But should there be legislation to force people to do these things? Of course not. Apart from the difficulty, the impossibility, of enforcing such legislation, people should be allowed to make their own choices. Of course we disagree with a lot of what they do. That’s diversity for you. And so, yes, Con thinks that abortion is immoral. Whether he is right or wrong to think so is not the issue here. The issue is: is it OK for him to take his view of morality and impose it on women in the form of some kind of restriction on their actions (legislative restriction, I’m assuming)? No, it isn’t. P.3 Anyone can take a stand against immorality Con said: "If Pro can say that murder is wrong, then he could admit that if abortion were murder, it would also be objectively wrong." This is a circular argument. Murder is, by definition, wrongful killing. Therefore, if abortion were murder, it would be unnecessary to add that it's wrong. But it's not murder. Con said "And by "stand against," I merely mean "work toward the ending of the practice."" That's hardly more clear. This how things are: 1. There are pregnant women who want to terminate. 2. There are doctors willing to do the termination. 3. Con wants to end the practice. THEREFORE: some degree of force is required to prevent the termination. Possibly, Con desires legislation against abortion which would get him the full force of the police and the legal system to help him force women to continue their pregnancies. When I said "morality is subjective", I wasn't trying to plunge into a defense of moral (or cultural) relativism! Far from it. As Charlesworth and Chinkin say: "While concerns of cultural relativism arise with respect to human rights generally, it is striking that 'culture' is much more frequently invoked in the context of women's rights than any other area." [2] And, yes, we've seen that conflict over and over again, with abortion rights, social justice, gendered poverty, female circumcision, trafficking, child marriages and female infanticide. So no, I am not arguing for moral relativism. Quite the opposite. With my "morality is subjective" comment, I was trying to point out that Con's view of morality is his own and should not be imposed onto millions of women. Nevertheless, I take note of Con's use of the term "civilized" as in "civilized countries". Civilized countries, he says, hold to the same moral standard. Presumably, countries that have a different standard are "uncivilized". Another circular argument. Con mentioned slavery and violence against women as things that are wrong even if legal. Of course. The big difference, of course, is that these are violences imposed on individuals that should be removed. And now Con is arguing for another violence to be imposed on women. He wants foetuses to grow into babies and children, and he is happy to put aside women's rights over their own bodies to achieve his aim. Of course he shouldn't "work towards ending the practice" of women having sovereignty over their own bodies. C. Therefore men can take a stand against abortion Men have often been successful preventing abortion. In fact, Roe vs Wade only existed because men had been so successful stopping abortion. If men's influence over abortion decisions were removed entirely (including past influence, which is silly, and also not part of this debate, but whatever), then women would be free to have abortions. Which is how it should be. Con is free to dislike abortion. He is free to talk prolifically about it and against it. However, his will should not be imposed on women. Nobody's will should be. If we don't want to give our bodies and our biological resources to support foetal life, then we have every right to refuse to. And nobody should force us otherwise. [1] http://www.sexualityandu.ca... [2] Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin The Boundaries of International Law:A Feminist Analysis Juris Publishing 2000. p.222