Abortion should be consensual

Over the course of the majority of human history this debate was nonexistent. Reliable abortion was not invented until the 20th century, and has been accepted by the majority in office that it is the inalienable right of a woman to do as she chooses with her body, and to therefore do as she chooses with the inhabitant inside, as they affect her body, and her body alone. This is considered acceptable so long as the future child is not considered to have rights of their own affected by the mother. I do not intend to belittle a woman"s right to do as she chooses with her body, but to show that it is not her body alone that is affected, on the basis that the creation inside of her is not only hers, and was created through voluntary process, with knowledge of the risks and potential consequences. Currently pregnancy is legally considered nothing more than a medical condition until a certain amount of weeks pass and the woman is deemed to be something of great enough significance to be granted human rights. Now if the woman decides to keep the baby up to the legal time limit of abortion, and changes her mind, it"s too late. She has naturally contracted herself to the remainder of the pregnancy, and must take responsibility for her actions, and lack thereof, or face legal penalty. We can justify this, since she had full knowledge of her rights, and voluntarily chose to put off getting the abortion, and she is not the only one affected anymore. But was she ever the only one affected to begin with? No, because the story goes farther back than this, to before the moment of conception. In my country (America), every form of contraception is labelled with the chance of success at avoiding pregnancy. They typically range from 90% for some methods to 99% for more reliable methods, like "the pill". It is commonly known among adults, that the only way to avoid pregnancy with utmost certainty is to avoid vaginal penetration. Therefore, if both parties consensually agree to allow such an event to happen, they are in implicit agreement that they are willing to accept any consequences that may arise, like possible STD"s, or pregnancy etc" It should then be assumed that both parties should already have a course of action that they plan on taking in the case that one of these possible, universally known consequences were to arise. So these two parents read the rules, decided to play the game together, then proceeded to roll the two dice of pleasure, and lost". Now what? Here is a basic break down of our current system. Mom says Abort 1.The father is forced to agree. a.The father was not strongly opposed to begin with, but was willing to raise the child. b.The father has deep set values against abortion and will be haunted for breaking them. c.The father fully agreed the entire time anyway, and has dodged the bullet of parenthood Mom says Keep 2.The father is forced to agree a.The father will come around eventually and help raise the child. b.The father will have to pay child support. c.Both parents consent to give the baby up for adoption. Now as we can clearly see from options 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, and 2b, the father has absolutely no input on whether to keep the child. Whether or not he is willing to bear the load of parenthood for the rest of his life he has absolutely no input at all, despite the entire series of events leading up to this being entirely equal in responsibility, and despite the fetus being of equal result from both parents. 1 Egg, 1 sperm. Mom and dad undoubtedly share the child. This is the problem we have to address and it is not an easy one, since neither the man nor the woman has done anything wrong, but is now facing the natural consequence of pregnancy, of which the woman undoubtedly carries the greater load with a nature that we cannot treat people ourselves. Nature is indeed unjust, and if not for that I believe there would be no debate at all. However, here we are so back to the topic at hand. Earlier I established that there is a moral point at which the woman has already decided her actions as she has a right to do by legal time limit at which an abortion can be permitted. I propose that this right be shared equally by the man and the woman, but how can we justify this? How can the man possibly decide that the future child is worth more than her 9+ months of pregnancy? Well, the partners can"t possibly weigh his willingness and need to keep the child, against her unwillingness to keep it, unless they ask each other. It is their responsibility as moral human beings to do this ahead of time, and as such should be legally mandated in some shape or form. After all, if the consequences of sex are not mutually understood, then how could it have ever been consensual in the first place? A man and woman should not have sex without understanding of the potential consequences of their actions. Now I"m not saying you have to read people the Miranda rights, and ruin the moment. I"m saying that under this mentality, it would be possible to say that if you consent to have sex, you consent to the equal right to make the decision with no greater power then your partner, whether they be a man or a woman. But that"s not fair! Women have more to lose. This goes back to what I said before. "Well, the partners can"t possibly weigh his willingness and need to keep the child, against her unwillingness to keep it, unless they ask each other." When the partners consent to have sex, Dad already needs to accept that he might have to raise a child, pay child support, or watch mom abort, and I believe he should also be legally (morally) obligated to support the pregnancy as well. I am simply stating that Mom needs to consent as well, that she may have to endure pregnancy, and either raise the child or pay child support if appropriate, OR, she can always protect her body by refusing to have sex, just as men have had the obligation to do for some time. We can"t make pregnancy fair, but we can at least make the system that leads to it fair. I am only going to follow up with this. My personal view is that it is her choice. My stance on religion and values is that others' views are that there is no choice. I believe constitutionally (America) it is our duty to protect the rights of everyone. The right of one person should not infringe upon the right of another. That is amendment #9, and it is a statement I agree with. The only way I see of ensuring both the woman"s right to protect her body and both partners right to live according to their own system (religion), and pursue happiness (child) is to make the decision to abort, let live, talk about it later etc, done prior to the decision to".you know, consent. 1)http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org... http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com... 2)http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com...