{"id":825,"date":"2004-04-28T10:43:57","date_gmt":"2004-04-28T18:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/04\/28\/should-male-legislators-decide-if-abortion-is-legal\/"},"modified":"2004-04-28T10:43:57","modified_gmt":"2004-04-28T18:43:57","slug":"should-male-legislators-decide-if-abortion-is-legal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=825","title":{"rendered":"Should male legislators decide if abortion is legal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the comments at Winds of Change<\/a>, WoC reader “Lili” writes:<\/p>\n

Men may have all of the opinions they want on the issue of choice. But, they may not legislate nor may they make the final decision of whether a woman has the right to choice. The final decision of what to do must be left up to a woman.<\/div>\n

The only thing I really disagree with here is saying that “men” may not legislate. As I wrote in the comments there, I think it’s a mistake to make it about the sex of the legislators.<\/p>\n

In most ways I agree with Lili. I don’t think the legislature has a moral right to force pregnant women to bear children against their will. Every sane individual adult has the right to own their own body and make essential medical choices for themselves; women don’t give up that right by becoming pregnant.<\/p>\n

But individual women would have that moral right even if the legislature was 100% female<\/i> (statistically, women in the US are about as likely to be pro-life as men). The right to reproductive choice is not <\/i>dependant on the sex of the people in Congress. So when some feminists suggest that male legislators in particular have no right to outlaw abortion, I think they’ve moved away from the central issue, which is that no <\/i>politician should force childbirth on an unwilling pregnant woman.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

There’s also the question of “should the father have a say”? Morally, I’d say sure; aside from those fathers who are abusers or rapists, I hope that women considering having an abortion choose to consult with the father. But legally<\/i>, men should have no rights to a voice in the abortion decision. If the father and mother disagree on if a pregnancy should be aborted, there is no compromise position available; someone has to have the final legal authority to decide.<\/p>\n

And that someone has to be the woman, because it’s her body. The alternative is to give the father a veto – which is to say, men would have the right to force their girlfriends to give birth. That’s not acceptable..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the comments at Winds of Change, WoC reader “Lili” writes: Men may have all of the opinions they want on the issue of choice. But, they may not legislate nor may they make the final decision of whether a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}