A lot of people feel this was a deliberate step towards more comprehensive anti-abortion legislation. Many disagree with the law or view it as hypocritical at the very least.

I do not feel it is "okay"--however, it is legal (well, insomuch as only drinking and smoking are legal in the first place), and I feel it should stay that way, because you have to draw the line somewhere, and our society has drawn the line at viability. There are only three ways to look at this scenario:

1.) It is not a person before viability (roughly the third trimester). Thus abortion is legal, and the father has no rights to a clump of cells that is not his, or anyone's, child yet.

2.) It is a person before viability, and abortion should be illegal. Thus the whole question of the father's opinion on the matter is moot.

3.) It is a person before viability, but you cannot legislate morality. Thus abortion should be legal, but shunned on a personal level--i.e., the mother should consider the wishes of the father, because it is the right and moral thing to do, but it is both impractical and inappropriate to code that into law.

I gotta say that after seeing premature babies who were born well before the ninth month that it IS a child long before then.

I disagree with that, at their root I think most liberals want a nanny-state.

in YOUR opinion.

Some folks believe that the child is not a child for a year or more.

A fetus must be given birth to, to have his/her own rights. But as long as he/she must depend on a woman's body to live, said woman has overriding rights.

And those overriding rights include deciding to carry her fetus to term, and give birth to a baby with rights to live. If someone else steps in and kills her, especially with the intent to stop the birth of the baby that she wanted, then he/she may get charged accordingly.

Then the father has no responsibility.
You don't get it both ways.

Thus the term...viability.

This whole arguement makes me feel queasy. The practicalities of trying to enforce such a law are impossible. I would think a whole lot of women would suddenly develop anmesia as to who their sex partners had been. The only real way to enforce it would be to outlaw abortion entirely. Then women would have to have the baby and any male who thought he might be the father could lay claim and subsequently submit to paternity tests to prove or disprove it. Back alley abortions would once again be in business.

/sarcasm on
How about this....I propose that men who impregnate women and then refuse to support their own offspring should have their gonads removed to prevent them from procreating anymore. I mean, it is half THEIR child, they should not be allowed to force women to be the sole support of children that are half theirs, right? Do ya think men might object to this invasion of their physical being?
/sarcasm off

No, ownership... just like a mini-slave. That's why the courts have ruled to limit the 4th amendment for kids.

Got me... missed regulating.
But their drug laws are still complete bullshit... it's all about money.

How would it do that?

I agree, on principle.

Some days I wonder if mine have made it there yet actually...

Bruce, please go ahead and take all the drugs you like. :)

This illustrates what I have touched on a couple of times during the course of this thread.

rkz assumes all men would be honourable an honest in this situation. He forgets all the dead beat dads out there. The men who think it's ok to spread their seed then move on to the next. The ones who think it's ok to hang around for a few years and then leave. The ones who are so fucked up they'd use their 'unborn child' as a weapon against a woman who doesn't want him anymore.

In an ideal world, men would have a say in the fate of the foetus. The world is not ideal and every situation is different. There is no way you could legislate this without taking away a womans rights. It's like moving back to the dark ages.

rk, is this what you really think?