| | Dean Michael Gores wrote: "Surely there is a difference between running a person down while driving/shooting a gun toward others, and in causing conception. Yes, I agree that the male is responsible for causing conception. But again, there are two schools of thought: Choosing to keep the baby implies responsibility vs causing conception implies responsibility."
Surely there is a difference between disabling a person with a car or gun and getting a woman pregnant. But that isn't what we were talking about. We were discussing who is responsible for supporting a helpless human being that has been brought into the world. Many Libertarians and too many Objectivists seem to think that holding the mother and father responsible for supporting the child is tantamount to slavery. (Some of them would no doubt also object on the same grounds to being forced to care for someone they had disabled with their auto or firearm.)
"Choosing to keep the baby" is a very complicated issue, especially when we are talking about an unmarried, uncommitted couple who just had sex with no expectation of pregnancy. But I think I can boil down the options fairly easily (bearing in mind that all of these options presume no contract or other expressed commitment).
(1) If both people decide they want to continue the pregnancy and bring a child into the world, then there is a point of no return (in my opinion), and that is the third trimester, at which point the fetus is as well developed as premature babies who survive and are recognized as having the same rights as full-term babies. Up to this point, one or both people may reconsider (see below). Past this point, neither may reconsider -- neither the woman in regard to carrying the fetus to full term, nor the man in regard to supporting the baby once its born. (And the mother always has the option of giving up the baby for adoption.)
(2) If the mother decides she no longer wants to carry the fetus prior to the third trimester, then she can rightfully get an abortion, since it's her body; if the father agrees, they share the cost (see below); if he disagrees, she bears the cost. If the father decides prior to the third trimester that he no longer wants to be financially responsible for the baby, then he can rightfully absolve himself of any responsibility, by offering to pay the cost of an abortion (and paying for it, if the mother agrees to the procedure)--or paying (if the mother does not agree to the procedure) the equivalent monetary of the abortion to the mother in lieu of any further financial responsibility.
(3) If both the mother and the father decide prior to the third trimester that they no longer want to bring a baby into the world, then they have the relatively minor matter of working out the financial arrangement for an abortion. I leave this as an exercise for the ambitious Student of Objectivism or Libertarianism. :-)
From the above, it may appear that I am a strange duck, indeed, a Liberal Democrat (U.S. lingo) in regard to the first two trimesters of pregnancy and a Conservative Republican in regard to the third trimester. But in truth, when I developed my views about 25 years ago, I did not think in these terms. I just thought in terms of what Libertarianism and Objectivism ought to hold on this matter.
Best to all,
Roger Bissell
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