There's an old saying that he who pays the piper names the tune. And since both parents share equally in the financial obligation with respect to raising the child, it follows that both must share equally in any decision to abort the fetus.
This seems unfair in that the baby-making is taking place within the female's body, however that part is Mother-Nature's fault.
A theist would say "that part is God's fault" and I don't object to that. In fact, I noticed some years ago that many statements about God made perfect sense to me if I substituted "Mother Nature" for "God", and that's when I realized that I wasn't an atheist after all, just a believer in a natural as opposed to a super-natural god. That leaves us with a god that is just as awesomely powerful, just as unknowable (or very nearly), and just as omnipresent, as is the Christian or Jewish God.
The god I believe in does however differ from the Christian God that I learned about in Sunday-school in a number of ways. The first difference is that my god is feminine, the Christian God masculine. There is no holy-book to tell us what my god approves of and what she disapproves of. So how can we know? Do we look around to see what works and what doesn't work, and assume that what succeeds is what Mother Nature approves of?
I may have erred in calling "Mother Nature" a natural god; she may in fact be supernatural?
Returning to "the woman's right to choose": before engaging in sex, two heterosexual partners need to discuss their views on abortion. "Should our sex-act result in a pregnancy we will abort the fetus (A) yes, (B) no, (C) only if tests show serious birth-defects." And if they can't agree they simply can't have sex. Isn't that nice and simple? Just a wee bit overly optimistic about human-nature perhaps:-) And I've glossed over another legitimate position that two partners could find themselves in: namely a situation where the female wishes to get pregnant but wants to be the sole parent, the only one responsible for the child's upbringing. Obviously a written "pre-nuptial" agreement is required. In this case the woman does indeed have the right to choose.
I do however have some doubts about that being a "legitimate" approach to child-rearing...
George Carlin:
If a fetus is a human being, how come the census doesn't count them? If a fetus is a human being, how come when there's a miscarriage they don't have a funeral?
If a fetus is a human being, how come people say "We have two children and one on the way" instead of saying "We have three children?" People say life begins at
conception. I say life began about a billion years ago and it's a continuous process. Continuous, just keeps rolling along.
Here's another question I have. How come when it's us, it's an abortion, and when it's a chicken, it's an omelette?
(more of this George Carlin rant)
Send your suggestions to ereimer@shaw.ca.
Note: when to write "God" (capitalized) and when "god" (uncapitalized) is not easily decided.
Similar titles: Martin Gardner wrote an essay "Why I am Not an Atheist", after Bertrand Russell's book "Why I am Not a Christian".