Human rights
This is an open letter about a couple who has had to go through the challenge of considering an abortion. My story is not typical; we are two well established individuals who are in our mid-twenties and have been together for three years. We have been using protection and taking all the precautions, and yet found out a year ago that we were pregnant. This is a story about our discussion that resulted from her interest in seeking an abortion. I hope that it can be of use to other men who, like me, consider the baby to a welcome joy, however unplanned. For anyone who finds themselves in this situation, please consider the points I bring up here as a rubric for your discussion.
When my girlfriend asked me to come with her to her abortion appointment, I told her that I could not support her decision, and requested that she consider my feelings about having an abortion. I tried to give her all the support I would, and knowing that as a single mother she would have trouble, I asked her to marry me and raise our child together. As a family, I knew that this child would be happily welcomed into this world. Since we had been together for so long I thought that we would be happy together, but unfortunately she turned me down; citing that she wanted to work and travel for a few years before she has the responsibility of children. Of course I reminded her that we’re both twenty-seven and could easily begin our family now. Fulfilling our obligations to the baby and showing our little child the world when we travel later would be even more rewarding than having an abortion.
I read a few websites and explained to her how holding her own life choices and desires for autonomy before the tiny life that resided within her was selfish. I explained that the gift we had been given through her pregnancy; the unborn life, which (if it should be born today) could not survive outside of her body, the life that without the protective cocoon of her uterus would be simply a mass of reproducing cells with no legitimate claim to sustaining itself for another few months, had the right to life. A right that is stronger than her own rights to her body, independence, and freedom of choice. She made some outlandish claims about my own rights; where if our child was at the point of death, no doctor would force a father to support a child with their own body; forcing a father to provide for their child’s physical needs through the strength of their own organ systems despite the strenuous demand on the father’s body and physical limitations this would require.
I then pointed out that no father would ever deny their child this life giving medical aid, and neither should a mother, and explained that because she is now pregnant (planned, desired, or not), she now has a responsibility to this life. A good mother would never deny her child, and her choice to an abortion was killing her child; an infanticidal mother is the worst kind. Beyond that, I pointed out that this child was half mine, explaining that because our baby’s life was now intertwined with her own, for the next nine months (until it can survive on its own) I have a father’s right to the life of my child too. And, doing some basic math for her, I showed her how the baby has a right to life, and I have a right to protect the life of my underage child, and that since they are both tied in with her body (as the baby cannot live without her uterus), as a pregnant woman she now only has one third of a right to her own body. Although she may still have a third of the rights she had before she was pregnant, any choices she makes that may affect our child are an infringement on the rights of my child and myself. I told her that it is both immoral and illegal to impose your desires which violate the rights of another human being, and that if she chooses to have an abortion she would be forcing her own bodily choices on two other individuals, ignoring our rights, and placing her desire for travel and an ability to financially support future children before the rights of my child and myself.
In conclusion, I am proud to say that she decided not to have the abortion, and we did get married! We now reside happily together in our home without a care in the world…except for taking care of our child all day, working all night, and paying bills. Having a child is a big responsibility, and I’m so glad that she made the right choice to fulfill that responsibility. I await the day when women everywhere no longer have to consider having an abortion as we did, a world where abortion is not an option, and the responsibility of a child cannot be so easily swept away. Instead, I hope that one day, no woman will ever have to make the choice not to have an abortion, but rather, that she can live peacefully with the consequences of her actions without the ability to choose them.
