SALON

Wednesday, May 26, 2010 8:27 PM UTC

A man’s right to choose an abortion

How much say should a man have in the choice to become a parent?

By

Topics: Fatherhood, Broadsheet, Abortion, Children, Parenting, Love and Sex,

A man's right to choose an abortion

Pro-choice. Keep your laws off my body. Every child a wanted child. Does that apply to men, too?

In a complicated, fascinating and refreshingly balanced story for the June issue of Elle called “The Parent Trap,” writer Stephanie Fairyington explores the case of Greg Bruell, a divorced, stay-at-home father of two who, when confronted with an unwanted pregnancy, just said no. Bruell and his girlfriend had already gone through one abortion when, just months later, she found herself pregnant again. He says they’d agreed ahead of time that if she conceived again, “she’d abort without waffling.” Instead, she not only had the baby, she sued him for child support. What may have been a messy private situation for a man, a woman and a child soon became a golden opportunity for the National Center for Men, an advocacy group devoted to “assertively addressing all legitimate men’s concerns.”

The organization, which attained attention five years ago after it filed suit over a similar story, latched onto Bruell, a man whose track record as an attentive, supportive dad seemed to block any potential cries of deadbeatism. Its director, Mel Feit, argues persuasively in Elle that “reproductive choice isn’t a fundamental right if it’s only limited to people who have internal reproductive systems.”

And yet, it’s not that simple. There are plenty of paternity tests and child-support suits to go around, but the fact remains that choice for a man is still frequently as close as the nearest door. You can’t argue, as Feit has, about the Equal Protection clause when only one party is getting pregnant and bearing the full physical load of abortion or childbirth. And considering that approximately 84 percent of children in single-parent families are being raised by mothers, it doesn’t look like there’s an epidemic of reluctant fathers being dragged into the role of patriarch.

When it comes to reproduction, whatever fondness we may have for exact equivalents doesn’t apply. But does that mean a man has no say whatsoever in who gets to carry around his DNA? Speaking to Salon.com Wednesday, Feit said, “She has to make the ultimate decision, but he has a moral right to input,” adding that, “When a man and woman have discussed what they want and have an agreement, I do not think she has a right to impose her change of mind.”

Well, does she? The story’s writer, Stephanie Fairyington, told us Wednesday, “Men basically have no rights on this. I wanted to explore the irony of feminists making biological claims to justify denying men equal reproductive rights.” So if we’d be outraged at the notion of a woman being forced to have an unwanted child, if we wouldn’t stand for a moralizing, “You knew what you were getting into when you had sex,” how do we respond when those arguments are applied to a man? If we would never hold a woman who put a baby up for adoption subsequently accountable to that offspring, what expectation should there be for a man who opts out? As Bruell says in the Elle story, “I don’t want to be forced to take responsibility for something that I was deceived into becoming a part of.”

But that “something” Bruell refers to isn’t just a failure of birth control. Pregnancies have a tendency to result in babies, who in turn become sentient humans, as Bruell, who is in fact now spending time with and supporting his baby daughter, would likely attest. (Mel Feit’s response to the story’s turn of events is that, “They’re figuring things out, and that’s inspiring.”)

It is entirely possible to grow up with the knowledge that a parent couldn’t or wouldn’t provide financially and emotionally for you and still be a secure, amply loved and nurtured person. The planet is full of them. But surely there’s also something a little crappy about having a father who viewed your existence simply as a trick or a breach of a deal. When my own father left and didn’t look back when my mother was pregnant, it was both a blessing and a supreme act of selfishness. Life is rarely black or white, especially when it comes to family.

The world would likely be a far better place if people unprepared to have children acknowledged it and made clearly stated arrangements as early in the game as possible. Bad parenting, after all, has bankrolled far more shrink sessions than merely absent parenting could ever hope to underwrite. As a writer/producer and mother of one of the coolest girls on the planet, Marcelle Karp says, “If the biological father is in any way in the child’s life, the mother has every right to go to family court and demand child support. But if he has ‘left the building,’ then honestly, he’s doing the mother and the child a favor. No kid wants a fake dad around and no woman needs a man to flake on her kid.” And in among the incredibly complex, deeply emotional rhetoric of rights and responsibilities, maybe the simplest and most ethical rule of thumb for both women and men is the motivation Stephanie Fairyington had in the first place: “It seems fundamentally unfair to impose a major life decision on someone who’s made it clear they didn’t want it.”

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 288 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations