Thursday, July 28, 2005

Your Choice = Your Responsibility

How many times have you read the testimony of a post-abortive women on a pro-choice or prolife web site where the woman describes the position of her boyfriend or husband as "he said he would support me in whatever I decided to do" or something along those lines?

From my experience, that's how a majority of post-abortive women describe their partners' response to the unplanned pregnancy. Sure, the responses can range from boyfriends attempting to coerce their girlfriend into an abortion by threatening a breakup to men who desperately what to prevent their partner from going thru with an abortion but for the most part it seems that partners of women in unplanned pregnancies often fail to give women any kind of feedback on how they are feeling with regards to abortion.

Almost as if, "it's your choice" so the father's opinions/feelings basically don't matter to him and I think he often perceives that they don't matter to his partner even at times when the woman really wants her partner's opinion so she can weigh that with her feelings.

This reasoning also seems to take on another turn in the minds of some men with partners in unplanned pregnancies. "It's your choice" often seems to quickly slide into a mindset of indifference and irresponsibility with "it's your responsibility." "You made the choice (to abort or parent), deal with it." Because they feel they have no say on how a pregnancy ends (birth or abortion), unplanned fathers can often feel like they shouldn't have to take any responsibility for what happens once the decision is made and the pregnancy ends.

They, in turn, abandon the mother and release themselves from any obligations they have towards their partner and their child.

How many women and children have been failed by men who've adopted this mindset of indifference towards their partner's decision? How many men who wanted their partner to abort have feelings of animosity towards children they didn't want to be born? Do those who advocate the "your choice" line of reasoning with abortion see how easily "your choice" can become "your responsibility?"

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