Please stop telling men to be grateful for women’s reproductive rights.

It’s not our choice, it’s your choice

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

First of all, let me say that I support a woman’s right to have an abortion. When I was 21, my girlfriend and I got pregnant and she decided she was not ready for motherhood. Her choice impacted me favorably: I was even less prepared for fatherhood. Thirty years later, I have a teenage daughter and I feel she should have the same freedom. So, I can see why women would say that we as men should feel grateful for their right to have an abortion. In fact, as a father, I am grateful for her freedom.

Edit: Originally I used the phrase: my girlfriend got pregnant. To some of the readers, this made it seem like I was trying to avoid personal responsibility. I’ve argued that I felt “my girlfriend got pregnant” was neutral with regards to responsibility. However as I continue to get comments on that, I realize that is not the way it’s being read regardless of what I think. I changed it to “my girlfriend and I got pregnant” to reflect the equal responsibility we both had for the unwanted pregnancy. This is how I truly feel about it. I appreciate the feedback.

However, when I look back at my girlfriend’s choice, I don’t feel grateful. She didn’t make her choice for my sake, she made that choice for herself. She didn’t ask me what I wanted, she told me what she was going to do. So, I feel lucky. It could have gone either way. If she had wanted to have the child, I would have become an unwilling father. If I had wanted her to have the child, I would have been disappointed. Her decision was final and it was for me to accept, whether or not it aligned with what I wanted. So no, I do not feel grateful. It’s not because I bear any resentment towards her, she was a great person. I just don’t feel there’s any reason for me to have any gratitude for that situation. I feel lucky that our interests in that situation were aligned. Many of men every year become unwilling fathers because their partner chose differently and I dodged that bullet. Whew!

When it comes to reproduction, men have very few rights. Here is a couple of other things a woman does not owe a man when she gets pregnant.

1. Women do not have to notify the biological father, even if she knows who that father is. Additionally, there is no time limit for which she must notify him in order to get for child support from him. For example, a woman could get pregnant from a man and not tell him. They could part ways and the man could get married to someone else and start a family. She could then notify him after he has other obligations and demand child support. This could happen 5, 10 or 15 years later.
2. Since women do not have to notify the biological father, then they of course are free to give the child up for adoption without the consent of the biological father. Even if the biological father has been notified, in many states she doesn’t need consent of the biological father unless a paternity test has been performed. Even then, he has to prove his ability to raise the child. This is something the mother does not have to do.

So, I do support women’s right to an abortion. As a father whose daughter has freedoms she would not otherwise have, I feel grateful. However, as a man, it really doesn’t affect my freedoms. I will have no less choices than I do today if Roe v Wade is overturned.