Abortion Debate

Should the woman have the consent of the baby’s father to get an abortion? First affirmative In order for a woman to be able to get an abortion, she should first have to get the father of the babies consent. Fathers across the nation have been feeling this way for years, and it’s time to give them a say in what happens to the baby they helped create. For example, take New York couple David and Toni Ostreicher. Toni recently became pregnant, and wants to get an abortion. David does not want her to get one, but she does anyway, so David sues not only her, but the hospital and the doctors who preformed it. David states that the hospital and doctors had a moral obligation to tell him about the abortion. “This is a case of father’s rights—of husband’s rights” says David. This example—though extreme— is hardly the first case that questions whether fathers have any rights to stop abortion. Natives from states such as Utah, Ohio, and Indiana have all tried to pass legislation that would cause a woman to seek paternal consent. Proponents of this cause claim that a father should have a say in the baby’s future for three reasons. First of all, there is already Federal Regulation that researchers have to follow to protect fetuses. Many scientists use fetuses to study the effect AZT has on pregnant women infected with AIDS. This regulation states that in order for researchers to get government money to fund their studies, they must first get permission from both the mother, and the father of the fetus. So if father’s consent is needed when damaging fetuses in one form, why not in the other? An abortion damages a fetus just as this research does, so why does a father have say in one case, but not the other? Secondly, men have to pay child support after a baby is born—even if he and the woman are no longer in a relationship, so whether the baby is aborted or not directly affects his quality of life. The example I stated earlier, with David and Toni Ostreicher, was a case where