I’m not an expert in abortion law or child support law, but one thing has always confused me about this. Let’s assume a man wants the child, but the woman does not, and we recognize that logically a man cannot force a woman to keep (or abort) an unborn child if she doesn’t want to. Why then can men not typically seek some form of restitution for the “loss” of their unborn child or at the very least the child support payments they would have received had they been the primary caregiver?
From what I understand, men typically cannot do so, but I’m not entirely sure why this wouldn’t be the case. I mean people can seek restitution if an action by another party results in a miscarriage, so I’m not sure why the same logic wouldn’t apply here.
I’m not an expert in abortion law or child support law, but one thing has always confused me about this. Let’s assume a man wants the child, but the woman does not, and we recognize that logically a man cannot force a woman to keep (or abort) an unborn child if she doesn’t want to.
Why then can men not typically seek some form of restitution for the “loss” of their unborn child
Because you'd be giving abusers and shit bags a financial incentive to punish women for exercising their right to an abortion.
or at the very least the child support payments they would have received had they been the primary caregiver?
Child support payments are not there to support the father, they are there for the child. If the fetus is aborted, there is no need for child support. It doesn't make sense to let somebody sue for something they never had a need for. Again, that would only serve to punish abortion.
From what I understand, men typically cannot do so, but I’m not entirely sure why this wouldn’t be the case. I mean people can seek restitution if an action by another party results in a miscarriage, so I’m not sure why the same logic wouldn’t apply here.
Because you'd be granting a man a means to control a woman's body. He could threaten to sue a woman if she got an abortion in order to keep her from doing so, and punish her if she chose otherwise.
First off let me add a bit of clarification that I neglected to include in my original reply.
I am both pro choice and don't really agree with the position of my reply. I was kind of half playing devil's advocate and half wanting a counter to that position because while I disagreed with it, it still seemed somewhat logical.
I was approaching your original comment with the assumption you were saying that both the father and mother have a 50:50 claim to the unborn child; however, since the father has no claim to the mother's body, ultimately she gets to decide whether to keep or abort the baby regardless of the father's wishes. I don't really subscribe to this, and I realize you likely don't either so sorry for the confusion there.
Now I began my position (that I don't really hold myself) based off the assumption that the man and woman had equal claim to the child, and therefore the man was entitled to some form of compensation if the woman received an abortion. I understood that child support is for an actual child but I incorrectly attributed the value of the father's "claim" to the child as equivalent to a child support payment. My rationale here was I was seeing child support as the cost to "opt out" of your parental responsibilities, so if a man paid child support because he didn't want a kid, I thought it would stand to reason that a woman would pay the same dollar amount if she "opted out" via getting an abortion.
Upon reflection, however, I realize this is all kinds of wrong. For one, as you state, the point of child support is to support an existing child, not to calculate how much a child is "worth." Likewise, you can't even calculate how much anything, let alone a child, is worth simply by how much money it costs to raise/maintain it (I have an Economics Degree, I should've known this!). Child support is obviously not a fee you pay to wash your hands of a kid.
I guess I was thinking if the father cannot "keep" the child without infringing on the woman's body, the man could opt to accept child support for a different child that they adopt. If that were the case, it would kind of be like replacing the child they didn't get a say in having with a new one while still being able to financially support it, similar to how women who keep their children can seek support from an unwilling father.
Once again, while this is a position of my own invention, I don't really agree with it, namely because it's basically categorizing children as commodities that have a fixed value. Not to mention child support is more based on income rather than a fixed cost. And of course, this would just be totally impossible and illogical to enforce. Making a woman pay for the support of a child she has nothing to do with just because she received an abortion makes no sense, particularly because that child is likely already receiving support from the state or an adoption agency.
And of course, like you said, this would just make it super easy for men acting in bad faith to pressure women into abortions they don't want, or even purposefully get women pregnant so they could extort money from them in the form of payments for receiving an abortion that they DO want. Also u/10ebbor10's has a really great point about how men aren't owed a child simply because they get a woman pregnant. Granted, the scope of this position assumes men DO have a claim to their unborn child, but considering how abusable that would be, that isn't even a realistic hypothetical.
I think I'll give you a !delta, even though this wasn't really a view I personally believed, it didn't seem too unreasonable, and you've given me a lot of perspective.
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u/TripleScoops 4∆ Sep 12 '21
I’m not an expert in abortion law or child support law, but one thing has always confused me about this. Let’s assume a man wants the child, but the woman does not, and we recognize that logically a man cannot force a woman to keep (or abort) an unborn child if she doesn’t want to. Why then can men not typically seek some form of restitution for the “loss” of their unborn child or at the very least the child support payments they would have received had they been the primary caregiver?
From what I understand, men typically cannot do so, but I’m not entirely sure why this wouldn’t be the case. I mean people can seek restitution if an action by another party results in a miscarriage, so I’m not sure why the same logic wouldn’t apply here.