Fathers' rights

Fathers' rights

In some cases the father wants the baby while the mother wants an abortion

The abortion issue is largely devoted to dealing with the rights of the foetus and the mother. The rights and concerns of the father are rarely discussed.

The most common case concerning fathers and abortion is when the father wants the mother to have an abortion and she doesn't.

But sometimes the mother wants an abortion and the father wants her to have the baby. Is an abortion ever morally wrong because it transgresses the father's rights?

Fathers and the courts

• in 2002 a new Chinese law put a man's right to have a child on an equal footing with the right of his wife, and a man has sued his wife for infringing that right by having an abortion
• American courts have consistently decided that a woman's right to an abortion can't be vetoed by a husband, partner or ex-boyfriend, and also that a woman doesn't have to notify the father that she intends to have an abortion
• In 1987 and 2001 men attempted in the UK courts to prevent their former partners having abortions; they failed

Harm to the father

Fathers' rights have not been much discussed.

However, the philosopher George W. Harris has put forward the idea that there are circumstances under which a woman's decision to have an abortion would be morally wrong because it would do harm to the father.

The argument goes like this:

If the father has a morally legitimate interest in having a child, and the mother misleads the father into believing that she will give him a child if he does certain things, and the father does those things for the specific purpose of having a family, then it is wrong for the mother deliberately to prevent the father from having that child.

These cases involve deliberate deception by the woman:

• he wants children but she doesn't
• she deceives him by failing to tell him that she doesn't want a family
• he devotes himself to her and the much wanted family
• she accidentally becomes pregnant
• he is delighted but she aborts the unborn child

or

• the mother has a relationship as part of a strategy to hurt men
• she pretends to love him, and pretends to want a child
• he devotes himself to her and the much wanted family
• she becomes pregnant
• she aborts the unborn child deliberately to hurt the father

Some people object to this by saying that the wrong comes from the deliberate misconduct of the mother, rather than from any moral right of the father.

Harris replies by arguing that abortion itself causes a further harm to the father in addition to the deception - the wrong caused by the deceit is a separate wrong (although necessary for the abortion to be wrong).

When the father doesn't want the child

In most countries men have no right to insist that a woman abort an embryo that they have fathered.

Most legal systems don't allow a father to escape responsibility for his child and for paying to support that child; this applies even if the father had wanted the mother to have an abortion.