A TEENAGER who did not want to become a parent was sentenced last week to more than six years in prison for attempting to avoid it by arranging the termination of a pregnancy, The Associated Press reported. The charge, authorized by Washington state law when a viable fetus is involved, was solicitation to commit manslaughter.The AP has also reported that there have been efforts afoot to revive the Equal Rights Amendment, which would change the Constitution to insist that "equality of rights under the law" not be denied because of a person's sex.What's the connection? The teenager in question is male. Were he female, Washington law would have guaranteed him "the fundamental right to choose or refuse to have an abortion." But being male, he had no such right.
One might argue, of course, that he has the perfect right to get an abortion if he ever gets pregnant. Pregnancy takes place inside a woman's body, not a man's; her body, not his, is affected by abortion or by childbirth. But -- and I am not the first to make this argument -- not very many women choose abortion in order to avoid the physical pain of labor, or childbirth in order to avoid the medical procedure that is abortion. The question is not which physical experience they prefer, but whether they want to become parents, or become parents again -- and men as well as women become parents.
If men and women ought to have a perfect equality of legal rights, and deciding whether to become a parent after conceiving a child ought to be a legal right, then both sexes ought to have that right.A man's right not to become a parent need not, nor should it, be a right to compel abortion. Men could be allowed to go to court and get an order terminating their parental rights and responsibilities, perhaps upon depositing with the court the price of an abortion.
A more compelling objection, though one that would sit poorly in the mouths of mainline feminists, is this: Children need fathers, and giving men a counterpart right to women's abortion right would mean creating a new way for children to come into the world without legally and socially recognized fathers. Abortion presents no such problem. But anonymous sperm donation does. If a woman's desire to have children who are biologically her own without first finding them fathers trumps the value of children's having fathers, it is difficult to see why men's interest in not being trapped in parenthood against their will does not. And if abortion is a fundamental right, and equality of rights must not be denied on account of sex, surely a man's right to choose not to become a parent is more important than a woman's right to anonymous sperm.
So it is inconsistent to favor abortion (unless strictly as a matter of bodily autonomy), equality of rights for men and women, anonymous sperm donation and an anti-choice position on fatherhood. You may be able to make any three consistent, but not all four -- unless, of course, you say that what matters in the question of abortion is simply a person's right to control his or her own body, and a woman's option to avoid motherhood is nothing more than a nice side bonus. But then you lose the argument, which some hope to use under the ERA, that abortion is necessary to promote women's equality by enabling them to avoid the burdens of unwanted motherhood.
The Constitution already requires "equal protection of the laws." The Supreme Court has established a complex system of evaluating equal-protection claims under which it is easier to defend laws that treat people differently according to sex than those that distinguish by race. This is unsound; the equal protection clause means what it says, and it should protect us all -- male, female, old, young, black, white, straight, gay -- equally. But the principle of equal protection, even reinforced by the ERA, cannot alone handle questions about the sexes.
If we emphasize liberty instead and stick to the basic libertarian rights of life, liberty, property and contract, we can have equal rights. These are the rights that rational animals need, regardless of sex, and they leave men and women free to use their good sense in dealing with the differences between the sexes.
But if we look for some sort of equality beyond that of the libertarian rights, we are likely to find that it cannot be achieved between the sexes. Even the uncontroversial differences are too big.
Alexander R. Cohen's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at acohen@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
HARBATH: Compulsory attendance policies are harmful to students
By Julie Harbath | 2 days agoBy permitting a return to antiquated, inflexible attendance policies, the University is jeopardizing student health and wellness.
ARRAS: The cavalier tendency to say “I do”
By Aoife Arras | June 9, 2024In continually promoting marriage-mindedness, the University and student organizations actually undermine the educational mission of this institution.
VAN DE SOMPEL: “Rules are Rules”
By Mo Van de Sompel | May 27, 2024In reality, rules are contextual, and enforcement is selective.
