Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is joining you this Thursday to write about a hot-button topic for the Men’s Club. Indeed, he can’t remember the last time a truly serious and polarizing issue was the topic for the Men and Divas.

This week we discuss the rights of fathers. Specifically, does the biological father of an unborn child have a legal right to block an abortion? Furthermore, can a woman who has aborted a child without notification of the father be subject to “damages” should the father want to pursue a civil action?

You see now that your Maximum Leader wasn’t joking when he said this was a hot-button issue.

The very terms used in the framing of this post can inflame people. Unborn Child versus Fetus is the most glaring example of how the terms of the debate can influence the direction of the debate.

Your Maximum Leader has made no secret of his position that human life begins at the point of a fertilized egg. Furthermore he has said that he is against unnatural termination of pregnancy. (He says unnatural because there are many “normal” yet tragic circumstances under which a pregnancy may terminate - or miss-carry.)

Now, having reminded his readers of this point allow him to say that he understands the many objections to his position. In a number of cases the arguments against his position are thoughtful and valid - if you accept a few basic premises. Unfortunately, most of these premises have to focus on the viability of a child/fetus. Thanks to modern science a child/fetus that was not viable in 1972, or 1982, or 1992 or even 2002 may well be a viable life today. Viability is a moving target. It is conceivable that in your Maximum Leader’s lifetime there will be artificial wombs into which fertilized eggs may be implanted and grow to full-term. Recognizing the futility of using viability as a criterion for life your Maximum Leader uses fertilization. At which point the genetic code of a human being exists.

So any argument your Maximum Leader might put forth on this topic is, naturally, informed by his belief in when life begins.

So… To address the first issue, should a biological father have the right to prevent a woman from aborting her unborn child? In your Maximum Leader’s view a father should have the ability to prevent an abortion.

A father should have this right because, if one views the unborn child as a person with rights; the parents have equal custodial rights to the child. (In this your Maximum Leader will assume that a court hasn’t already intervened in some fashion to abrogate the rights of one or the other party.)

Now, having stated this point, your Maximum Leader will continue. If a man were to exercise this right to prevent an abortion a number of other positions naturally seem to follow from the decision. By choosing an abortion, the woman has made clear her intention to not want to be a parent to te child. The man, by exercising his right, has made clear his intention to want to be the sole parent to the child. The trade-off in this situation would appear to be that the woman would have the baby, but then would have no further obligations to the child. All responsibility for the child would fall upon the father. Furthermore this situation should never be allowed to change. The woman should not be allowed to change her mind years later and sue for joint custody. Nor should the man be allowed to sue for support down the road.

Having a child should be a considered decision entered into jointly by a man and a woman who want to be parents. Unfortunately this is not the case in modern society. One would hope that the process leading to parenting would be 1)find a spouse; 2) establish a stabile home; 3) have children. The recent studies by the Brookings Institution showed that among poor women the process is essentially reversed with children coming first, then the spouse, then the stabile home. Some women, no doubt, realize upon getting pregnant that they aren’t ready to be a parent. This realization leads to abortions in many cases. But the tragedy is that birth control is widely available and could prevent the situation from ever arising.

But your Maximum Leader digresses…

So your Maximum Leader does believe that a father should be able to exercise paternal rights to intervene to save the life of his unborn child?

What happens if he’s not told that he was, before the abortion, going to be a father? What if a man hears that a former fling/girlfriend/wife had an abortion - and he figures the child could be his? This is a very tricky question.

Your Maximum Leader will say that, if there was a way that paternity could be established between a man and the unborn child; then some form of damages might be awarded to the man should he take the matter to a civil court. But that is a big if… How exactly would one do that? Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure.

Now, your Maximum Leader will admit that through sheer laziness he is not touching on many issues that could and probably should be mentioned at least in passing in this post. Well… Sheer laziness is not precisely true. This has been a challenging week at the Villainschloss. He hopes that next week will allow more time to create bloggy goodness.

For other views on this topic check out the Men: Phin, Stiggy, That One Guy and Jamesy.

For the ladies check out: Kathy, Silk, Phoenix, and Sadie.

Carry on.