I will try to take this seriously for the moment

Keith Ablow, Fox News’ resident psychiatrist*, puts forward the argument that men should have veto rights over abortion:

I believe that in those cases in which a man can make a credible claim that he is the father of a developing child in utero, in which he could be a proper custodian of that child, and in which he is willing to take full custody of that child upon its delivery, that the pregnant woman involved should not have the option to abort and should be civilly liable, and possibly criminally liable, for psychological suffering and wrongful death should she proceed to do so.

I have limited the scope of my argument intentionally, in order to focus on what I consider to be a question that puts fairness front and center: If a man has participated in creating a new life and is fully willing to parent his child (independently, if necessary), why should he not have any control over whether that life is ended?

All right, ignoring the way in which this final question is loaded, I can think of several reasons why this should not be the case. It assumes that the pregnancy is the result of a fully consensual relationship. It assumes that a credible claim to paternity is sufficient when paternity can only be determined with any real level of certainty in utero by chorionic villus samples or amniocentesis, procedures which are invasive and have risks inherent in their use. It assumes that, if the relationship was consensual, that the man entered into it without deception on his part as a means to fathering a child. It assumes that competent adults are not the sole arbiters of their own medical decisions. It also assumes a point that I, I'm sure with great controversy, will come out against.

It assumes men and women are biologically equivalent.

I know, I can hear the feminists knocking down the gates already, but I stand by what I say. Men are just incapable being pregnant. Perhaps one day the dude-erus will be reality, but until then we must suffer under the arcane notion that woman have a slight advantage in the baby making process and therefore should have at least some modicum of control over what happens to their bodies.

To continue with the seriousness:

Just in my own practice of psychiatry, I have listened to dozens of men express lingering, sometimes intense, pain over abortions that proceeded either without their consent, or without them having spoken up about their desires to bring their children to term and parent them.

I do not doubt that some men have such intense emotions. I also don’t doubt that there are women who, under pressure from society or a partner, have suffered psychologically from being compelled to carry a fetus to term against their will. These two outcomes are in opposition. Guess whose side I fall on. You don’t have to guess with Ablow:

I understand that adopting social policy that gives fathers the right to veto abortions would lead to presently unknown psychological consequences for women forced to carry babies to term. But I don’t know that those consequences are greater than those suffered by men forced to end the lives of their unborn children.

In addition to the psychological consequences of being stripped of your autonomy, being threatened with jail, gaining 20kg, undergoing 36 hours of labor, facing a small but significant chance of death, receiving a fourth degree vaginal tear if you are lucky and a week of bed rest while you recuperate from major abdominal surgery if you aren’t, all to be topped off by serving as an incubator for the guy who made you go through all of that certainly can’t be greater than what a man goes through when his partner has an abortion. In case you had any doubt about Ablow’s view on sex and pregnancy as it pertains to women, he drives the point home:

And I am absolutely certain that no woman needs to become pregnant who wishes not to become pregnant. Women taking full responsibility for their sexual activity and their bodies would mean that no woman would face the prospect of being compelled to bring a child to term.

Yes, the world where there is no rape, birth control never fails, and pregnancy has no complications.

As the religious conservatives like to say, this is what happens when you view people as a means to an end rather than an end in themselves.

*Must … resist … urge … must … resist … O’Reilly ... joke.