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I don't think his point was quite that. I think it was:

For women, consent to sex =/= consent to pregnancy.
For men, consent to sex = consent to getting someone pregnant.

So basically, men have absolutely no reproductive choice other than having sex. If the same were true with women, there would be an uproar. In fact, there is whenever anyone pro-life says, "She chose to have sex and in doing so, she chose to risk pregnancy and shouldn't kill a living thing because of her choice to have sex" Men need to either watch their children die or shell out child support.

Most women, according to statistics, don't abort because they feel violated by something alien being in their bodies. They do it for things like finances, not wanting a child at the time, being too young, etc. These are all arguments used in favor of keeping abortion legal. Yet men don't have the option to avoid these consequences, even though they face the exact same thing. It is argued that women should have the ability to avoid these consequences, but men shouldn't.

And really, that's not fair. Men can't even opt out of paying child support, but women can opt out of financial responsibility by giving their children up for adoption.

Basically...when men choose to have sex, they need to live with whatever someone else decides. Their futures are in the hands of someone else. If they don't want their children aborted, well they should have thought about that before they had sex! Nevermind if she says she won't abort but then later changes her mind, he had sex, so he needs to accept that his child that he is emotionally attached to is going to die. Don't want to pay child support? Should have thought about that before having sex! Nevermind, again, if she said she'd abort but changes her mind. Yet saying to a woman, "Don't want to be a mother? Should have thought about that before you have sex!" is seen as pro-punishment, and anti-sex. It's a double standard.

No one is saying guys don't say those things. What Erasmuses is saying, I believe, is that in reality, guys need to live with all the consequences of sex without any choice in how their futures are, and if they leave, they're considered deadbeats, while a woman doing the same thing is considered empowered. Women, while yes, I understand why the choice would be hers since she is the one pregnant, have power over the man's future, which gives men no reproductive freedom beyond having sex.

Which is exactly why I feel that men should have, at the very least, the first trimester to choose to legally "opt out" of becoming a parent - giving up all rights and responsibilities to the future child (and giving the pregnant woman time to find more resources to care for the child, or to make an option other than keeping the pregnancy and raising the child).

Fair is fair, after all.

Main reason: pregnancy is an invasion of bodily domain (assuming it's unwanted). I mean, I think it sucks that men can't really have as much of a choice (in birth control OR say in what happens). And I think the current system could be improved. But it isn't HIM that has to carry the pregnancy and (theoretically) feel invaded, nor deal with the bodily consequences.

I would rather a man have his finances bitten than a family on benefits.

I didn't think you were saying that. I just don't think it's fair. I also think that, for men who want to raise a child and women who don't want to raise one, there should be a similar period after she gives birth where she can sign away her rights to it over to him.

So basically, you're agreeing that consent to sex = consent to getting someone pregnant, but consent to sex =/= consent to being pregnant?

How is that fair?

How is it fair to say, "You should have thought about that before you had sex!" to a man, but not to a woman?

How is it fair that women can reject parenthood even after birth, but men can't? How is it fair that a woman getting an abortion for financial reasons is empowered, but a man skipping out on parenthood for financial reasons is a deadbeat?

I'm sorry. I disagree with you. I would rather things be as equal as possible, and if people are going to argue that women should be able to abort for whatever reason they want, including reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with bodily domain, then men should be able to opt out of parenthood up to the same point where she can opt out of parenthood.

If she opts out of pregnancy there is no child. I really wish I was as eloquent as Tragic Christmas (who has put up a case that I agree with over in the pro-choice guild) so I could fully explain my position. I'm sure it seems hypocritical. But honestly? I can see the sort of system that's being suggested being abused far more heavily than the current one. Maybe I hold that position partly because my boyfriend was raised by a single mother. I've seen how awful being on benefits is first-hand (although never experienced it). I could see the proposed system working out were there much more supports in place for single parents, but there isn't, so I can't.

(I also live in the UK, where the gov't is a money sink and stuff is going kinda downhill.)

My views on this are conflicting, because I really would like things to be equal for men and women. But I don't see it working out. If someone could explain to me exactly how it would work, and not be abused, and what it would be like for the single mothers in fairly realistic terms, maybe I could accept it.

@ Texas: Suffering is never unimportant. But it's her body.

But she doesn't have to be a single mother. She can get an abortion. And if she decides to be a single mother, then she should do it based on her own ability to raise a child, not with help from him.

I saw Tragic's defense, and I disagree with it. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Unless we say that women can ONLY get abortions because there's something in her body and she doesn't want it there because it's in her body, and say they can't get abortions for reasons like finances and not wanting a kid, then why can't we give men the same options? Simple, because people aren't comfortable leaving women and children in a situation where they're alone to fend for themselves, but in all honestly, as long as abortion is an option, that situation doesn't NEED to be there. Women make it happen when they choose to keep their pregnancies.

Once women are unable to drop their babies off at hospitals and police stations without having any penalties of child abandonment, once women are unable to place their children in the adoption system without penalties of child abandonment, then I'll agree that men should have to pay child support. Until then, no, it's unfair. If we're going to argue that women deserve more rights than men even when it's not biologically necessary (if we accept that abortion rights are a necessity based on the workings of human reproduction), then I want to know why women deserve more rights.