There is familiar, though decidedly short-sighted, argument for men’s veto rights over abortion that has it that abortion rights for women are somehow unfair or discriminatory. Once a woman gets pregnant, whether the man winds up a father or not depends on her decision whether to carry the pregnancy to term – she may abort against his wishes, or give birth and saddle him with childcaring, or at least monetary support, responsibilities, again against his wishes – so men are being denied a right of reproductive self-determination (whether or not to become a parent) that women enjoy. Thus the discrimination.

The argument either confusedly or deliberately overlooks the fact that men and women do not stand in equal relations to the pregnancy itself – which takes place inside the woman’s body. One can certainly appreciate the vulnerability of men who have gotten a woman pregnant, but if a child is to result, the woman then has to devote her body and her health to gestating that fetus – an invasion, and a risk, that men never face. Some of the difficulties of raising an unplanned child after it is born – the costs, inconveniences, and disruption of life plans that it entails – attend on men as well as on women (or at least on men who do not simply abandon their children and the mothers). But the invasion, loss of autonomy, discomfort, and risk of pregnancy devolve only upon those who can actually get pregnant. Requiring women to heed men’s wishes regarding parenthood means requiring them to undergo unwanted pregnancies against their will – which is not justifiable however convenient men would find it.

Usually, though, this argument is offered as a claim against fathers’ parental responsibilities – a “Freedom to Abandon Your Child” card that can be played anytime a man does not want to take responsibility for a pregnancy. Since it is (supposedly) unfair for women to be able to make men fathers against their will, men should not have to pay for the children that result. Another implication of the argument, however, is that women must not be allowed to choose abortion without permission, because that would deprive men who do want to be fathers of that opportunity. If men and women are to have equal rights (under unequal circumstances, of course), then either men must be allowed to opt out of their parental responsibilities (as women can do through abortion), or women must not be allowed to opt out of theirs.

Thus, a duplicitous and hostile version of the “men’s rights” argument can be offered, not with the intention of actually securing rights for men, but simply for the purpose of denying them to women. And it will surprise no one to learn that such an argument has in fact been offered.

I am strongly pro-life and anti-abortion. I am considering starting an informal campaign based upon ‘property rights’ and abortion.

Hear me out.

Under normal circumstances and consensual sex, the responsibility is laid at the feet of both the guy and the girl.

However, when the girl becomes pregnant, the ability to keep the child or terminate the child is solely her choice.

But, when the child is born the child again becomes the responsibility of the guy and the girl and if the guy doesn’t ‘support’ the child he is subject to legal ramifications.

It is my argument that the current law of abortion by choice of the mother alone is unfair to the father as it is not simply the woman’s ‘property’ therefore it should not simply be the womans choice.

I believe if we are going to have abortion (which I think should be illegal), we have to create a system of fairness and equality in consent and responsibility throughout the whole process from procreation, through pregnancy to birth where . . . [standard stuff: man is absolved of all responsibility if he requests an abortion and the woman refuses, but has the right to demand the woman complete the pregnancy if he wants her to and she does not].

The odd reference to “property” is actually the grounding of his argument: the embryo contains contributions of matter from the egg and sperm, each of which (he believes) is the property of its donor, and so we get this gem:

If the mother aborts the child without the fathers consent he has the right to sue for the destruction of his ‘property’ as the child is equally a part of him based upon his sperm.

(Yes – half of one cell’s-worth of DNA is “equally a part” of the embryo with the entire mass of material that the woman alone has contributed to its development. Well, if you’re going to be wrong on logic and wrong on property law, you may as well be wrong on the pounds/kilograms scale as well.)

Leaving aside the deep confusions of this nonsense, and the gross selfishness that drives it (characteristically of the “men’s rights” movement), what caught my eye was the tagline that proceeded it all: “I am strongly pro-life and anti-abortion. I am considering starting an informal campaign based upon ‘property rights’ and abortion.”

He asserts his “rights” as a man because he is anti-choice, not because he actually wants to exercise his rights as a man! His “campaign” boils down to a complex set of rules that essentially provide that a man always has veto power over a woman’s choice of an abortion, and can sue her in civil court (under a bizarre theory of property rights) if she dares act without his permission. Ostensibly this is to restore “equality” to the abortion case – equality in the sense that both the man and the woman have equal power to decide that the woman will undergo an unplanned pregnancy (voluntarily in her case, involuntarily if he says so). But the outcome of this “equality” is merely that the man can deny the woman control of her own body if she inclines toward abortion. (He does insist in that case that the man assume responsibility for raising the child, but since the woman would presumably then not want to, and the man can still choose to put it up for adoption – carrying an unwanted pregnancy in order to give up the child is no burden to him, after all – this essentially means he will be a father only if he chooses, but she must provide him with a baby if he demands it, whether or not he wants to be a father. He also allows that an abortion is permissible if both the man and the woman opt for it, but states that he wishes this option were not legal.) In other words, the entire purpose and effect of this supposed “equality” and “father’s rights” argument is simply to provide a roadblock in every, or almost every, scenario in which a woman would choose to have an abortion. “Men’s rights” here is not merely indifferent to a woman’s right to choose, but is offered as a specifically-planned attack on that right, under circumstances in which men do not even have to want to fully exercise their rights (i.e., raise a child) in order to cite them as barriers to a woman’s exercising hers.

This establishes a new low of jerk-hood in the men’s-rights community – a thing previously thought impossible.