I found Arcana’s article “Abortion Is a Motherhood Issue” to be very interesting. She first explains that conception should be considered the start of a child. Thus, it follows that any decisions made concerning this entity fall into the realm of motherhood issues. If a mother decides to abort or keep the baby it is nonetheless a motherhood decision. This is clearly making a life decision for that child, and I believe it stresses how important that decision is. Therefore the mother must take full responsibility for her choice.
This way of looking at abortion does stress the importance of the mother’s decision. I think that it ultimately gives the complete choice to the mother. I would be interested to see what Arcana believes is the father’s role. If we consider the decision to be a parenthood decision she would likely include the biological father, however her emphasis on a motherhood issue seems to exclude him completely. I do agree that it is ultimately the mother’s decision, as the child is in her body. However, I am interested in what exactly Arcana believes the father’s responsibility is an abortion decision. Or does he simply have no decision? As I stated before I do personally believe that the choice is the women’s yet I also question how Arcana would respond to someone saying that abortion is a parenthood decision because this is the child of both the mother and the father.
I found Tricia's comment to be very interesting. I also agree that it is ultimately the mother's decision, but I had not thought about what Arcana would think about the father. I would be interested to hear what she would have to say or what other people in the class think she would say about it. Based on my own personal beliefs, I have to hope that she would ultimately side with the mother's right to make the final decision but it is true that the child is just as much from the father as the mother. I do not know if there is one "best" or "right" answer to this. On the one hand, the father is an equal player in the conception, but on the other he is not the one that would need to be pregnant. We need to be careful about not crossing this fine line.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very interesting reaction to Arcana's article. Like Britt, I had not thought of this myself when I first read the article. I do not agree with Arcana that a woman who decides to abort a child is already a mother, and I think it is fully within the woman's right to choose what to do with her own body. However, I think this is a great counterpoint to her assertion that a woman who chooses to abort is a mother. If this is the case, and if a child, once born, is equally the responsibility of mother and father, then it follows that from Arcana's logic, the father should have just as much as a say as the mother. I think this strengthens my argument of the importance of making a distinction between zygote and baby, between "mother" and pregnant.
ReplyDeleteThese are valid questions considering Arcana’s unique approach to abortion. I think that Arcana’s goal in speaking about abortion as a motherhood issue is to counter the common pro-life argument that decisions to abort are made haphazardly and without considering the consequences. If this is the goal then I have to assume, based on her expressed opinions and her personal experiences, that Arcana would highly encourage paternal input on an abortion decision (if he is a present part of the mother’s life). She seems to believe that an abortion is a parenting/family-planning decision like any other, so if the decision affects more than the mother, I would assume that the other members of the family (particularly a spouse) would be involved in making the choice. So, the other side of the coin would be if the father was not involved and the woman was considering raising a child on her own. In this case, I think Arcana would argue that the mother has 100% of the deciding power, as she is the single parent and this is a parenting decision.
ReplyDelete