Hello, all.

Some 6 years ago, before I had ever heard of a MRM, I was discussing the inequality in the matter of post-conception choices between the sexes with a feminist. The most intuitive way to explain it that occurred to me at the time was to draw an analogy between the idea of such a document for a father and the established and protected right of a woman to have an abortion if she so chooses. This proved adequate for the occasion and, though she persisted in believing that the right to abortion was good but denying that a LPS document should be instituted, she did acknowledge that this was inherently unequal and I hope it gave her food for thought. Since coming across the MRM, I have seen many other instances of exactly this kind of comparison, some eloquent and some less so, that seem to get the idea across but rarely change anyone's mind.

This morning, I believe, I thought of a far more convincing and analogous right that mothers enjoy that fathers (in the cases where LPS would be relevant) do not. Simply put, after birth a woman has the right to put up a child for adoption and, if the father wishes to have custody they are generally given first priority (assuming no disqualifying factors). This is a right that the father does not have, of course.

The advantage of changing the comparison from LPS vs. abortion to LPS vs. adoption are quite significant, both epistemically and rhetorically. First, it is the more apt comparison: in both the LPS and adoption the child lives and will be cared for, rather than prevented from coming into the world. The messy issue of when exactly an embryo becomes a person is completely sidestepped by keeping the discussion of parental options constrained to the post-birth realm, which actually scores two points in the argument for equality.

First, someone arguing in favor of abortion and against LPS can point out that legally the embryo has no rights and so the decision necessarily lies entirely in the hands of the biological host. In other words, they might say that women deserve that extra option because nature itself has dictated their biological role. Such appeals to biology lose any foundation, however, when comparing LPS to giving a child up for adoption.

Second, making the comparison to abortion is fundamentally less convincing to those who have moral objections to abortion. By framing the issue in this way, a sizable portion of the population is alienated by beginning with a comparison to something they view as a huge moral failure. If you don't believe women should be able to have readily available abortions, this is to say, making the case for LPS in these terms is advocating bringing more moral failure into the world. Again, this issue is beautifully avoided by comparing LPS to adoption, as I have never heard of any social movement that advocated AGAINST a right to give a child up to a good home.

Third, any discussion I have seen of LPS has included a kind of disclaimer that the window of opportunity should be similarly limited to when a potential mother might get an abortion. This, while likely a conciliatory gesture, would NOT result in true equality of post-conception reproductive rights. Specifically, it would still leave the mother with the right to surrender responsibility for the child after birth but would secure no such protection for the father.

Finally, regardless of where one stands on the abortion issue, it is something many people feel very strongly about and will bring an emotional tide to the surface far too frequently. When one is attempting to make a case with reason and logic, to point out the need for legal parity, one party or both getting overly emotion will only serve to distract from the issue at hand.

So, my conclusion goes, when framing the discussion of post-conception inequality in reproductive choices, opt for a comparison to adoption, rather than abortion. It really is the closer moral equivalent, it precludes any attempt to bring biologically based special privileges into the discussion, broadens the potential ally base and will help everyone involved keep a level head. We don't need to establish a new term or procedure for unilateral legal paternal surrender, that already exists in the form of adoption. We merely need to secure that right for fathers, as well as mothers.

With Regards,

TZN

EDIT: I'm receiving a surprising number of downvotes for this. I would appreciate feedback as to how I offended, so that I can avoid doing so in the future as well.