This is going to be a long post, but I think I've developed a good explanation for why legal parental surrender should be allowed:

All reasonable arguments against legal parental surrender rest on the idea that it would violate either a woman's right to bodily autonomy, or the child's (assuming the child isn't aborted) right to a good life (ie. financial support from the father).

Legal Parental Surrender: Within the same time frame as an abortion is permitted (minus a week or so to inform the woman of the decision), the man may pay half of the woman's abortion or delivery costs (some people like to quibble over how much the man should have to pay, but it's not really relevant to the underlying idea) and not be held as the child's father.

Edit: Woman can also utilize legal parental surrender to declare they intend to have the child, but then give it up to the father (with no child support from her), or for adoption if the father also exercises legal parental surrender. This has the added benefit of maybe allowing some men to have children that would otherwise be aborted because the mother doesn't want the child and doesn't want to pay child support.

Assume for the moment that legal parental surrender is allowed. A man and a woman have consensual sex and a pregnancy occurs. Here are the possible outcomes:

  1. Both want child: everything is good.

  2. The man wants the child, the woman does not: the fetus is aborted because the woman has the right to bodily integrity.

  3. The woman wants the child, the man does not: the man surrenders legal paternity. The woman has the right to bodily integrity and chooses to get an abortion or not.

  4. Neither party wants the child: the fetus is aborted because the woman has the right to bodily integrity.

Under this model the responsibility for the child is placed on the party, or parties who want the child, without taking away the woman's right to bodily autonomy. Therefore legal parental surrender does not violate a woman's right to bodily autonomy.

The other concern is that legal parental surrender would violate the child's right to a good life. Here is why that is not the case:

The only time this concern is raised is in case 3 (where legal paternal surrender is relevant). In this case, the woman has the choice to abort, or have the child without the support of the father (minus his half of the delivery costs). If the woman chooses to abort, no child is born and no rights are violated. If the woman chooses to continue with the pregnancy, one of three outcomes can occur:

  1. The woman gives the child up for adoption. This is the same outcome as our current system and does not violate the child's right to a good life.

  2. The woman keeps the child and has the ability to care for the child. This is the same outcome as our current system (artificial insemination from a sperm bank) and does not violate the child's right to a good life.

  3. The woman keeps the child but does not have the ability to care for the child, and the child is taken by social services (the woman should have given the child up for adoption as in outcome 1). This is the same outcome as our current system (when a child lives with an unfit parent or parents) and does not violate the child's right to a good life.

It could be argued that legal parental surrender would increase the number of pregnancies which result in one of these three outcomes (outcome 3 being the socially objectionable one), but it does not create the outcome. Legal parental surrender does not violate the child's right to a good life, only the woman responsible for the child's existence can by not giving the child up for adoption when she cannot support the child.

In summary, all legal parental surrender does is place the responsibility for a child only the woman wants solely on the woman who chooses if that child is born. It does not violate anyone's rights. The only reasons to oppose it would be based on one of these four premises:

  1. The responsibility for a child that only the woman wants should be placed on both the woman who chooses if the child is born, and on the man who does not. (this is pretty obviously wrong)

  2. The social ramifications (the increased incidence of outcome 3) would be so severe that legal paternal surrender must not be allowed, as it would destroy society. (here they have accepted that legal paternal surrender should be allowed, they're just quibbling technicalities)

  3. Women have the right to raise a child with the support of a man who does not want a child. (this is pretty obviously wrong)

  4. One of the three outcomes (adoption, well-supported single motherhood, or removal of the child by social services) of legal parental surrender actually violates the child's right to a good life. (now they aren't against legal paternal surrender, they are against some aspect of the legal system that society accepts)

What do you think Men's Right's? The reason FOR legal parental surrender is pretty self-evident (men having child support forcibly extracted for a child they don't want is wrong), but I hope this clear breakdown of why you can't be AGAINST legal paternal surrender might gain us some ground with the equality feminists and general populace (for the gender feminists no amount of clear explanation will help).

TL;DR Legal paternal surrender doesn't violate anyone's rights.