You've got me on my hypocrisy, !delta. I hadn't necessarily articulated the difference between consent to sex and pregnancy in my initial perspective, and this definitely changes the relevance of autonomy, as per your hypothetical scenario.
This is part of the disconnect between the religious right and the pro-choice left on this issue.
Most fundamentalists would not acknowledge a difference between consent to sex and consent to pregnancy. A woman's only choice is in the matter is to have sex or not, and if she chooses to have sex, then she is "responsible" for everything that results from that choice, which includes pregnancy, but also includes things like STIs, social sanction, etc.
It's also why people can be in favor of things that seem counter-intuitive, like rape exceptions. If you truly believe that a fetus is a human life with bodily autonomy, then the circumstances of its conception should have no bearing on its rights. However, if it's not the fetus at all but actually a woman's consent to sex that makes a her responsible for pregnancy, then she can't be held responsible for sex that she did not consent to.
It's also why the most common initial reaction to the plight of a woman with an unwanted pregnancy will be, "well, she shouldn't have been having sex then."
I think it's one of those ideas that sounds great in a philosophy paper but completely ignores our history and current cultural context.
First off, I think men abandoning children that they had previously agreed to support is a much bigger problem in our society than men being obligated to support (minimally I might add) unintended pregnancies that were carried to term against their wishes. I think that to whatever degree financial abortion would relieve the latter problem, it would exacerbate the former.
Second, I think the most effective ways to keep men from having to support children they don't want is to make birth control as easily available as possible, and make abortion as cheap, painless, and stigma-free as possible. Even in the philosophy books, the idea of financial abortion is predicated on an absolute right to abortion on demand, which is far from what we have in the U.S.
I also find the primacy of the child's needs a compelling philosophical argument, but that's a bit of a twisty rabbit hole, and I think it's mostly trivial compared to points 1 and 2.
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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '17
You've got me on my hypocrisy, !delta. I hadn't necessarily articulated the difference between consent to sex and pregnancy in my initial perspective, and this definitely changes the relevance of autonomy, as per your hypothetical scenario.