This is a difficult topic for me to write on and I ask for your patience as I try to explore it in all fairness. Today, I read an article about new legislation that was passed in the state of Michigan. House Bill 5882 puts into effect the Coercive Abortion Prevention Act. This law, for me, takes an ethically gray area and potentially explosive atmosphere and makes it a thousand times more dangerous. So what does this law do?
The purpose of the law is to prevent and prohibit the putative father of a pregnant woman’s baby from intimidating or coercing that woman into having an abortion. This law makes it a crime for a man to attempt to change or actually change any cohabitation with a pregnant significant other, to file or attempt to file for divorce from his wife or to withdraw or attempt to withdraw financial support from a woman if he is doing any of these things to pressure the woman into having an abortion.
It’s Outrageous
This law is outrageous and it’s hard to swallow because it is wide open for abuse not only by prosecutors because leaving a wife or significant other is now illegal if the wife or significant other is pregnant – but because it creates a duress on a man who may now resort to the very violence this law seems to want to prevent.
We read stories about men who murder their pregnant wives because they don’t want to be fathers or they see no other recourse to escape the responsibility of fatherhood. There are stories of mothers who want to pursue relationships with men or boyfriends who don’t want children who kill older children. Are these people mentally damaged? I’m not an expert, but I would hazard a guess that the answer would be yes.
So making it illegal to leave a woman or offering no other recourse for the couples that are pregnant is dangerous. Should a man be able to force a woman to have an abortion? Absolutely not. Should a man who engaged in sexual relations with a woman that then resulted in a pregnancy be financially responsible? Absolutely.
Are there laws in place for these situations already? Yes, there are.
This Law is Dangerous
This law is dangerous for couples and I think it’s ultimately dangerous for the women it’s meant to protect. This is an ethically gray area for me because we shouldn’t be legislating relationships. We shouldn’t be legislating when it’s okay to leave a woman and when it’s not. We shouldn’t be legislating marriage or cohabitation and the abandonment thereof as criminal – it’s civil, not criminal.
In the meanwhile, from the male perspective – women have all the choices and they have none. Are there deadbeat fathers out there? Yes. Are there men out there who are abusive whether it’s emotionally, physically or mentally to women? Yes. Should a man be forced to remain in a relationship he doesn’t want to be in with a woman he doesn’t love because she is pregnant?
It’s not my decision. It’s not the government’s decisions. Legislators in Michigan disagree and I am afraid of what the fallout from the passage of this bill will be. Most of what it deems as illegal is already illegal and there are recourses out there available – do we need a law in place that can send these men to jail?
I don’t know.
But I do know that while the spirit of this law, to protect women from being coerced into abortions they don’t want to have, is good – I fear for the execution of it – both for the women it is meant to protect and the men it takes rights away from.
What do you think?
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