Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Ethical question that I'm pondering

In any abortion debate you can pretty much always guarantee that the on the pro-choice side there will almost always be the argument put forward about the terrible circumstances where a female becomes pregnant because of rape. Now putting aside the abortion subject (please try to people, I only mentioned it because of what I want to get on to), if a man become a father, in the UK at least, he is legally obliged to pay Child Support and can be chased for it if he does not.

So, and here's the thing I'm wondering. If, in the case of rape there is a powerful argument in favour of allowing abortion to occur, is there also a powerful argument in the case of a man not being obliged to pay child support to a woman if it can be proven that he was raped? Now before anyone leaps on me thinking I'm saying I think there is, and that I'm making a judgement, I'm not.

I'm just wondering, in the very unlikely event that such a thing occured - and it's not beyond the realm of possibility - would the father have a justification to not pay child support for a child he did not want to have but was forced to through a criminal act?

The reason I'm asking should you be wondering, is because I've just a read a short online discussion about abortion and someone wondered whether a male rape victim ought to have some rights, presumably to request his rapist have an abortion if they became pregnant. Child support obligations seemed the next logical step.

Discuss

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