The law as currently written, does not provide men the right to participate in the process a women engages in when deciding whether or not to have an abortion. There have been two U.S. Supreme Court cases that presented this issue (Planned Parenthood v. Danforth and Planned Parenthood v. Casey) and both found the requirement for spousal notification prior to a woman obtaining an abortion to be unconstitutional. The reasoning used in those cases is that the states cannot give a spouse the ability to prevent an abortion when the state itself does not have this power. Neither of these cases address the rights of an unmarried father, but it is unlikely that the ruling would change in that type of case.
Arguments have been made that if a man is going to be forced to be financially responsible for a child after it is born, then he should be involved in the decision to keep or abort the child. Others have argued that if a man is not provided the ability to insist that he does not wish to have a child, he should be entitled to a “financial abortion,” which, in effect, would relieve him of any and all financial obligations to the unborn child. Proponents of such a change suggest that notice of the father’s intent to seek a “financial abortion” would need to be provided to the mother early in the pregnancy so that she could make an informed decision. Alternatively, arguments have been made that should a man wish to have a child carried to term against the mother’s wishes, then the father should be allowed to assume responsibility for the child after it is born, and the mother would be entitled to the “financial abortion”.
Critics of such proposals point out that, aside from a woman’s guaranteed privacy right regarding her medical decisions, forcing a woman to carry an unwanted child to term presents other problems. For example, pregnancy is more invasive for the woman’s life than it is to the man’s life. A woman would be forced to carry the child, miss work, attend physician’s appointments, be subjected to invasive medical procedures, and could face possible negative health effects.
There is no easy answer to the issue of creating new legislation that would grant fathers rights or a voice regarding abortion. However, it is always possible for two consenting adults to come to a private agreement regarding their unborn child. An attorney may be able to help you in drafting an agreement that would, for example, allow a father to pay the costs of the pregnancy and assume full “custody” of the child after birth. Alternatively, the father could agree to terminate his parental rights to the child, thereby giving the mother full “custody” and responsibility for the child. This however, is a very difficult legal hurdle to achieve under Chapter 39. Creativity and innovation will be needed if we are to extend rights regarding abortions to fathers of unborn children.