WOMEN
(1) Choose whether or not to have sex;
(2) Choose whether or not to abort;
(3) Choose whether or not to give up the child for adoption;

Each choice allows the woman a complete out … that is, if she chooses to not have sex, to abort, or to give up for adoption, her obligation is finished – she just walks away.

MEN
(1) Choose whether or not to have sex;

That’s it. Men don’t get any other choices.

Now for the fun part: women’s choices (2) and (3) are paid for (in part) by the man, who doesn’t get any voice in making them.

As to arbitrary rules, consider this – right now we roughly have these default rules after conception:

A. The mother may abort or carry a child to term at her discretion.

Consider these alternative rule sets:

B. The father is entitled to require the woman to abort the child or carry it to term at his discretion.

C. The consent of both mother and father is required for abortion.

D. The consent of both mother and father is required to carry the child to term.

In all cases parties are free to contract around these default rules before conception. Do you see any reason to prefer one set of these rules to the others?

(I’m not endorsing abortion here, just comparing rules.)

I said she was responsible for the consequnces to her, which means there is no basis to expect anyone else to pay for here choice. I could also argue that she’s morally obliged to support the child but that’s not necessary to this argument so I won’t. In any case I have no interest in compelling her to support her children.

“Nature leaves women with the burden of bearing the child. But “nature” doesn’t prevent her from leaving it on a street corner, human law does. So the question is: when a joint activity has the risk of creating costs like this, how do you divvy it up? ”

Cost to whom? What cost do you see here that needs to be divided up?