Yeah, this is something I'm not sure about. Either way. I don't see it as black and white at all.
There's certainly an argument to be made that men are generally disadvantaged when it comes to reproductive rights and responsibilities. You could attack it at either, or both ends to try to make the situation more equitable, it doesn't necessarily need to be all about removing responsibility. However, improving rights could be difficult to the extent that any difference in rights is more due to bias in family court than actual written law.
So let's talk about the concept of a "legal abortion," one where the father has no responsibilities but forfeits any and all parental rights.
Obviously, in any context where there is not access to abortion, then giving the father a choice of a "legal abortion" would be extremely unfair to the mother. You end with the reverse of the ostensible problem.
Is the inverse true when there is plentiful access to abortion? Is it unfair women get to chose while men don't? Maybe. But it's certainly not an equivalent situation. A man who might choose a "legal abortion" doesn't need to worry about the moral implications of taking a potential human life. Depending on personal belief, that can take a giant emotional toll. And outside personal belief, the mother may be in a social situation where she becomes a defacto pariah if it is discovered that she has an abortion. Depending on how far along the pregnancy is, there may be physical and medical issues too. The father doesn't need to deal with any of these costs.
You would think that, if men do ever gain the right to have a "legal abortion" they should still owe the woman some amount of compensation. You can give both sexes a choice, but it certainly isn't an equal choice. The issue that narrowing down what might count as just compensation is very difficult. For a religious woman in a religious family who feels like she doesn't have a choice, that cost is enormous. Involving the courts to arrive at a value would intrude on the privacy of both parties.
Hopefully we're all in agreement here that if the father does not help support the child then the state should step in and do so. The state after all has an interest in the child growing up properly. This has the upside of removing extremes (eg. the rich father pays much more than is needed to raise the child while the poor deadbeat father pays not enough). It sounds good, but the big question is: What would be the cost to the state? At the end of the day, we need to be pragmatic. If the cost ends up right next to health care and military expenditures, then it would be best avoided.
But assuming the cost is manageable, here's an idea:
- Allow "legal abortions" for fathers. This can only be executed before the child is born.
- And maybe also as an alternative, in extreme cases, to incarcerating child support debtors when they are unable to make payments. Is this a thing in the US? It is in Canada.
- When a child is "legally aborted" the father loses all parental rights. Instead of the father, the state provides child support.
- Because the father has burdened the state, and because the father's choice to "abort" is not as costly as the mother's, the state increases the father's income tax rate by some amount for some period of time. Perhaps 18 years. Or perhaps permanently.
I predict the consequences of a scheme like this would generally help poor mothers and fathers. It would really help rich fathers, and really hurt gold diggers. Sounds like a good trade, but it would also increase everyone's tax burden by some amount.
The extent to which it's equitable certainly depends on how severe the penalty is for fathers who abort. Since the intangible cost of an abortion varies so much to mothers, it will never be perfect. But at a thousand yards it does look somewhat equitable in the sense that it adds a cost to a father's "legal abortion" in order to counterbalance the additional costs the mother must bear with a physical abortion.