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Not true. A woman is able to make a unilateral decision to not support the child (through abortion). A man has no mechanism by which to unilaterally terminate his financial responsibility. Those that support this perverse double standard should be ashamed of themselves.
What double standard...... (yeah, we've "exchanged" these blows before)
Women are often left to bear the brunt of childbirth. Men have run off, leaving the woman to fend for herself.
My heart aches for that young man and his family. It is a terrible situation all around, and I certainly know that pregnancy and childbirth can suck, but I can't imagine the pain of knowing your child will be killed and not having any say in the matter.
OP, it sounds like your mind is made up, but I really hope you'll reconsider. Your niece and her boyfriend made a mistake, but that baby already exists and deserves a chance to meet the loving family waiting for it.
Thank you everyone for the thoughtful comments. Just to update everyone, my husband and I decided to loan my niece the money today for the abortion. She is about nine weeks along and has started to consult abortion providers. She wants to get the abortion done within the next two weeks. I will be driving her to the abortion clinic for emotional support. We are hoping for the best. All I am doing now is waiting for her to call me when she is ready.
The bf and his family are still against but at this point there is no convincing them and I am ignoring their calls/messages as is my sister.
OP, I want to commend you for supporting your niece. I’ve been in her position and didn’t have a loving aunt to turn to. She’s lucky to have you.
What would you do if you were in this situation? I am personally trying to butt out and just support my niece on whatever choice she makes which is likely to get an abortion; but I am curious if someone has been through a similar situation.
The best thing to do is to get the parents to divide their own agendas from what they want to offer their children. Our role as parents is to guide and support our children - but not to control them or make our own choices through them.
So I would suggest that the decision be left to the actual parents and everyone on both sides butt the hell out of trying to influence it directly. What they all _should_ do however is make it clear what supports they can expect from each of you depending on their decision to keep or abort.
So every adult other than the parents involved here should step in and say "If you choose to abort I can support you with X1 Y1 and Z1 but if you choose to keep they baby I can offer you X2 Y2 and Z2".
And these XYZ should be kept realistic. Asking the girl to keep the child and the grandparents will basically look after it is not really realistic or healthy. If the parents are not ready to be parents then they should not be used as incubators to produce a play thing for the grand parent to look after. They can support the parents - not replace them.
This pregnant person should also be encouraged to think about the implication of outsourcing parenting to that degree. Firstly as parents we want gurantees for the well being of our children. You can not guarantee that when outsourcing. You just hope for it.
Secondly there is already on the topic of abortion a clear clash of worldviews going on here. She should be aware that while parenting a child this is likely not to be the last one. There will be a host of conflicts I suspect - and people are prone to using their investment in the child ("sure have we not been mostly parenting this child - we should be able to do X if we want to!") to try to cajole the actual parent into decisions and paths they might not have taken if they were the sole parenting body.
For example what if baptising the child or circumcision were to come up as a point of difference? To give but one example.
So offer and mention what realistic supports you are willing to offer in each scenario - then the actual parents should take all of this on board while making _their_ decision. Attempting to coerce or influence their decision at this point however is to miss the point of what being a parent is.
As for financing the abortion itself - have you considered maybe instead going guarantor on a medium term loan instead rather than simply giving her the money?
However if you insist on financing it then do it with the right narrative. Tell all the parents and grandparents that you are staying out of the abortion debate. From your perspective a person you love very much is coming to you asking to borrow money - and you are simply doing that. What she does with that money is not something you intend to concern yourself with or be forced to defend on her behalf.
Simply say "This debate has nothing to do with me - but I will tell you this that if my niece ever comes to me for money in life and I have it to give - I will give". You do not have to justify yourself to anyone about anything after that.
Then this changes dynamic from you financing an abortion - to them telling you in general what you should do with your money. Instantly putting them on a much lower moral ground.
Since you are very involved in your niece's life, I'd encourage her to give the baby up for adoption.
I can not see any reason to encourage that option per se. I would however ensure that this option is one they are aware of and have at least considered.
I am not a believer in trying to influence peoples life decisions but I am a very big believer in ensuring they are aware of - and have taken the time to consider - all their options.
That said however - I do not know the differences in adoption laws between your state and my home country - but here you can not put a child up for adoption without the consent of the father too. Which it sounds like she is unlikely to get either way. So the adoption option could be dead before it even begins?
Quote:
Originally Posted by AllisonHB
Whatever she decides to do one thing you could do for her is get her on birth control...she gets nothing from you unless she agrees to it and sticks with it until she is able to provide for a family of her own. The whole mess could have been avoided from the start. Learning disability or not, she has got to know that.
I am not seeing from anything the OP has written before you post - any basis for assuming the girl was not using birth control? Not saying she was or was not - I simply do not know. But I am not seeing why you are assuming she was not. Did I miss a sentence somewhere? This happens!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schmooky
Really, recognizing the right of a baby to live isn’t inherently being against the mother.
But inventing such a right when it is not there - is. Depending on the age of the fetus there is no right there _to_ recognise. So foisting an imaginary one on her to cajole her into a pregnancy she does not want would very much be being against the mother.
The right way to support the woman at this stage would be to ensure she knows all her options - what each one involves and means - and what she can expect as support in the event she chooses each one. Inform not control.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schmooky
Abortion is barbaric and awful
To you. But to that I can only say - do not have one. But you not liking it for you - does not make it barbaric or awful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Schmooky
and niece shouldn’t feel pressured to end the life of her child just because her mother and father want her to.
and niece shouldn't feel pressured to continue the life of her fetus just because her BFs mother and father want her to.
Lets be fair and complete here if nothing else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by randomparent
Offering emotional support is not the same thing as paying for someone else's abortion. I'm sorry, but I think she's nuts. It is reasonable to connect her niece with any and all available resources. It is quite another to write the check.
Family give money to family all the time to help support their life decisions. Your family might not work that way - which is fine - but that is not a basis for questioning the very sanity of people who simply have a different family relationship dynamic than your own.
There are many definitions of insanity and "losing ones mind" I grant you. But I do not think many or any of them involve simply having a different set of priorities to "randomparent". Though I am happy to recheck that when the next DSM comes out.
It doesn't matter what the boyfriend says or "his folks." They have no say. It is the woman's say. If she suffers from a mental handicap, that's a grey area and it might be her parents' say. The title here reads "Niece wants to abort." If she has the cognitive ability to recognize this, I think she can make the call herself.
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"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PamelaIamela
Perhaps I was not clear.
No one should be forced into anything, abortion or childbirth; that goes without saying.
My point was that without the legal contract of marriage a man, should not be REQUIRED to accept financial responsibility if he rejects the fetus. Nor can he force the mother to either give birth or abort; that is her decision.
But if the mother chooses to give birth outside of marriage she should have no legal recourse to child support from whom she proclaims to be the father. He may, of course, choose to bear this burden as a moral or personal choice.
Our current policies re a public dole, in its abundant forms, is one that our society has assumed, with or without fathers or mothers, and is not relevant to the issue I raised.
You and I have a different family experience. I have sat in on a LOT of family court cases where some loser keeps fathering children he's not paying for, and the mothers are on the dole because you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip - the guys aren't working, or aren't working steadily.
I hate to sound like I'm 102 years old, but that didn't used to happen at the rate it does today, because men would be shamed for doing that. And if a man was known to do that, the next woman he tried to date wouldn't be having it.
I don't understand why in the world you would support a man walking away from a baby, or many babies he has created just because you know . .. he's not really feelin' it.
And the pubic dole is, in fact, extremely relevant to the point you are making. If men don't have to support the children they make with their single girlfriends, usually someone else besides the mother has to help out. There are cases where the mother is quite capable of managing financially on her own. But I'd say in most cases, she needs help and if the dad is not legally required to lift a finger, then the public has to do it.
Unless of course you advocate looking the other way while children starve.
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"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 6 days ago)
35,627 posts, read 17,953,728 times
Reputation: 50650
Quote:
Originally Posted by LisaMesa
Thank you everyone for the thoughtful comments. Just to update everyone, my husband and I decided to loan my niece the money today for the abortion. She is about nine weeks along and has started to consult abortion providers. She wants to get the abortion done within the next two weeks. I will be driving her to the abortion clinic for emotional support. We are hoping for the best. All I am doing now is waiting for her to call me when she is ready.
The bf and his family are still against but at this point there is no convincing them and I am ignoring their calls/messages as is my sister.
Hope it goes well, Lisa. This is really, really hard. And with her history of depression this is very likely to cause her to go into a complete tailspin.
But I do think it's likely you're doing the right thing.
Best wishes, and hope you post back about how it goes.
Thank you everyone for the thoughtful comments. Just to update everyone, my husband and I decided to loan my niece the money today for the abortion. She is about nine weeks along and has started to consult abortion providers. She wants to get the abortion done within the next two weeks. I will be driving her to the abortion clinic for emotional support. We are hoping for the best. All I am doing now is waiting for her to call me when she is ready.
The bf and his family are still against but at this point there is no convincing them and I am ignoring their calls/messages as is my sister.
If my niece came to me for advice and money, the first thing I'b be doing is making an appointment at the abortion clinic.
The BF's parents interjected themselves into it. They will help with the child but are not advocating for a family.
But there has been no marriage contract or adoption contract. This girl will be on her own with a baby. The boy's parents offer of help in raising the child is an offer of and guarantee of nothing.
Somebody needs to explain that to the boy while in the car on the way to the clinic.
Just my 2 cents
Good luck
OOOPs, too late. The girl has made the right decision, IMO
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(yeah, we've "exchanged" these blows before)