Ramaswamy's Right: To Prevent Abortion, We Must Hold Fathers Responsible for Unborn Children
78% of Americans believe a man impregnating a woman is financially responsible for their unborn child immediately at conception
On the debate stage, on the campaign trail, and in media interviews, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy makes important points on fathers and abortion.
“A missing lever that we really ought to embrace on the right is greater sexual responsibility for men, codified in the law, in an era of genetic paternity tests: put more of a burden, financially and otherwise, on the father when it's a confirmed paternity test,” Ramaswamy said earlier this month on CNN.
Ramaswamy’s absolutely right. Too often, men are shut down in conversations about abortion—“No uterus, no opinion,” the taunt goes. But that’s as illogical as saying men shouldn’t care about preventing slavery if they’re not a slave or child abuse because they’re not a child. Abortion is fundamentally a question about the human rights of an unborn person. Human rights are a deep concern for all.
Indeed, we can’t shut men up on the topic of abortion—both over men’s rights and responsibilities over their unborn children. Right now, men have severely limited legal responsibility or rights over their own child in utero. That should change—both to acknowledge his legal rights to save his unborn child and also to hold him responsible, including financially.
The Guttmacher Institute found 73% of abortive mothers said they could not financially support a child at the time of their abortion. This is tragic, and it’s a root cause of many abortions. Fathers must be held responsible for providing for the welfare of their unborn child and the mother. Current federal law does not mandate paternal child support for unborn children, but legislation like the 2022 Unborn Child Support Act gives pregnant mothers the ability to receive child support payments from fathers while pregnant. Congressman Mike Johnson, before he became Speaker of the U.S. House, co-sponsored this bill. It will be interesting to see if he will elevate this issue as speaker.
Americans feel strongly about the responsibilities of the father during the mother’s pregnancy. In fact, seasoned pollster Scott Rasmussen, my former colleague at America First Policy Institute (AFPI), found 78% of Americans believe that if a man gets a woman pregnant, a father is financially responsible for an unborn child immediately at conception.
When asked in his polling for AFPI, “When a man gets a woman pregnant, is he already a father with responsibilities to both the mother and the child?” 71% of Americans agreed. These two responses clearly indicate that Americans firmly believe that the father has immediate responsibility for the unborn.
Yet in 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Planned Parenthood v. Danforth that a father has no constitutional right to stop a pregnant mother from aborting her child. The Court argued that a mother is more directly affected by her pregnancy, which places the physical burden of the pregnancy solely on the mother. This ruling should be revisited because fathers must shoulder burdens, too.
Rasumussen’s polling also found 62% of Americans believe that the father of the unborn child must be notified before the mother obtains an abortion. Sadly, the 1992, Supreme Court ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey found it is unconstitutional to require a mother to notify a father of a pregnancy. This ruling should also be revisited given what we know about laws around fetal homicide and paternal responsibility for minor children.
Ramaswamy correctly identified this as an underused angle for the GOP to go on offense on abortion. It is defending women from deadbeat dads. Women say they have abortions because they are financially abandoned, and the GOP—and everyone—should stand up for these women.
The 1960s “sexual revolution” promised women delicious freedom from the “patriarchy.” Yet by offering unfettered abortion, this actually boosts the patriarchy by allowing men to recklessly abandon their unborn children. Pregnant women report they want more support from men. It’s time to help support both mothers and their children by holding men responsible for their actions.