Should a man have a say in what happens to a woman’s body? There is no easy or simple answer to this question. Like I said in the introduction, it takes two people to create a baby. A lot of the time, those two people are in a relationship and will have discussed things that have an effect on their relationship, like having children. Other times, an embryo is conceived through a one-night stand or other encounter where the couple isn’t “together,” so to speak. I don’t know if there is one answer to this question, but perhaps there are multiple ones, depending on the situation.

I know people who have had abortions, specifically one person, whom I have known a long time. She was married, and because there were some medical issues that had to be resolved, she and her husband decided to terminate the pregnancy. He was totally involved in the decision, which I think was right for their situation. It was not an easy decision for either of them, but they believe it was the right one.

But what happens with a one-night stand, or some other encounter where the woman does not have contact with the man? Is it her responsibility to contact him before moving forward? I don’t believe that there is a clear-cut answer to this part of the question. This is a huge decision that a woman makes in her life and I am sure it is not taken lightly. If she doesn’t know the man does she need to contact him and should he have a say? I don’t think so. And I don’t say that lightly, or flippantly.

Does a woman have any right to say what happens to a man’s body? What if she has been intimate with him? In no way would she have the right to tell him what he should do with his body, and likewise the man in this case doesn’t have to be consulted. I think he should be consulted, but everyone will deal with this in their own way.

If I was contacted and told that someone I had slept with was pregnant, I would want to be involved in all of the decisions, but some men would want no part of that. I’ve never faced something like this and don’t know that I ever will. I do know that becoming a father changes your entire world, and watching my wife go through nine months of pregnancy, 14 hours of labor and a year of breast-feeding, I know that I couldn’t handle what she went through. So that’s the prism I look through, what the woman will experience. It should be her decision and it should also be her choice to either involved her partner or not, because she is the one whose body will change. It is not an easy question, but that is how I would answer this question, if asked.