But in reality this is not so. We allow women to sever all ties to their child (and it is a child at this point, not a fetus of debatable moral status). We allow women to turn their children over to the state or to strangers to accept the burden of raising her child. And most importantly we NEVER demand that women make a financial contribution to the welfare of her child after choosing to give it up.

You can't adopt out a child if the father wants it. So, your claim is utterly specious. The father has the exact same "right" under these circumstances.

I wonder if men would hear a similar accusation about consent--that they have changed their mind the next morning in order to get out of paying eighteen years of child support. Somehow, I doubt it.

Why on earth would you doubt it? It turns the situation into a he-said she-said legal stalemate. I can't imagine any reason why a person wouldn't level such an accusation, or, at the very least, a very believable accusation of "we didn't discuss it".

We will have to instead postulate that in this ridiculous future, genetic material from both parties is transferred during consensual sex to the patented Blastula-Bed, where, in spite of the best precautions, accidents do take place and unwanted conceptions occur. How's that?

Too absurd to be worth discussing, frankly. There's no point in transferring genetic material if the goal is to NOT conceive.

Now can we agree that Sarah might feel unfairly burdened by Joe's insistence that he's going to keep and rear the baby and that Sarah will have to shell out?

Her "feelings" aren't at issue; her responsibility to her child is the issue, and I see no reason why she should be absolved, either. Your little game doesn't change anything but the gender - I suppose I should be grateful, since it thereby absolves me of being sexist, which is apparently the substance of your claim. Sorry, no go.

Pyrian, nobody is addressing the child because this is not about a child, it's about the potential for a child.

It's entirely about the child. You can't dissolve the child's right to support by way of the mother's right to an abortion. It simply doesn't belong to the mother.

Should women consent to pregnancy and childbirth when they have sex? No! we cry. Should men consent to child support when they have sex? Yes! Women are the ones who get pregnant, and that's just the way things are!

You're never going to get any traction with your arguments until you acknowledge the position you're opposing. The woman's financial obligations are the same as the man's. Period, end of story, you have no other argument so your argument is over, disposed of, dead. The woman's right to an abortion has nothing to do with finances, so there's no correlation to be made. Even when the abortion occurs, there's no "unfairness" since BOTH parties are absolved of financial responsibility.

Isn't sex supposed to be fun and risk-free for both parties?

As long as there are diseases, sex will never be risk-free.

(p.s. to G--I believe there have been several cases when a woman wished to put a baby for adoption, even a famous case where the baby had actually lived with the adopted family for several years, but the biological father demanded and received custody. But no, I don't believe that in those cases the biological father also extracted financial support from the mother.)

It's rare for a father to extract financial support from a mother, but it does happen and is supported by the law.

Men whining that they should be able to "control their wallets if women can control their bodies" (?????!!!!!) is the most clear cut expression of an overdeveloped sense of entitlement I have ever heard.

Well said.

If we're going to talk striving toward equal rights as far as parenting goes, a man should have the option early in the pregnancy to give up his parental rights.

No parent has the right to unilaterally give up parenting responsibility of a child and dump it on the other partner. Such a "right" for the man would be totally unfair to the woman, who has no such right. At best, we could institute a law where either parent could unilaterally give up their responsibility to the child and abdicate it to the other parent - but that wouldn't be fair to the child, especially if BOTH parents abdicated responsibility and the child was left with nobody to support it.

...lamentably many men chose to ignore that responsibility.

"Lamentably"? That is your goal.

But I still would argue that abortion has given women, but not men, the ability to do away with unwanted pregnancies.

But it has not given women the ability to absolve themselves from the financial responsibility to a breathing child. Nobody should have that right except in the case where someone else willingly takes such responsibility on (i.e., adoption, sperm donorship, etc.).

I am most certainly not comparing apples and oranges here. Men who give their children up for adoption only have that option so long as the mothers make that decision as well. A mother can always give her child up for adoption (and if the father wants to raise the child he has to contest this in court in order to get custody). But regardless of who actually retains custody the mother is not required to make a financial contribution to the child. Women are given a fail-safe escape-hatch from any responsibility.

...Doesn't sound very equal to me.

I agree that adoption rights and financial responsibilities to an existing child should be equal between the sexes. It's worth noting that such equality will still heavily favor the mother, since women generally make less money. I do not agree that giving the father a "financial abortion" right equalizes anything - it just penalizes the child for nothing of his doing.