Should morality be legislated?

[Sacred Jellybean]

Limititations like that are added by anti-choice legislators trying to restrict abortion any way they can, not because they actually make sense. Often the girls who most need abortions are ones who could never tell their parents without being severely punished...

You misunderstood me. When I said "parents", I meant the father and mother of the unborn child. "Parents-to-be" would have been a better way of putting it.

If one parent wants to keep the child, and there is no medical reason that an abortion is necessary, it does make sense to keep it... the problem, though, lies in legislating some "the father must know" law or something. What if the identity of the father isn't known for sure, or the father is out of contact and has no interest anymore for a while but comes back later and says "I would have taken care of it"?

If the father is out of the picture, then his decision becomes irrelevant and the choice of whether to keep the child lies solely with the mother. If the identity of the father isn't known, well, there are DNA tests to handle that sort of thing, so that could solve some of the cases.

You can't just say "in every case the father must know", that would work as badly as parental-consent laws do... still though, I understand the point, and it is somewhat true that it's not fair that a baby that a father wants could still be aborted... I just don't know what could really be done legally about that, given that I am pro choice.

Indeed. I think that until a good solution is found, the choice should ultimately lie with the mother, who has to go through labor and carry the child for 9 months. However, I was talking more about the repercussions of the mother deciding to keep the child, while the father doesn't want anything to do with it. Should a father be forced to raise a child and take the emotional/financial blow (not to mention the time) when he doesn't wish to do so? Should the fact that he took part in its conception force the burden of raising it upon him? There are shades of gray, to be sure. What if he's unfit to make that kind of money while simultaneously supporting himself? Isn't it a bad idea to force him to play the part of a father to a child, if he ultimately resents it?

Here's another point about abortion: like other morality when attempted to be controlled by the government, it faces the problem that if people want to do it, they'll find ways, especially with the advent of the internet (i.e. easily and anonymously accessed information). These ways may be less healthy than going to a clinic, such as the coat-hanger method. Also, take a look at these disgusting teenage mothers who leave their babies in a dumpster, or abandon them in other cruel ways. If abortion were legal and weren't frowned upon, I don't find it hard to believe that there would be less instances of this.