Fox Doc Argues Men Should Have ‘Veto’ Power Over Women’s Abortions (VIDEO)

Dr. Keith Ablow, Fox News' resident psychiatrist, argues that men should have the right to compel women to bring a pregnancy to term if that man is willing to take on full parental responsibility.
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Dr. Keith Ablow may already hold the title of Fox News’ biggest race-hustler, but he’s also a strong contender for the distinction of being the network’s premier men’s rights activist.

Ablow, a psychiatrist, declared Tuesday on “Outnumbered” that a man should have the right to compel his female partner to take a pregnancy to term if he’s willing to take full responsibility for their child after he or she is born.

The comment came during a discussion of a dispute between wealthy businessman Nick Loeb and his former partner, “Modern Family” star Sofía Vergara, over their frozen embryos. Loeb claimed in a vindictive New York Times op-ed that Vergara was blocking him from taking full custody of two of those embryos he wished to bring to term.

“Why would a woman’s right to decide what to do with a frozen embryo trump a man’s right every time?” Ablow asked. “If he wants to bring these embryos to term, good for him. He wants to parent. If he wants to have them adopted, good for him. It’s not a coin toss. Whoever wants that potential being to survive, that’s who wins.”

“I’ve been outspoken on this,” he added later. “I think men should be able to veto women’s abortions if they’re willing to care for the child after it’s born.”

That’s quite a startling argument to make, although it may sound par for the course on a Fox News set. And Ablow has indeed made it several times before. In May 2014, he argued there was a “huge double standard” in the fact that a woman could block a man from implanting a surrogate with her donated egg, whereas he said it’s considered “crazy” for a man to try to block a woman from aborting an unwanted pregnancy.

But Ablow’s tour de force was a 2011 FoxNews.com op-ed that argued a woman who seeks an abortion over a man’s objections should be civilly and criminally liable for both wrongful death and her partner’s “psychological suffering.” The op-ed contained such feats of logic as arguing men’s lack of veto power over their female partner’s abortions correlates with America’s “epidemic of absentee fathers,” and the assertion that no women who took “full responsibility for their sexual activity and their bodies” would run any risk of becoming pregnant and then having to take their pregnancies to term.

Ablow also wrote in the op-ed that he was unable to confirm that a woman forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term suffered significant psychological damage.

“I understand that adopting social policy that gives fathers the right to veto abortions would lead to presently unknown psychological consequences for women forced to carry babies to term,” he wrote. “But I don’t know that those consequences are greater than those suffered by men forced to end the lives of their unborn children.”

Watch below:

Latest Livewire
64
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. He’s such a freaking embarrassment to the psychiatric community.

  2. Jesus dude, why don’t you just advocate to make a woman a man’s property?

    What an ass.

  3. And women should have veto power over men not getting their testicles removed.

  4. Nothing this guy says could possibly have any intere

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

58 more replies

Participants

Avatar for paulw Avatar for frustum Avatar for alliebean Avatar for rxbusa Avatar for pearlywhite Avatar for marby Avatar for artemisia Avatar for grokenstein Avatar for rudesan Avatar for bradbennett Avatar for sniffit Avatar for theghostofeustacetilley Avatar for kitty Avatar for bd2999 Avatar for mrf Avatar for khaaannn Avatar for dnl Avatar for azjude Avatar for thunderclapnewman Avatar for emilianoelmexicano Avatar for mordant_k Avatar for antisachetdethe Avatar for lemmitellya Avatar for professorpoopypants

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: