Doctor Thinks Men Should Be Able To Veto Abortions

At the White House Correspondent's Dinner in April, SNL's Cecily Strong referred to Fox News as a channel that is "all hot blonde ladies and old dudes." She later mentioned politicians' habits of trying to dictate what women should do with their own bodies. That'd be weird, right? Well, put them together, and she might as well have added that men weighing in on reproductive rights exist on Fox News as well. Dr. Keith Ablow, a member of the Fox News Medical A-Team, seems to specialize in commenting on other people's medical decisions, and Dr. A-Team doesn't seem to discriminate from A-List stars. Ablow, a forensic psychiatrist and author, used an example of a recent star-studded reproductive story and put on his gynecologist's hat. For the record, he is not a gynecologist.

Sofía Vergara's former fiancé Nick Loeb wrote in an April 29 New York Times op-ed that he and Vergara's frozen embryos have the right to be carried to full term. Loeb wrote that he and Vergara agreed in 2013 to use in vitro fertilization to have children through a surrogate. After the couple split, Loeb decided he still wanted to have the children and assume all parenting responsibilities, despite the fact the couple had put in writing that the embryos would only be brought to term with both parties' consent. Loeb wrote in his op-ed:

A woman is entitled to bring a pregnancy to term even if the man objects. Shouldn’t a man who is willing to take on all parental responsibilities be similarly entitled to bring his embryos to term even if the woman objects? These are issues that, unlike abortion, have nothing to do with the rights of one's own body and everything to do with a partner's right to protect the life of his or her unborn child.

Vergara responded to Loeb, stating that a baby "needs a loving relationship of parents ... that don't hate each other."

Ablow decided he had something to contribute to this story as well. In a conversation with Andrea Tantaros and Sandra Smith on Fox News, Ablow said, "If [Loeb] wants to bring those embryos to term, good for him." One of the women brought up that it's not so much about whether it's a woman's right trumping a man's, it's about the fact that Vergara and Loeb signed a contract stating that they would only move forward with the embryos as a couple. Ablow replied, "Well, you know, what their agreement is on paper should not determine the fate of a child in the world."

He said that if the father has agreed to full parenting responsibilities, as is true in Loeb's case, the embryo should be given life. But then he went further with this belief. Ablow stated, "I believe that men should be able to veto women's abortions if they're willing to care for the child after its born."

It's comments like this that bring to mind all the anti-abortion laws that have become legislation just in the first few months of 2015 alone, marking huge losses for women's reproductive rights. A Kansas abortion law banned women from carrying out second-trimester abortions. Arizona and Arkansas established a new law that requires doctors to inform women that an abortion "can be reversed," which is clearly untrue.

As states continue to enact such restrictive laws, women's health care is affected enough, even without Fox News weighing in. Watch Ablow's full comments, if you so wish, below.

Images: Fox News (2); Getty Images (1)