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First, no consensually-conceived baby should be aborted at any point post-conception over the objections of the baby's father.

"Consensually-conceived"? Do you mean conceived via consensual sex, or conceived consensually? While I don't personally have a problem with that in either case, and I'm personally opposed to abortion, we have the situation where both parents took part in this crapshoot and made a baby. If the woman wants to abort, which is her (currently) legal right, and the father doesn't, then I'm saying

1)whoever wants the baby gets sole custody and responsibility and

2)we should recognize the pain and suffering a mother goes through bringing a baby to term. If the father, or a charity, or potential adoptive parents, are willing to compensate the mother for that (which I'm certain would happen in many cases), then she becomes a surrogate for the father or other party. Once born, she's out of the picture. No abortion, no custody battle, no power struggles.

If neither wants the child, or no one wants to compensate her for going through the pregnancy against her will, well, then I'm sorry but my proposal doesn't address that. I think this number would be greatly reduced and isn't that a start?

Second, it is awfully sexist of you to presume that the mother will be the primary caregiver of the baby post-birth

I'm only assuming that is the way it is now. Is that not a valid assumption? I hardly think its sexist to make an observation. I'm proposing that whoever wants the child gets sole custody and sole responsibity. If the other doesn't want the child, then he/she is out of the picture after birth. If they both want it, then the current custody system kicks in. If they marry, its a non-issue.

I don't think anyone can argue that women don't have complete control over whether or not they get pregnant. They control whether sex happens, they know if the man is using a condom or not, and they have access to several flavors of birth control.

I just think its time that they have a little shred of responsibility for the actions they're taking. Killing the baby or forcing the father to pay financial support isn't taking responsibility. This is a life we're talking about. Once we start treating it as such, I think we'll get pregnancies and abortions down.

Lets say your a woman in college and you're less than responsible sexually. What's the downside to getting pregnant now? A couple hundred bucks and you're "problem"'s gone. Decide you want to keep the baby and you get welfare for yourself, and child support from the father.

What I'm proposing is that you can't count on that anymore. Be irresponsible sexually, and you may have to take the baby to term because the father wants custody AND you don't get a say after the baby's born. Keep the child, and you're on your own. The alternative is to share custody with the father, or DON'T GET PREGNANT and avoid all of this.

We need to make it so there's a real possibility, or probability that pregnancy will result in childbirth, and that you can't count on abortion as a way out. Is there another way to get these girls to exercise some degree of control (exercise "choice"!) over their bodies?