Basing a principle of rights or duties based on contingencies (live birth or not) seems dubious. If the mother has a right to decide against the burden of a child, the father should as well (all things being equal). Granted, all things aren't equal, but the financial obligation seems sufficient to fulfill a duty to the living child. Besides, why should we force contact when the father doesn't want it? I don't see that as benefiting the child.

> If the mother has a right to decide against the burden of a child, the father should as well (all things being equal).

This is your false premise. Nothing about fairness requires the law to give someone additional rights to offset someone else’s intrinsic advantages. Neither men nor women have a “legal right to decide against the burden of a child.” If either has a child, they’re on the hook for it. The law doesn’t need to give men an additional legal right to “make up” for the fact that women can terminate a pregnancy by exercising their natural right to control their own pregnancies.

I'm talking about what should be the case, i.e. what is a moral right or duty. Legal concerns just add extra complication that are tangential to my claims.

I am not talking about what the law is, but rather what fairness requires the law to be. Fairness doesn’t necessarily require giving one sex more legal rights (allowing men to disavow parental obligations) to make up for a biological limitation (inability to terminate a pregnancy).

I just don't know how to respond meaningfully when you mix moral and legal concerns. Regarding fairness, I don't see disavowing parental obligation as more legal rights. Women can give their child up for adoption after all.