Once more with feeling re: Abortion
June 18, 2012Sometimes.. even when you’re having a great day getting shit done, being productive and generally being happy as a clam can come to a grinding halt.
So i’m at the Ford dealership waiting for my service to be done, and in come a torrent of emails from a thread over at Hooking Up Smart. I like to follow along to see what the female side of the equation thinks. In my hopes that my previous dust up and rebuttal might be a lone one-off, i always keep my fingers crossed that women will come together with men to right the wrongs and end certain injustices. This requires first and foremost an ability to recognize an injustice.
Maybe my faith was misplaced? Or maybe i’m wrong. Scroll down and read along and you tell me what you think at the end of it whether i’m off my rocker or whether i’m correct in feeling like my day just got shit on.
Quick sampling of comments in the Happy Fathers Day thread from HUS regarding abortion.
Susan gets the ball rolling at comment 162
SW # 162
Uh oh! Do I detect some moral equivalency coming out? Their risk. Her choice. Their responsibility.
[M3 – when did 2 + 1 = 4?]
doubles down at 171
SW # 171
@Herb
“As long as taking a pregnancy to term is the sole and exclusive choice of the mother there cannot be responsibility for anyone but her. Yes, it took both to create the pregnancy but only she has the choice if it continues. If I cannot influence an event I cannot be held responsible for it.”First, you had your influence when you had sex. You knowingly assumed the risk of fatherhood, knowing that the choice to carry to term or abort was your partner’s.
Second, there are many reasons why choice is complicated, as you know – the most obvious being the morality of the option to terminate. You cannot force women to terminate a pregnancy.
Third, the interests of the child comes before the interests of either parent. It is in the best interest of the child to have a present and committed father. Failing that, he should pay child support.
[M3 – 1. who assumes the risk of motherhood?]
[M3 – 2. but you can force a man to become a father against his will?]
[M3 – 3. interest of the child only seems to matter when it’s not being scraped out into a biohazard bag]
J jumps in at # 173
J # 173
“Yes, it took both to create the pregnancy but only she has the choice if it continues. If I cannot influence an event I cannot be held responsible for it.”I luv ya, Herb, but I’ve got to say this. No one, male or female, should forget that sex makes babies. The sad biological fact is that once those little swimmers leave the penis and a guy’s control, they have the potential of becoming babies. Any adult old enough to have sex should be aware that they are taking that risk and that, odds are, they will be dealing with one set of consequences of one sort or another.
[M3 – so if women and men know the risk, only women get to avoid responsibility?]
Susan adds
SW # 174
Pregnancy is not equal. The woman risks more during every sexual encounter than the man does. It doesn’t matter what feminists want.
[M3 – if women know this, why are they taking the risk? because sex is fun and feels good?]
then she really goes for the kill at 182
SW#182
@Ted D“HE didn’t have a choice to abort.“
He had a choice not to fertilize the egg in the first place. Abortion is a red herring. The risk is assumed during sex.
[M3 – And she didn’t have a choice to not take his penis inside her?]
That’s as far as it went up to comment #190. I’m sure there will be more to come. I need to unsubscribe myself from that thread before i throw up.
Abortion was invented and enshrined into law to give woman the option to opt out of becoming a parent before their time due to contraceptive failure, dereliction of personal responsibility as gatekeepers, or rape. A means to prevent them from injuring themselves seeking out back ally abortions. It was meant to be a Mulligan, a redo, to avoid fucking up the rest of their lives and future potential over a bad decision they made or had imposed upon them.
But let’s just take rape out of the equation and leave it to consensual sex.
Females do not seem to want to extend that right to men tho. Don’t want to be a dad? Too bad, fuck you, your dreams, your future and man up. What part of “it takes 2 to tango” alleviates women from the responsibility of taking the child to term then? Women know from day 1 that babies come from mommies and are FAR more aware than men what the inherent risk of sex is so if we’re asking men to buck up because they should know that putting their penis into a woman may cause pregnancy, and then force them to own up regardless of what stage in life they are at, then women should be revoked from the right to abortion so they too can buck up and be responsible for their mistake.
Your right to enjoy fucking without consequence has just been revoked.
This is so crazy and ass backwards. We all know it’s men that are programmed to want to have sex a helluva lot more than women due to biology. And we all know that sex is FUN and FEELS GOOD and unless you’re a die hard religious zealot you agree that people enjoy having sex with each other for reasons other than procreation. Yet our society gives women all the aces to alleviate responsibility for promiscuous behavior and escape responsibility because women “should be able to enjoy sex without fear of pregnancy, enjoy all that there is to being a sexual woman“.
But to the man who wants it even more so, on a more regular basis because his biology demands it, and because he too will also enjoy the feeling and fun of sex, there is only the Sword of Damocles hanging over their head each and every time he sticks it in, with the full force of the law to bring them down if an accidental pregnancy occurs.
In this game of life, Women own all the Get Out of Jail Free cards and Men own all the Go Directly to Jail cards. This fucking game is rigged. (parden the pun)
There will be no equality if men can never attain that same right to not have their life ruined by a mistake (or being conned into it by the dreaded “ooops the pill failed” routine. No one is asking for woman to give up the right to abort their mistakes. We’re asking for the right for men to financially abort from theirs. Then the woman can freely proceed with ‘the best interests of the child‘.
Come on Susan & Co. i really thought you were better than this. This isn’t ‘virulent’ MRA shit.. it’s about equality. If you can’t see this, then we’re so not BFF’s anymore. (lol j/k i still love you but fuck)
Its threads like these that make me not want to live on this planet anymore.
[edit: i just have to add my retort below to her response to Ted D.]
Susan # 227
<blockquote>they agree on more than that. The law of the land says that they agreed to take a chance of pregnancy, to be controlled entirely by the woman, and with full awareness that offspring requires 18 years of child support. Every time a man has sex with a fertile woman that is the agreement he is making, whether he acknowledges it later or not. The risks and very well known, and should be carefully weighed against the benefits. No excuses.</blockquote>
The law of the land once decreed that Blacks could be property of White folk. Unjust laws are meant to be broken.
I’m sorry but this thread started to make me sick. The inequality and sheer willpower alone to justify destroying a persons life based on one gender and ability to wipe away all responsibility based on another gender is beyond insulting.
Least of all you seem to take away the agency of women, by saying they were too stupid enough to keep their faulty gatekeeping legs shut to avoid a mistake so we’ll give you a pass to avoid fucking up their lives, but men thinking with their dicks? Let’s criminalize it with 18 years of debt repayment.
Let’s flip it around just for the beauty of it:
[M3] said:
<blockquote>Every time a fertile woman has sex with a man that is the agreement she is making, whether she acknowledges it later or not. The risks and very well known, and should be carefully weighed against the benefits.</blockquote>
So go ahead and destroy her fucking life by forcing her to term with an unwanted kid. NO? Why the fuck not. She knew what she was getting into with that one night stand to satisfy her badboy ovulation itch.
…
I think we’ve reached a point of no return and the only way sex will take place is with legally certified written agreements prior to actually having sex that dictate who takes what responsibility if child arises from said act. Tho this may cramp some tingles as the spontaneity of being taken into the throws of passion will be somewhat diminished when having to initial each copy of the long-form fuck agreement.
In a world of infinite reproductive choice by women and so little for men, your position of forgive female sexual mistakes vs. punish male sexual mistakes is reprehensible.
…
Why Susan Why? Are you trying to drive me to the drink?
[update 11/20/2012 : great YouTube video here by MensRightsEdmonton regarding the inequality of reproductive rights]
M3 
“Pregnancy is not equal. The woman risks more during every sexual encounter than the man does. It doesn’t matter what feminists want.”
I agree with Susan here. But that is why women who don’t want to get pregnant, or women who are sleeping with men who don’t want to be fathers (or that they don’t know), have the responsibility to make sure they don’t get pregnant. I’ve used both the pill and condoms simultaneously to ensure this in the past, because I could never have an abortion.
It is truly immoral that a man who wants his child cannot stop a woman from killing it but a man who doesn’t want a child is financially responsible for two decades based on a woman’s whim.
I think we all understand the biological inequality of pregnancy and the risk involved but you sort of hit it on the head, and it’s a point a forgot to make on Susan’s site because i spent too much time arguing it from male inequality side.
Instead i should have simply said that if men (ie. me) were the ones to get pregnant and carry the huge risk.. you would bet your ass i would do EVERYTHING in my power to avoid getting pregnant before my time (barring rape). Women seem to have forgotten (due to femenism) their natural role as gatekeeper meant they had to have the final say and restrict sex only to those whom they could possibly see as being fathers who were prepared to be fathers. Contraceptives removed that risk and feminism taught indulgence and naive women now head into sex with eyes wide closed to the reality.
If I were a women.. (without the sexual urges i have as a man) you could be damn well sure I would not indulge in sex unless i was absolutely positive all precautions were taken and the dude was an upstanding human being. It speaks volumes to how low many women have fallen. This culture that’s taught women to walk/talk/act/fuck and be like men has screwed them over, parden the pun.
Good essay. Thanks for posting it. Although I am a staunch pro-lifer I agree with you here. The logic of your position is spot on. There is a gross disparity in play between the rights of men and women when it comes to responsibility with the “products of conception”.
It is interesting isn’t it that women have all the rights and men have all the responsibility. Yet men are often devastated when a women chooses to kill their child and the men get zero say in the matter. I wonder how likely it is we will ever see the law changed to actually make things equal. I’m guessing feminists will get a lot less hot for “womens reproductive freedom” the day after the logic of the position is applied evenly.
Thanks for stopping by Jason! As an atheist i keep my view of life beginning with the fetus having a developed heart and brain. Having said that, i do think the process of abortion is ghastly. I don’t have the stomach to look at pictures of actual abortions, especially late ones. I’d prefer a world where that didn’t happen. I think better contraceptive choices for men like Vasalgel will be a turning point to ending a majority of abortions.
But thank you for understanding the position of my post. I’m not advocating for or against the removal of abortion.. simply to have it applied ‘equally’ between the sexes. In biological terms this is impossible, and as a libertarian i cannot fathom asking the state to do invasive procedures or compel people to conceive against their will. Sadly, if a woman wants to abort, the man has no right to prevent her, no matter how much he may want the child. Equality demands that men must also have the right to abort legally/financially/responsibility towards a child they have no interest in having either. And this is what women and feminism fight against and why i state that ‘the interest of the child’ has no bearing because it cannot be used to prevent a woman from aborting ‘that child’ (obviously not in its best interest)
What’s good for the goose and all..
Thanks,
It might make an interesting ethical discussion how you reconcile your atheism with your revulsion, but that is a separate question.
However it seems inescapable to note that in once sense our solutions are diametrically opposed, but in another sense they are really the same. We both agree that the right solution is to level the playing field and make the law apply equally to all. the details are a little different although I suspect you would probably prefer the line be drawn where I think it should to the status quo.
Like you I tend towards a libertarian position, although I think ultimately a pro-abortion position is actually incompatible with a libertarian ethic. I would note you used the word “conceive against her will”. Have you considered what this implies? Leaving aside the rape case, is it really reasonable to think that a woman doesn’t understand that conception is a consequence of pregnancy given all the sex education kids are given these days? If women are this much like children and this incapable of understanding that actions have consequences should they really be allowed to vote?
It would be nice if the playing field was leveled and that consent to sex was consent to conception should it occur. I mean how hard is it to keep your pants on really? If you want to be treated like an adult surely it is incumbent to act like one. And this applies to men and women.
You make some interesting points.. a lot of which i don’t disagree with. It’s late tho, perhaps i’ll roll my response up into another post, how i do reconcile it and what parts i do have trouble with.
I don’t mind at all when people make me think. It’s just to bad my brain is in sleep mode right now.
[…] Because of biology. Because you get saddled with the kids for 9 months, the great power of your reproductive system gives you the evolved sensibilities to make sure who you mate with will be there for you if pregnancy will ensue. With that great power comes that great responsibility. Abdicating it because feminists tell you you should doesn’t mean you should. The feminist drive for abortions is to use technology to fight biology. To remove more responsibility. But you evil bastards.. you keep your dicks in your pants if you’re not going to take responsi… […]
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