Feminist: Please, bro-choicers, talk about how great abortion is!
by Kelli
The thing of it is, gentlemen: You do have a story to tell. You didn’t make the final decision, but we know that in the overwhelming majority of cases, you were intimately involved in the conversations that led up to it.
You were most likely the one who drove her to the clinic, and drove her home again. And the choice not to become a father, right at that particular moment, has had a major impact on every day of your life and every major decision you’ve made ever since.
Think about it. How would your life be different today if she hadn’t chosen abortion? Would you be co-parenting with a woman you knew wasn’t right for you? Or fathering more kids than your time and resources responsibly allow?
Are there educational opportunities you would have had to skip, reducing your earnings for the rest of your life? Or career breaks that wouldn’t have happened if you’d been encumbered with a kid (or another kid)?
Your life is the way it is right now because your female partner was able to make that choice when she needed to. If that hadn’t been possible, you’d be having a very different day today….
We need you in this conversation again, for a lot of reasons.
~ Sara Robinson, AlterNet, November 18
[Photo via icah.org]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
or intimately involved in the coercion that led up to her “decision”
or covertly pressured her
or abandoned her when she needed you the most
So, the message for him is “Life for you is so much better because she can choose abortion, and you won’t be encumbered with a kid.”
Dude, if co-parenting a child with someone who isn’t right for you screws up your life, why are you having sex with her? If you are not ready for fatherhood, why are you having sex?
Way to protect your child and use a woman! Dodged the actual hard work of being a man. That will be a moment you can keep with you for the remainder of your life.
Well, this guy did his part.
Well I read the whole article. I liked the bit After all, they understand that getting pregnant is a lot like that old joke about your ham-and-eggs breakfast: the chicken was involved, but the pig was committed. At the end of the day, the decision to carry on or terminate a pregnancy must, by moral right, remain in women’s hands — because while men are involved, women are committed, body and soul. (not sure about the ‘soul’ thing but I’ll take it as a colloquialism).
“After all, they understand that getting pregnant is a lot like that old joke about your ham-and-eggs breakfast: the chicken was involved, but the pig was committed. At the end of the day, the decision to carry on or terminate a pregnancy must, by moral right, remain in women’s hands — because while men are involved, women are committed, body and soul.”
Where exactly does that place the killed and discarded child in this little analogy?
…or is this just another attempt at using The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Of Life to pretend they don’t and never did exist, and that they were some sort of abstract that just magically *POOF*’d out of existence in a sanitary and dainty puff of smoke leaving nary a trace, when we all know da-ed well that’s not how it works at all?
“Would you be co-parenting with a woman you knew wasn’t right for you?”
Astounding the number of times I’ve seen this argument: we need abortion to be legal because I get naked and intimate with people who aren’t right for me.
So men definitely Do get to have an opinion on abortion. Glad that’s been established.
This is going to be a tough one for the feminist pro-borts.
There will be a lot of gross and piggish guys out there talking about abortion as a way to use women and shirk responsibility.
And there will be a lot of sad guys mourning the loss of their children and relationships and women whom they loved.
Do they really imagine that more conversations are going to result in more support for unrestricted abortion?
“After all, they understand that getting pregnant is a lot like that old joke about your ham-and-eggs breakfast: the chicken was involved, but the pig was committed. At the end of the day, the decision to carry on or terminate a pregnancy must, by moral right, remain in women’s hands — because while men are involved, women are committed, body and soul.”
Not the woman or the man it would be the CHILD that should make the final decision since it is he or she that is “committed”. The man is involved and the woman is certainly involved but . . . the child . . . yes ‘committed”.
Xalisae–if they wanted their “cute” little analogy to mirror real life it would be like the pig offering her piglets to the make the bacon for breakfast.
I am surprised that it didn’t jump out at me. In the “ham & eggs” analogy of abortion, it is only the child who is committed like the pig.
The mother and father are not even participating like a laying hen — they are shirking their participation entirely. They are behaving like the farmer — as consumers.
And once again, the child is treated like a commodity that is consumed when wanted and discarded when unwanted.
“Are there educational opportunities you would have had to skip, reducing your earnings for the rest of your life? Or career breaks that wouldn’t have happened if you’d been encumbered with a kid (or another kid)? ”
When does having a child keep MEN from getting an education…
or a promotion. I mean- Really.
“And the choice not to become a father, right at that particular moment,”
Bad news, bub…you’re a father the minute you get her PREGNANT. If you take her to have your child killed, you’re the father of a DEAD child instead of a LIVING one –
there’s your “choice”.
Yes I guess now men are invited to the conversation!! Even though they don’t have ovaries!!
“the choice not to become a father”
Sorry. You were. Whether you drove her, coerced her, begged her not to do it, paid for it, forced her or simply walked away. Your child was a fully alive growing preborn human being before he/she died.
Pamela,
We were thinking the same thing. At the same time. :)
All those “I love Pro-Choice” signs mean “I love baby-killing” (and, BTW -that sentence doesn’t even make sense -if you’re “PRO”- something, it means “FOR” – so you’re saying “I love for choice”.)
Obviously, killing your child DIDN’T help you get an education, did it ?
I have a crazy idea…if you don’t want kids, how about you keep your legs closed? Sorry if that sounds harsh, but a dead child seems like a high price to pay for a little bit of pleasure…If you aren’t willing to keep your legs closed, you need to have a back-up plan that doesn’t include dismemberment of your unborn child -_-
@Becca — the sad consequence of contraception is that every woman is expected to make herself available for sex if she wants to have a relationship with a man.
Men used to respect women, because pregnancy and mutual responsibility were the consequences of sex. But now men expect women to keep themselves sterile and available. And since contraception fails plenty often enough, abortion is the back-up plan for irresponsible sex.
The sad losers are the young women. They have to have sex with guys whom they would never want to marry or raise a child with.
Where exactly does that place the killed and discarded fetus in this little analogy? – secondary to the woman, not primary.
…or is this just another attempt at using The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Of Life to pretend they don’t and never did exist, and that they were some sort of abstract that just magically *POOF*’d out of existence in a sanitary and dainty puff of smoke leaving nary a trace, when we all know da-ed well that’s not how it works at all? – no.
Not the woman or the man it would be the CHILD that should make the final decision since it is he or she that is “committed”. The man is involved and the woman is certainly involved but . . . the child . . . yes ‘committed”. – since pregnancy can sometimes lead to temporary or long-term impacts on women in numerous ways, or even death, I rather think a woman is ‘committed’. A fetus does not possess the capability to make a decision. Hence the whole personhood thing.
it is only the child who is committed like the pig. – and here I was thinking you would be aware that women sometimes die through pregnancy and childbirth.
Reality, women sometimes die during abortion too. That the mother may die during childbirth or abortion does not negate the fact that the child will ALWAYS DIE during an abortion. NEXT POINT.
They do Sydney M., they do. At a lower rate than through childbirth though.
People claimed that women are not as committed as a fetus or even that only the fetus was committed. This is incorrect, because the woman concerned may die. The point being made was that a woman being pregnant is making the ham analogy type of commitment. That’s THE POINT. Not all pregnancies are terminated anyway.
I wonder how the author feels about pro-choice men who are desperately grieved by the ‘choice’ their partners made and would not speak up solely in support of women to make such a decision. There are men who would not have forced the mother of their children to raise that child, thereby allowing them to opt out of parenting. There are men who, whilst agreeing in principle to the matter of ‘choice’ also believe their ‘choice’ is valid.
This is not a pro-choice position being espoused. It is a pro abortion position and one that is working to disingenuously recruit men into supporting a ‘choice’ that is not theirs.
Unless of course the author is also supporting a man’s ‘choice’ not to support a child he doesn’t want, which a woman may have decided to have?
Agreeing with Becca and guys keep it in your pants. These predators seek out women who ALLOW themselves to be treated this way!
“Not all pregnancies are terminated anyway.”
All pregnancies terminate. They terminate in the birth of living or dead offspring. No woman is pregnant forever.
Meh. When someone pulls out the debunked “fact” that abortion is safer than childbirth, I stop reading their drivel.
Really MoJoanne, you missed such an easy, straight-forward meaning? Not all pregnancies are terminated prior to birth, as in abortion. The context wasn’t exactly complex.
Sounds more like you don’t like listening to facts when they don’t fit your paradigm Lrning. That’s a shame.