Thanks, pro-choice dudes, for speaking for me. I don’t need you. I don’t want you. If you folks reject conservative men who speak up in pro-life causes just because they’re men, I categorically reject pro-choice men who speak up for feminism.
Men, even liberal, “sensitive” men, aren’t women. They don’t have female experiences, and they don’t know how women feel, any more than we understand the Instaboner or why your eyes always stray to cleavage.
So, yeah. It’s nice that you can hold a woman’s hand while she’s going through the trauma of abortion, and it’s just so chivalrous that you even pony up the cash to pay for it. You generous fellow, you.
But you know what? It’s just as likely that your “support” of her abortion is rapey. Yep, just as women can be pressured into sex and you men don’t even realize it, women can be pressured into abortion without you realizing it. Your love and generosity in her moment of crisis – that’s selfishness. That baby in her belly? It’s half yours. Try talking like maybe you wouldn’t mind being a dad, and I bet you her attitude will change fast.
But you don’t want that, do you? No, you’d rather be “feminist” and support her right to choose. Your carefully-couched neutrality on the subject, guaranteed to put no pressure on her either way – that’s interpreted correctly as your reluctance to man up and be a dad. Your immediate offer to pay for it – she correctly read that as you saying, “Oh, crap, that’s a PLUS?”
If she makes the decision to have an abortion, pal, that means you are morally absolved. You don’t have to take on the guilt of murdering your baby. Nope, she does that for you. She also takes the physical pain of the actual abortion, and she gets all the psychological aftermath. What, you didn’t think there’d be a psychological issue, that you could just terminate a child and not feel guilt or mourn its loss? Wrong! And you show me one abortion clinic that refers women out to grief counselors after she’s had a “procedure.” You won’t find a single one. See, it’s not in their best interests, either, to admit that women suffer mentally when they have abortions. Nope, they have to treat every woman as cookie-cutter alike, as if they’re removing the conscience and the mothering instinct as well as the baby.
So if you find yourself in the position of holding a woman’s hand while she weeps upon finding she’s pregnant with your baby, try thinking again about your reaction. It’s not giving or kind to offer to pay for the abortion. Instead, consider telling her that this is your problem too, and that if she has the child you’ll do everything you can to be as much of a dad to him or her as you can.
That, my lad, is being a man.
Better yet, keep it zipped until you’re with a woman you love enough to raise the baby with. If you can’t look at her and think, yeah, she’d be a great mom to my children too, then maybe you’re not ready to have sex with her. THAT is a pro-woman attitude I can respect.
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