Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Men: Abortion Isn't About You

I have been fooling around on Essembly.com lately. The short description might be "MySpace for politics;" it is a social networking site where users can vote on a variety of user-created resolves and find other like-minded people, as well as generally have a good time. If you're into that sort of thing. At the moment it is skewed pretty heavily towards the young and white, so it would be nice to get some variety in there.

One of the resolves I had a bit of a discussion over was "Abortion violates a man's rights." The argument was that since men and women are equally complicit in conception, men should have their say in abortion considerations. The two faces of the issue are the cases where a woman might abort a fetus that would develop into a child the man wanted, and cases where a woman might bring to term a fetus that the man didn't want, which he would them be financially responsible for.

In the first case, I should think it is fairly obvious that forcing pregnancy and childbirth on women is unethical and amounts to slavery.

In the second, the situation is a bit more complicated. It is true that forcing fathers to provide financial support to unwanted children is imposing a burden on them against their will. At the same time, it is clear that in a world without abortion as an option, these men would be financially responsible, even for accidental pregnancies. So in World A, with no abortion, a man must pay for children he conceives, regardless of if he intended to conceive them or wants them. In World B, with abortion, the question is whether this availability means that a man can absolve himself of this responsibility because the birth of the child is contingent on the mother choosing to have it, even against his will.

I would argue that the availability of abortion changes nothing. There are many, many ways in which a man can avoid unwanted children; they are all contraceptive. Women also have many ways; contraception, but also abortion. It is not "unfair" that women get to make a choice concerning their own bodies while men don't. Men get full control of their own bodies, as do women. If fetuses gestated in external pods, the decision would be equal, but they don't: they gestate inside women. If you are a man and take all reasonable precautions to avoid pregnancy but a woman gets pregnant despite them, you are responsible for the resulting child, but for the nine months it is a part of the woman's body, she has sovereign control over it.

So sorry.

12 comments:


  1. , I should think it is fairly obvious that forcing pregnancy and childbirth on women is unethical and amounts to slavery.


    No, I would say killing an innocent human being for the crime of living inside another woman's womb is unethical and amounts to murder. The woman gets out of it alive. The unborn child does not.

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  2. A fetus is not a child, no matter how much you wish it were.

    A fetus is human. It is not a human being. Without a functioning brain it has no interests to protect.

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  3. Bravo.
    That's it, just bravo.

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  4. I haven't been by here in way too long. It's not only looking schnazzy, but such good content too.

    It's always impressive to hear a man argue for financial responsibility of an unwanted child during the abortion debates. Even I get swayed by arguments to the contrary sometimes. I'm just an idealist - I wish both parents always agreed about abortions or lack thereof.

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  5. If Suzanne is against abortion because she beleives it kills a child, why would she WISH it were a child? Don't you think she'd wish it weren't?

    Most people don't wish for great evils and wrong so they can have something to be ardently against. "Man, I wish my neighbor abused his kid so I can be against it!" NO! That's ridiculous.

    Wouldn't the answer be that you wish it wasn't a human being so that you can continue to have inconsequential sex?

    BEING means existing. You say that an unborn child isn't a human being because it has no brain? Pull out your bio textbook- Brain waves start at 4 weeks. Regardless, that human BEING exists. What else are you killing if it doesn't exist? What's growing in there?

    You're married to Rachel Burlage aren't you?

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  6. If Suzanne is against abortion because she beleives it kills a child, why would she WISH it were a child? Don't you think she'd wish it weren't?

    Most people don't wish for great evils and wrong so they can have something to be ardently against. "Man, I wish my neighbor abused his kid so I can be against it!" NO! That's ridiculous.


    I agree it's ridiculous.

    So why do you anti-abortion types keep doing it? There is a way to tell whether a fetus thinks or feels, it's called studying it. Medical research has been doing so for decades.

    Wouldn't the answer be that you wish it wasn't a human being so that you can continue to have inconsequential sex?

    Abortion doesn't make sex inconsequential. It gives a woman the freedom to take responsibility for these consequences. Saying abortion makes sex inconsenquential is like saying car insurance makes auto accidents inconsequential because a person doesn't have to drive around with a dented fender to remind them.

    What you want to do is punish women for having sex. You want their consequence to be shame and economic hardship and carrying a fetus inside their bodies against their will.

    In what way is abortion not a consequence of sex? What's really amusing is when anti-abortion types want women to be counseled on how difficult and traumatic abortion is in one breath and then act like it is a convenient way to get out of pregnancy without consequences in the next.

    BEING means existing. You say that an unborn child isn't a human being because it has no brain? Pull out your bio textbook- Brain waves start at 4 weeks. Regardless, that human BEING exists. What else are you killing if it doesn't exist? What's growing in there?

    When used in the context of "human being," being implies an entity capable of conscious thought, in the sense of "I think, therefore I am." A person, in other words. It is a noun, not a verb. Try referring to yourself as a "human existing" instead of "human being" to see that it is not the same word as being, the participle of to be. Seriously, try a dictionary.

    I didn't say that a fetus did not have a brain. I said a fetus did not have a fully-functioning brain. And if you want to talk neuroscience, you should know that brain waves don't mean something is conscious. Brain waves only indicate electrical activity, not thoughts. A fish has brain waves, but it isn't a "fish being," it's still just a fish.

    A working cortex (the part of the brain that actually does the thinking) doesn't even begin to take shape until 20-26 weeks.

    An abortion kills a human fetus. A developmental stage that may become a human being. But at the time it is in the uterus, it is not a person by any reasonable definition other than, "Is too!"

    You're married to Rachel Burlage aren't you?

    No. I don't know a "Rachel Burlage," in fact.

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  7. Actually, I do recognize the name, now that I think about it. Didn't she go to UNT? I'm fairly sure I never met her, in any case, or if I did it was in passing.

    Do I know you?

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  8. So why do you anti-abortion types keep doing it?

    We're not doing anything, Ryan. Your position is the one that requires semantic gymnastics. Our position is that humans-regardless of stage of development be it fetus, infant, toddler, to elderly all have HUMAN rights and it's not possible to justify killing a human based on its developmental stage. You have to define "human being" "person" in your own terms in an effort to justify what you do; and even then it doesn't work.

    To say that certain humans have no rights based on its characteristics, race, gender, stage of development is just another form of oppression. There's also no guaranteeing that your brain won't be compromised and lose partial functioning. Would you agree that you then should be dismembered with forceps? I doubt it.

    Abortion doesn't make sex inconsequential. It gives a woman the freedom to take responsibility for these consequences.

    Abortion is RESPONSIBLE? Are you effing kidding me? Surely you don't beleive that! It's the ultimate in irresponsibility. It's a cop-out of the consequences of your actions at the expense of someone else (the fetal human). To use your car wreck analogy, it's like going for a joyride, totalling your child's car and then having your child pay to replace your fender.

    What you want to do is punish women for having sex.

    Opposing abortion is not about punishment for having sex anymore than expecting someone who has already birthed a child to keep them safe and fed or surrender them to someone who can.

    Punishment for having sex would be denying treatments for STD's. I don't oppose treatments for STD's because those don't kill anyone. If abortion didn't kill a human, you could abort all day long for all I care.

    It's not about, "You got pregnant. Now you must get fat! Muahahaha." It's that, "You have created a human that requires care. Unfortunately it's not all about you anymore when your actions caused another human to exist."

    Didn't she go to UNT?

    Yes, she did. And you two are ideological clones so I thought maybe this wife Rachel of which your bio speaks was her.

    Do I know you?

    Nope. I just surfed over here from a link of another UNT blogger.

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  9. I want to meet this other Rachel as well. I think we would get along.

    Ryan, you never cease to amaze me with every thought that dances through your head.

    Much applause to thee good sir!!

    Hopefully I'll see you this weekend. ;-)

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  10. Late to this party, but a few thoughts:

    1)If I were in a close, loving relationship with a woman and she chose an abortion without talking it over with me, she'd definitely be totally, 100% within her rights--it's her choice, not mine--but my feelings would be wicked hurt. Different, but related issue, I know.

    2)As that chimeric (and according to many conservatives logically nonexistent!) creature the liberal, progressive Roman Catholic, many of my abortion discussions occur with family and other folks for whom fetal personhood and human racism are nonnegotiably part of the discursive framework. My arguments then become:
    "Okay, imagine a homeless guy breaks into your house, seeking shelter from a storm. There's no debate he's fully a person, he's like, 32 or something. Now, we'd probably agree that it'd be immoral to kick him out if it was going to get him killed in the storm if you kicked him out for trespassing--but should it be ILLEGAL to kick him out of your house (womb)?"
    This often works surprisingly well.

    3)Since most of my family are Irish Catholic Democrats of the Kennedy worshipping-school that flourishes here on Cape Cod (my mom has this old painting called "The Peace Sowers" with JFK and John XXIII that I'm wicked fond of in a half sincerely idealistic, half arch, Gen-X-ey way), the conventional wisdom I was raised with, was "Yeah, it's wrong, but those creepy Republicans are NUTS to wanna make it illegal. Look at the Drug War and Prohibition!"

    An idiosyncratic perspective, but one I rarely here AT ALL in national debates on abortion. While my current position is closer to yours than theirs, I'd still like to here theirs in the MSM, like, ONCE in my life.

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  11. If I were in a close, loving relationship with a woman and she chose an abortion without talking it over with me, she'd definitely be totally, 100% within her rights--it's her choice, not mine--but my feelings would be wicked hurt. Different, but related issue, I know.

    I agree completely. I have been having a simlar debate over "Militant Veganism" and animal rights. The issue being debated here is rather more of a mire because it calls into contrast the rights of both members of the creative proccess. I feel that in a traditional male/female relationship the male should have the right to have his opinion on the matter head and seriously considered, however, the final decission in the matter belongs with the female.

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