Let’s start this with a caveat — I’m a man. I’m a white man. I’m a white cisgendered man in full control of his own reproductive system and with a substantial amount of legally-recognized bodily autonomy. So of course what the world’s been waiting for is for me, as a white cis-man, to bring forth my opinion on this controversial and fraught conversation about abortion and a woman’s right to choose.
I would like to see fewer abortions. I would like the overall number of abortions every year — whatever that number actually is — go down. Ideally we would live in a world where not a single abortion ever had to be performed, except in cases of medical necessity, and I’d like to see medical technology progress to the point where medical necessity was is vanishingly rare.
And we know how you drop the abortion rate. First, there’s sexual education. Actual respectfully-presented science-based sex ed. Taught to schoolkids. You teach them about consent and bodily autonomy from a very young age, and as they progress through life you teach them the correct words for their anatomy and you teach them that there’s all sorts of different people in the world and you explain to them how sex and reproduction works, so by the time they’re well into puberty they know exactly what the fuck is going on and can make informed decisions about their own bodies without confusion, stigma or shame.
Second, free and easy access to contraception. As early and as often as needed. And that access isn’t just for young women but also for young men, who need to be taught right from the start that they are actively responsible for their own reproductive choices and the consequences thereof.
Third, free and easy access to healthcare, including sexual and reproductive healthcare… and including access to abortions if needed. Cue the record scratch sfx — if we want fewer abortions we have to allow abortions? Yes. Of course we do. Because banning abortion doesn’t actually reduce the number of abortions, all a ban does is increase the number of women who die from undergoing unsafe abortions.
Fourth, we need to create a world where every child, regardless of their circumstances or their background, grows up fed and clothed, housed and educated. We need to make sure that these children are valued, loved and given every chance for the future.
We know how to reduce the number of abortions. But the current spate of anti-abortion laws and the accompanying agitation from the “pro-life” crowd — I put “pro-life” in quotation marks because the typical pro-lifer really isn’t pro-life, they’re pro-birth and after the delivery they don’t give a shit what happens to the kid or their mother. Once that unwanted pregnancy is carried to term conservatives — especially religiously-motivated conservatives — suddenly have no time, patience or money for supporting the child they insisted be born. Frankly, pro-lifers generally aren’t pro-lifers at all, they’re what the pro-choice movement has been using as a descriptor more and more often lately: They’re “forced-birth extremists.”
We as progressives — and especially as progressive men — need to recognize and understand why the forced-birth extremists are motivated to do what they’re doing. Of course, it’s really not all that complicated and it’s got sweet fuck-all to do with morality or ethics or even the “rights of the unborn” (or whatever dogwhistle propaganda phrase they’re using this week.)
Forced-birth extremism and the current attempt to outlaw abortion isn’t about preventing abortions; it’s about controlling women’s bodies because of a misogynist ideology that places women in a subservient position to men — keep them ignorant, keep them abstinent, keep them in the home and out of the workforce, and so on. This is done — usually cloaked in evangelical-religious bullshit terms like “traditional family values” and “god’s plan” and so forth — simply because there are a lot of powerful men who are afraid of women and women’s self-determination. They want to control women because, deep down, they’re afraid of them… and therefore anything they do, any lie they tell, is completely justified.
And I can’t respect that. These are the same assholes who try and block — or in the case of Canada, roll back — rights for LGBTQ people. They’re the same assholes who fear the Black Lives Matter movement. Who scream about a “migrant crisis” but who support bombing the shit out of whatever small foreign nation that has resources we’d like to steal and pay a multinational to extract for us. These are the same assholes who’ll stand up on a stage or a TV screen and beg for money in the name of God… because owning a fleet of Ferarris and a private jet is a clear sign of the Lord’s blessing, right?
Women (and those that can become pregnant and do not identify as a women) need to have the right to determine their reproductive choices, up to and including the choice whether or not to terminate a pregnancy for whatever reason. It’s their right, it’s their choice, and I as a man support unequivocally support whatever they choose and defend their right to do so. And the details of a woman’s personal health and reproductive choices are not my business unless and until she chooses to share them with me.
It’s really quite simple.
