Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion

by Gabrielle Stanley Blair

Holding men accountable for their actions does not make women victims. Asking men to take some responsibility is not the same as allowing women to take no responsibility.

How is a woman ever absolved of the outcome of an unwanted pregnancy? She isn’t. She can’t be. Whether she endures the full pregnancy, has a miscarriage, or gets an abortion, she has to deal with it one way or another.

❍ Have you ever promised to pull out and didn’t? (Be aware, that’s assault.)

The reality women face is that if they say no to sex, or no to unprotected sex, the man may respond with violence and anger. This may be a difficult thing to imagine if you don’t regularly go to bed with people who weigh twice as much as you do and can easily break your neck.

Murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women, often committed by the man who impregnated them. If that doesn’t underscore the power dynamic in sexual relationships, I don’t know what will.

Don’t ask: Why don’t women pick better men? Instead, ask: Why are there so many abusive men? And: Why don’t we teach men not to abuse?

Farida D., an Arab gender researcher and poet, describes this well in her book The 8th List of Shit That Made Me a Feminist: Patriarchy teaches us that sex, for women, is a giveaway, while for men it is a takeaway. She saves herself, gives herself to the right one, and then her virginity is lost. In this equation, there is nothing in sex that’s for her to take. Whereas he takes and scores and there is nothing in sex for him to give. When her mind is programmed to give, she struggles to say “no.” When his mind is programmed to take, he struggles to accept “no.”

Men carry, abort, suffer complications from, labor, deliver, and die from 0 percent of unwanted pregnancies. Men can and do walk out on pregnancies. Women cannot.

The leading cause of death for pregnant women in the United States is homicide, usually at the hands of an intimate partner.

Giving birth is dangerous work. Arguably it’s the most dangerous work. We tend to think that the most dangerous work is done by men in predominantly masculine professions, like firefighters and police officers. But our assumptions are wrong. As mentioned in the list above, in the United States, the mortality rate for pregnancy is 17.4 per 100,000 people. The on-duty murder rate for police officers is 13.5 per 100,000 people. Which means a pregnant woman is more likely to die due to that pregnancy than a police officer is to be killed on the job. And it’s not just that pregnancy

Men famously can’t handle the pain when connected to a menstrual cramp simulator. Men wouldn’t accept the side effects from a male birth control pill. Yet men expect women to experience pregnancies that routinely maim them and can even kill them.

Women shouldn’t be expected to “get stuff done” while caring for their child. Caring for their child is already the thing they are getting done.

About 60 percent of women who have abortions are already parents—so if having a baby and parenting that baby is “punishment” then they are already being punished. But also, no child should exist as a punishment! Every child deserves to be wanted and anticipated.

Children born from unwanted pregnancies can experience a lack of attachment with their mothers, delayed cognitive and emotional development, and a higher likelihood of experiencing domestic violence.

Let’s start with this: The vast majority of those interested in relinquishing their child through adoption never seriously consider abortion. And for those who are denied access to abortion, 91 percent still won’t choose adoption. Related, the adoption rate today for people denied abortion is the same as the pre-Roe rate.

Though it’s not commonly talked about, one of the biggest reasons pregnant women aren’t interested in adoption is because relinquishing a baby can be a very traumatic experience. In Ann Fessler’s book The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade, women describe worrying every single day of their lives about the baby they were pressured/forced to relinquish and never feeling relief about the experience. One woman who had relinquished a child and then later had an abortion said that people who claim that abortion trauma is anywhere near as bad as the trauma of relinquishment have no idea what they are talking about.

There are no laws that require the father to pay child support without a court order. It’s not automatic. In many states, credit scores are not affected by failure to pay child support. Fathers aren’t fired from their jobs for impregnating a woman. Fathers are not billed for any medical expenses for the pregnancy or the child. (In at least two states, fathers can be legally required to pay for at least 50 percent of pregnancy related medical costs. Should we assume the mother has to be willing to fight for those payments—via paperwork and dealing with state agencies—from unwilling fathers?)