Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion

by Gabrielle Stanley Blair

Perhaps you are thinking responsibility is fifty-fifty. The woman just needs to insist that the man use a condom. But hold up a minute. If the woman has to insist a man use a condom, haven’t you just described an irresponsible man? How is that fifty-fifty? You just put 100 percent of the responsibility on the woman by saying she needs to insist the man use a condom. You’re asking the woman to be responsible for her actions and also for the man’s actions. So how is the man acting responsible in this scenario if he only wears a condom if the woman insists? Answer: He’s not.

A woman having an orgasm while a man penetrates her risks nothing and hurts no one. A man having an orgasm while he penetrates a woman risks everything—he

Here’s the thing, if you’re someone who is interested in reducing abortions, as strange as it sounds, focusing on abortions is not the answer. Neither is focusing on women. Women are already doing the work of pregnancy prevention. No. If you actually want to reduce abortions, you need to start much earlier. Instead of focusing on abortions, you need to focus on preventing unwanted pregnancies. And to do that, you need to focus on preventing irresponsible ejaculations.

(When you’re looking at stats, remember that coerced sex doesn’t get counted in the nonconsensual numbers.)

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.

Going through pregnancy and childbirth in the United States is nearly 1.5 times as likely to kill you as traffic accidents (there are 17.4 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies each year, and 11.7 deaths per 100,000 people from driving each year).

Worldwide, maternal death rates are falling. At the same time, in the United States, maternal mortality rates are rising—they have more than doubled over the last three decades. These deaths are disproportionately of Black women, making it significantly more dangerous for Black women to experience pregnancy and childbirth. Across the world, 800 people die every day from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes.

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.

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.