Abortion: A Man’s Choice

Just a couple of days ago, I was reading a Vice interview with Noel Biderman the founder of AshleyMadison.com – the world’s largest on-line hook-up site for people seeking adulterous affairs. Today the news broke that their web-site has been hacked and that clients’ personal information has been posted on the web. Of these two things, the interview is the more interesting in that it points to a significant problem in the way that pro-life and pro-family Catholics often approach the abortion issue.

Biderman is putting out a book called First Bump. Why that title? Because apparently the most likely time for a man to start cheating on his wife is when she is pregnant or has just had a baby. Many of his clients enter marriage with no intention of being unfaithful, but then their wife gets pregnant.What‘s a guy to do? Suddenly his wife is no longer always sexually available. Maybe she finds sex uncomfortable after the second trimester. Or it’s taking too long for her to heal after giving birth. Or she’s exhausted by the demands of a new baby. Time to find another woman who can fulfil his needs.

It reminded me of something a friend once said. He had been invited to give a presentation on abortion, and he was trying to think how he could handle the subject as a celibate male without being accused of trying to control women’s bodies. He ended up doing the talk about abortion and men. He pointed out that in most cases abortion is not a decision that a woman makes on her own. Where, he asked, are the men in this equation?

The talk was apparently very well received. Many of the people present thanked him for drawing attention to this aspect of the issue. They’d never heard it talked about before. Indeed, the vast majority of pro-life outreach is focused on women: touching women’s hearts, changing women’s minds, providing women with the resources they need to keep their babies. There’s very little aimed specifically at the hearts and minds of men – apart from a few resources for those who are grieving an aborted daughter or son.

We get sucked in by the feminist rhetoric that says this is a woman’s body and a woman’s choice, when in fact there is, more often than not, a couple choosing whether to give their child a chance at life. Women rarely choose abortion without first talking to the father. If he tells her to abort, that’s half of the decision made right there. One of the parents has already chosen to end his child’s life – even if the mother does not go through with it.

In many cases, though, a man will not simply offer his opinion. Fathers may threaten to leave or break off the relationship unless the woman aborts. In some cases, they will resort to abuse or violence in order to coerce a woman into having an abortion. Or, if they are married, they may threaten divorce – or resort to adultery.

In long-term relationships, the decision to be open to life often rests with the man. There are huge numbers of women out there faithfully popping the pill day after day while they try to negotiate to have another child. They don’t dare to get off the birth control because they know that there will be negative consequences for them if they have an “accident.” In a case where a woman knows that her husband had an affair during her last pregnancy that’s a huge psychological stumbling block to having another baby – even if she desperately wants one.

The pro-life movement is full of dedicated men who want to end abortion. Over and over again, these men have feminists scream at them “You have no right to tell women what to do with their bodies.” So what if those men, instead of focusing on the choices of women, focused on the choices and attitudes of other men?

No self-respecting feminist could possibly complain about a man telling other men to take responsibility for their children, to support pregnant women, and to stop behaving as though it’s okay to expect that women will always be available for consequence-free sex. No feminist will scream at you for telling husbands that it’s not okay to cheat on their pregnant wives. Moreover, if we focused more on the male half of the equation we might be able to not only save babies from abortion, but also to save pregnant women and new mothers from abandonment, poverty, abuse or neglect.

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