Matt Walsh:
There are two facts about me that are quite evident to anyone who knows me: First, I am a man. Second, I am a man who has developed an opinion about abortion.
I am a man with an opinion about abortion. Even more shocking, I did not consult with the Feminist High Council before formulating my opinions. I did not check the rule book to make sure my man-opinions are within the spectrum of approved perspectives for someone of my anatomical persuasion. I did not fill out the forms requesting permission to publicly voice my unsanctioned beliefs, nor did I review the guidelines to determine the manner and extent to which they can be voiced.
Lord forgive me, I went off on my own and generated a point of view that, it turns out, directly defies the established orthodoxy. And, not satisfied to keep my rogue man-opinions to my man-self, I’ve gotten into the nasty habit of telling people about them. I might have gotten away with my man-thought crimes had I just kept my man-mouth shut, but it’s too late at this point.
Now, every time I mention abortion, I’m reminded by pro-abortion women that I have no right to contribute to the discussion due to my shameful lack of a vagina. “You’re a man,” they observe as they pat themselves on the back for so effectively disproving everything I just said. This is an “argument” I hear probably 97,000 times a year, and one I heard another 1,000 times last week when I gave my thoughts on the historic abortion case now being considered by the Supreme Court.
Per tradition, I immediately heard from many feminists who were incensed that I dare say anything on the subject. As one feminist on Twitter put it, my opinion doesn’t matter because I’m a male and this is “an issue solely of reproductive rights.”
It feels a bit like nabbing low hanging fruit to actually offer a counterargument to the proposition that only (liberal) women should have an opinion on abortion, but I hear this so often that I’m beginning to think these people are sincere. They actually think abortion is a “women’s issue” — and one which men are somehow disqualified from discussing.
So for the benefit of those confused on this point, here’s why abortion is more than just a women’s issue:
1. The truth is not subject to your genitals.
File this in the “things that shouldn’t need to be said out loud” folder. Abortion is a moral question, a legal question, a scientific question, a question of truth and reality and reason. I’m not a doctor, but I’m fairly sure your genitalia will not whisper the answers to these questions to you. The answers can be ascertained by listening not to your reproductive organs, but to your conscience, and by researching the facts. These activities are generally open to members of both genders, although few from either camp choose to participate in them.
Here’s what it comes down to: abortion is murder or it is not. Unborn children are people or they are not. It is morally acceptable to kill an innocent human being or it is not. A woman cannot change the objective answers to these questions, and neither can a man. I’m sure it is true that women have a greater emotional insight into this issue — many of them having carried and birthed children themselves — but an insight into the truth is not the same as an ability to alter it.
Indeed, it’s precisely this emotional insight that leads most women to oppose abortion. The ones who support it do so by ignoring their particular womanly insight. You’ll notice that pro-life women sound passionate and eloquent and feminine when they defend their position, whereas pro-abortion women sound like men. That’s because the pro-abortion movement pretends to defend women but actually encourages women to reject that which makes them women.
Pro-abortion progressivism tells us that reproduction is an activity unique to females – a scientific theory that a third grade biology education reveals as false, but we’ll get to that in a moment — and then tells us that men can’t have anything relevant to say about it. But the trouble is that progressivism seeks to brutalize and ultimately eliminate that which is unique to women. It is the pro-lifers, both men and women, who love and respect the unique characteristics of womanhood. It is the pro-life movement that displays a real knowledge of, and appreciation for, the female experience and the female body. Pro-aborts, on the other hand, are experts in womanhood the same way an arsonist is an expert in architecture. He knows how to burn it down, and that’s all he’s interested in doing.
2. No woman has ever reproduced without the indispensable assistance of a man.
I say that men “assist” in reproduction, but that is a considerable understatement. The reproductive act is one that requires 100 percent from each of the participants. That’s the wonder of human sexuality: it’s complementary and co-creative. If done in the right context, for the right reasons, it’s a mutual expression of love and devotion, and from that expression there is the possibility of an entirely new life forming.
Our culture has long wanted to strip the love, beauty, fidelity, and creative potential from sex and turn it instead into an ugly, selfish, fleeting, individualistic, self-focused activity. In our society, we pursue our selves when we have sex, just as, according to progressive doctrine, the entire point of life and every moment and action contained within it is to pursue our selves. It’s therefore no surprise when we hear so many people insist that men have nothing to do with the human lives they create.
We can’t even have an opinion as to whether the babies we helped bring into existence are savagely murdered and sold for parts at a Planned Parenthood clinic. As a man, according to progressives, my child is not my child so long as he is dependent on his mother’s body for survival. This is a bit like saying my wife’s children were not her children when I watched them by myself for three days while she visited her sister. Parenthood does not work that way, or at least it shouldn’t. Progressives know this, which is why, once the baby is born, they are quick to call a man a deadbeat if he doesn’t stick around to raise the child they just spent nine months describing as a non-human blob that’s none of his business or concern.
Talk about mixed messages.
Now, I make no excuses for men who abandon their families, but I do think progressives have put themselves in a position where they cannot condemn such men without being spectacular hypocrites (not that they ever let a little hypocrisy slow them down). It’s certainly detestable for a man to reject his children, because they are his children. They were his children from the beginning, and will remain so until the end. And they are her children, too. And that is the whole beauty of it. They are totally hers and totally his.
I spend my life obsessing over what is mine, what I can possess and own and claim to myself, but when I form a family and have children, finally for the first time “me” becomes “we.” In my children and my marriage I find something that is greater than myself. Something that transcends myself. I have something that is absolutely mine and absolutely not mine, all at once. I am sharing something. I am a part of something.
I date my entry into manhood to my wedding night at eighteen. When I looked in awe at the wonderful young girl sleeping next to me, her black hair glowing softly blue in the light of a full moon that was in just the right position to lend her it’s light through the window and realized it was my duty to protect her from harm.
When I first held our newborn daughter in my hands, I realized that protecting her was my first responsibility now.
Then, when I began working with abused children, my realization grew that the first duty of any man is to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
This include the unborn, the most defenseless of us all.
The the only time I ever saw tears in my son-in-laws eyes, they tried for a year and the test was positive, the kids were walking on air. Then something wasn’t right terrible pains in her abdomen, a tubal pregnancy, the pregnancy had to be terminated, I arrived at the hospital he sat in a family room head in hands, the doctor said the chances of another child cut drastically, my grand daughter might never have a sibling. Another year and 1/2 passed and the test is positive, nine months of him watching my daughter like she was made of glass. His name is Parker Steven and the contract I made with his big sister that if it was a stinky boy baby Grandma could keep him was broken the second they put him on her little lap.
I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell him he had nothing to say about that fetus.
To argue ad hominem that because someone does not or cannot carry a baby, their argument is wrong, is to confuse the argument with the arguer.
This is simply another way Leftists say ”Shut Up!” because they have no refutation.
I bet as many women share his views as share hers.
When brains die, human beings die with them. Pope John Paul 2, now a saint, pronounced it licit to remove the beating heart of a brain dead person to use in transplants.
Can it not be understood that a non religious person could morally date the origin of a human being to the formation of a functioning frontal lobe (the thinking and pain perceiving part — which is beyond 25 weeks with 99% of abortions being before 20 weeks).
This doesn’t mean that people can’t take whatever positions they wish. It simply helps to try and understand why people who don’t believe in criminalizing women and doctors aren’t necessarily some type of moral monster.
Actually, In California, it is two counts of murder when a man kills a pregnant woman. Yet, when a woman kills an unborn, it is acceptable.
@Larry Weisenthal: Is it not reasonable to think there are different circumstances between the beginning of life and the end of it? Besides, if you want to cite Pope John Paul II, he felt life begins at conception.
I am not an avid abortion opponent, but I oppose it as a means of birth control. However, I feel, except for cases of medial emergency, it is more than reasonable to expect that decision to be made prior to 20 weeks; THAT should be banned.
Once definitive scientific proof of the moment life begins is established, I would be interested in considering it.
When someone tries to tell me that as a man, I have nothing to say about abortion, I point out that about 50% of the aborted are men. So that does give me a say. I’ll also argue the abortion in case of rape issue by pointing out that we don’t punish the child for the crimes of the father.
As an aside, point 2 in the main article may be moot. I read a couple years ago that someone had come up with a way to convert adult stem cells into sperm. If so, it seems two lesbians could conceive a child.