Tuesday, June 22, 2010

More Forced Birth Thoughts



I often read the comments in more mainstream places to posts about abortions, because I want to understand where the different arguments come from. A very common basic anti-abortion argument has to do with pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, always acting right, in a modified version suitable for the weaker and sillier sex: Women should cross their legs if they don't want to have children.

This opinion seems to be as common as the baby-killer argument if not more so. It is based on the idea that human beings are in complete control of their destiny. Nancy Reagan once created a "Just Say No" campaign for fighting drugs, and that's what is behind this forced birth response: You didn't say no. You asked for it, slut. Now enjoy the consequences!

This makes having a baby into a punishment which is a very odd "pro-life" value in itself. But it also doesn't assign the same punishment to the men who didn't cross their legs (tie a knot to it?). I have never seen an article about the need for men to understand that if they have sex with a woman they naturally expect to become fathers and must not whine when that happens. But I have read several articles about how very natural men wanting to have lots of sex without love is, and that sex is assumed to be without any negative consequences.

It could be that the posters who write about slutty women deserving their just desserts also run vigorous campaigns against slutty men. I doubt that, though. The Puritanism only crops up when the topic is women's sexuality.