This is a fun story about a proposed bill which is unlikely to pass,
even in Oklahoma:
Oklahoma state legislator Rep. Justin Humphrey (R) has sponsored a draconian bill that would require a woman to get the written consent of the fetus’s father before obtaining an abortion.
He has thought deeply about this question, as can be seen in the
following quote:
Ultimately, he said, his intent was to let men have a say. “I believe one of the breakdowns in our society is that we have excluded the man out of all of these types of decisions,” he said. “I understand that they feel like that is their body,” he said of women. “I feel like it is a separate — what I call them is, is you’re a ‘host.’ And you know when you enter into a relationship you’re going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and don’t get pregnant,” he explained. “So that’s where I’m at. I’m like, hey, your body is your body and be responsible with it. But after you’re irresponsible then don’t claim, well, I can just go and do this with another body, when you’re the host and you invited that in.”
Bolds are mine, and the bolded sentences are the reason why I write about this proposal even though it is unlikely to pass. The views Humphrey (R-NoUterus) expresses are common among online pro-life comments*:
If you don't want to get pregnant, keep your legs crossed. In other words, don't have slutty sex at all. Or any kind of sex.
What's fun about Mr. Humphrey's views is what happens when you do a sex reversal on them.
Suppose he had said to all potential fathers that they pre-know they can make someone pregnant if they enter a relationship (including one-night stands), and that they should be prepared for that possibility by planning for at least eighteen years of child payments before dating anyone or by getting a vasectomy or by demanding a functioning male contraceptive pill.
But pro-lifers don't have those demands. In the world of those who hold Humphrey's views it's only women who are deemed responsible for pregnancies. Men can hunt for sex without any limitations. And I find that weird.
What would happen if
everyone started suddenly following Humphrey's rules? There would be very little recreational intercourse. Not even Mr. Humphreys could get any! Married heterosexual couples, say, would only have sex when they wanted to have a child and would stop the minute they have enough children.
That world will not happen, but neither does Mr. Humphrey want that world. He wants a world where the slutty pregnant women will have no say over whether they will give birth or not**.
I have some sympathy for Mr. Humphrey's worry about men having no say about becoming fathers or not after they have made someone pregnant. Once we have perfected artificial wombs outside the human body they can have equal say over that question. But as long as the risks of pregnancy don't happen in their bodies, their power to decide over those pregnancies must be less than the power of the people whose bodies are exposed to that risk.
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* The pro-life comments tend to fall into two major categories. One is based on religious arguments, usually from Christianity, even though abortion is not mentioned in the Bible. The other is based on the implicit assumption that only women are responsible for getting pregnant, that it's all some kind of parthenogenesis, and so nobody else is expected to pay for, say, birth control.
** They lost that right by being slutty, in his world.
