Abortion prevention: don’t forget about the men

This is a post that I submitted to Kelsey Hazzard at Secular Pro-Life

http://blog.secularprolife.org/2014/08/abortion-prevention-dont-forget-about.html

I encourage everyone to go to the link and comment there. Also Kelsey put a funny picture of a pregnant looking man. However, for convenience of those who subscribe to my wordpress blog, I have also copied the text here.

Abortion prevention: don’t forget about the men

Consider this situation: A man chooses to have sex with a woman who he knows will go for an abortion if she gets pregnant. She does get pregnant. She goes to an abortionist, who performs the abortion. Which of the three people killed the baby? The father, mother, or abortionist?

It should be obvious that all three people played a part in the abortion. So no matter what your answer, you are partially correct. The father chose to do the one thing that could result in a pregnancy the mother did not want. The mother chose to abort rather than seeking out alternatives. The abortionist was the final step in causing the death of the baby.

Keeping all of that in mind, if you could go back and talk to one of the people—the father, mother, or abortionist—and convince them to become pro-life, which one would you choose?

Again, there’s no one right answer, but I would pick the father. Talking to the abortionist could have a major impact if he’s the only abortionist in town and has no one to replace him, but otherwise, the mother will just go elsewhere for the abortion. Of course talking to the mother is good because if her mind changes, the child will live. But will she have the support of the father? He had expected the mother to have an abortion even before they had sex, which implies that he has no interest in taking care of the child.

Talking to the father makes sense because he has the power to change his ways and stop creating children who will be killed. He also has the ability to support the mother in taking care of the children he is responsible for, making the mother less likely to want to abort. Many women abort due to fear of being a single mother.

Outreach to women in crisis pregnancy situations is great, but we need to make sure we’re reaching the men too, rather than placing all of the weight on the women. The idea that men are irrelevant to the abortion debate is incredibly misguided.

Why choice is relevant

Does anyone think about what it means to choose? Imagine that I have a house and I am deciding what color to paint the walls of a room. By what system do I decide what color is the right choice? After I have decided what color I want, the next step is to buy some paint of that color. This may work, but imagine that all the paint stores that I am able to walk to do not have the color I wanted? In this case, my choice to paint walls the color I wanted was destroyed. Sure, I made the choice, but circumstances prevented me from doing what I wanted. I would simply have to choose from the colors that were available, or leave the walls unpainted. But this whole example is irrelevant because I do not own a house.

In my mind, there is nothing wrong with people making choices about the colors, shapes, and materials they use for their creative activities. But what about when someone decides that it is their business to stop someone else from choosing what they want? I choose to let others choose for themselves what they do.

But make no mistake, I am not pro-choice when it comes to abortion. I oppose abortion because I do not think that anyone with a rational mind really wants to murder the innocent. When they do this, it is based on circumstances which they did not “choose”. In my mind, “pro-choice” should mean the same as “pro-life”, but I do not call myself pro-choice because I would be misunderstood.