I know controversy sells but all the same Stephanie Fairyington is being far too generous to this bullshit in “The Parent Trap: Paternal Rights and Abortion”.
Greg Bruell and his girlfriend of a year and a half, Sandra Hedrick, had a pact. “We agreed that if we got pregnant, we’d terminate because we were not in a stable family unit,” Hedrick says. Or as Bruell more starkly puts it, “I resumed sexual relations with her on the condition that were birth control to fail, she’d abort without waffling.”
As the article goes on to reveal, Bruell has a history of treating his female partners like handy appendages that he can exercise full reproductive control over so it is little wonder that he thinks that reproductive choice is his entitlement. And Bruell’s lawyer:
“Reproductive choice isn’t a fundamental right if it’s only limited to people who have internal reproductive systems,” Feit says. “If it only applies to women, it’s a limited right and that weakens it.”
Here is the terrible biological injustice for men – men can’t gestate. And here is the really terrible biological injustice for women – men can’t gestate. Which injustice is greater in a patriarchal society?
I imagine it must be very sad to want a baby from a pregnancy that ends up being terminated and it must also be quite alarming to find that an unplanned pregnancy is going to bring a baby into your life that you hadn’t bargained on, though my sympathy is stretched when you try to justify why that child of yours should then go without so you can avoid child payments. I am sure these possibilities make sex somewhat unnerving for heterosexual men. But you know what ain’t a hell of a lot of fun either? Being the one who can be abandoned and pregnant, being the one who can be raped and then pregnant, being the one who is more likely to be beaten up by a partner while pregnant, being the one who can lose your job for being pregnant, being the one who can die in childbirth etc etc.
If men want supreme reproductive control over their sperm they have an option far more powerful than legal recourse – they can choose not to have sex with women and if that sounds too onerous they can always limit themselves to non-penetrative sex.
“she’d abort without waffling.”
It’s easy to say that in theory, quite another in practice. Because you can often start bonding with the thing before that second line on the pee stick comes up.
Or not.
You don’t know exactly how you are going to react in any given situation until you are in that situation.
Perhaps if he feels so strongly about not being financially responsible for kids he should have a vasectomy or ‘turn gay’
I can understand him being alarmed to suddenly be facing fatherhood when he thought that was not at all on the table… but the risk is ALWAYS there when shagging-while-hetero.
I remember saying to my now-husband when we started dating (when I was only 19, and he was 22), that “my default is that, at this point, if I were to accidently get pregnant, that I’d have an abortion. But I can’t guarantee that I’d actually be able to do it should the situation occur. Can you live with that??” I remember thinking if he said he couldn’t cope with that small possiblity, than we were not right.
What Stef said. There are precious few times when women turn out to have more choices than men in a patriarchal society. As it turns out, in our society, women have one more reproductive choice than men when it comes to preventing or not continuing a pregnancy. If a woman’s contraceptive fails, then she may choose termination. But for many, many women, it’s not an easy choice, particularly in a society that stigmatises abortion.
Don’t want to support kids? Then make sure that you take responsibility for contraception, and if you are going to have sex, be prepared for that contraception to fail. And if you really, really, don’t want to have a child, then make sure that you choose the most effective contraceptive available. That would be vasectomy for men. Not abstinence, because abstinence is very prone to failure.
Grump grump. I’ve feel very grumpy about this topic ever since a male friend was very upset when he and his wife became pregnant again, but he didn’t want to have another child. He was very sulky and grumpy for months, and got even worse when we suggested he have a vasectomy. Apparently it was going to ruin his life forever if he did that.
with Deborah and STef on this one… either don’t have sex, or get a vasectomy if you don’t want children, and if you want sex and no kids then use condoms and the pill…. but frankly the guy sounds like a loser.
I don’t know. A vasectomy makes sense for a married man who is sure he doesn’t want any more children. But for an unmarried man who wants sexual relations, is willing to use a condom and expressly states his desire not to have children, I think it’s fair to not want his progeny running around. In the same way I feel queasy about the idea of egg donation, not wanting my biological offspring existing without my knowledge or participation, I can understand a male feeling violated by a person being created without his consent.
Accidents are one thing, but I think we all know some women who may not have respected the wishes of the man on this issue. If the man is upfront about his wishes and does what he can to prevent a pregnancy, I don’t see why he shouldn’t have a say in the matter. If the woman is uncomfortable with those wishes, she can always choose not to participate.
The reason he doesn’t have a say in the manner is the same reason that he doesn’t get to make the choice — at any moment, he can just WALK AWAY. He doesn’t have to go through a painful physical procedure to rid himself of the fetus, he can just move. He can disappear. He doesn’t have to come up with the money, the time off of work. He doesn’t have to do anything because it isn’t his body, and it’s not his choice.
That’s how he doesn’t have a say. It isn’t the woman who should have to choose not to participate when the man says “Hey, listen, if you get knocked up, fuck you and the kid because I don’t want it.” That isn’t how it works.
In an ideal world, conception would never occur unless all the parties involved wanted it to.
As it stands, the human reproduction is unfair. It’s unfair that the physical toll and financial expense of pregnancy (or termination) falls entirely on one person. It’s unfair that for a period of time (gestation) only one person has the authority to decide what happens, and that is the person in whose body the whole process is occurring. Biology isn’t fair.
The fact that men currently only have access to a very few forms of birth control is a reproductive rights issue. The fact that women get to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy is a bodily autonomy issue. Once the man’s sperm leave his body and enter hers, she is in charge of what happens until that DNA is outside of her body again.
@wm – he can walk away and have sex with someone else, he can find a partner who doesn’t want children – although I suspect that maybe he enjoys the powerplay, or he can fend for himself. No chance of getting anyone pregnant if you spill your own seed. If he wants to have sex with women who may want children then he has to be aware that an accidental pregnancy may ensue and that his partner’s reaction to the pregnancy may not be what either of them expected. He has lots of choices and if he refuses to exercise them well them’s the consequences of your actions buddy.
I’ve feel very grumpy about this topic ever since a male friend was very upset when he and his wife became pregnant again, but he didn’t want to have another child. He was very sulky and grumpy for months, and got even worse when we suggested he have a vasectomy. Apparently it was going to ruin his life forever if he did that.
Yes, that describes my brother. And you mention vasectomy and it’s as if you’ve advocated castration. Otherwise-educated person. Unbelievable.
Generally men get plenty of input into these decisions,and to say that they don’t is rubbish. Greg Bruell looks like he got lots of airtime for his opinion on the matter, and must have made things pretty miserable for Sandra Hedrick.
How many other women would have given in?
There are so many instances where women are bullied, coerced, badgered and shamed into consenting to abortions they are unsure about, or don’t want. How about a law to prevent that?
What men don’t get is the controlling vote, and that seems to be the issue. It can be confronting to have to admit that a woman you thought wasn’t enough of a goddess to bear your babies when you wanted your babies, can not only get pregnant when you didnt want her to, but may actually have feelings about the pregnancy. That you may actually have to acknowledge her as a human being when you are both parents to the same child. ( or not. And many don’t)
the ‘without waffle’ is particularly offensive.
Helen: I think that that is not atypical…some men are offended by the suggestion that their male dogs be neutered.
I understand that many abortions are performed on reluctant married women trying to keep a family and relationship stable.
Otoh: I’ve known fathers absolutely guttted by their partners having an abortion, when they yearned for a child.
The Bruell-Hendrick stoush is not about rights, it’s about money.
As far as I’m concerned, she had an absolute right to have her child, but, in pursuing him for child support, she makes the possible legislation of “male reproductive rights” that much closer.
And, I bet that, if they come in, they disadvantage women. It could mean, that in the future, with an agreement such as theirs, she could be legally forced to have an abortion.
The other thing that bothered me about this statement is she’ll get an abortion… OR WHAT? What is he going to do about it?
Grr
[...] concept, sexism, yeah fuck you too I was going to write about the very stupid article discussed here, but really, Blue Milk basically covered it (except for the epic stupidity of the writer, who [...]