Below is a section from a longer article on debating abortion. It concerns the popular sentiment from a growing number within the pro-choice movement that men have no right to an opinion or that abortion is none of our business.
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This response is incredibly tiresome but I have yet to debate abortion without my opponent bringing it up. I was even told by another man that because we were men we had no right to an opinion on the matter. Ironically, this was stated right after he had given his own – “pro-choice” – opinion!
I have yet to be informed as to precisely how my having a penis is any hindrance whatsoever to my ability to rationally analyse the scientific evidence concerning the beginning of life, the philosophical question of personhood, the biological facts about life development, or issues of viability, disability, or mortality. In fact in plain experiential understanding of the realities of pregnancy and child birth I have discovered that I often far outstrip even many of my female opponents. I know what it’s like when it dawns on you that you’re going to be a parent. I know what it’s like to see my child for the first time at 12 weeks on a hospital scan. Due to certain complications I got to see many more scans over the months that followed and watched my son grow in the womb of my wife. I know what it’s like to be there every step of the way through a difficult pregnancy and a child birth hit by the complications of an ovarian cyst. My wife was very ill after giving birth, and was required to remain in hospital for a week afterwards. I may not have carried a life inside my body, but to think that this means I didn’t understand what was going on is pure unadulterated nonsense. I’ve lived it.
Furthermore, the idea that abortion has no effect on men is at best factually incorrect, and at worse a horrendous instance of the kind of sexism that would be censured if it was stated the other way around. Being a father is a big deal. Being a father has completely turned my life on its head. Utterly. When a woman contemplates an abortion it’s not just her own well-being and future at stake in the decision. The future of the man is at stake also. When his child is aborted do you really think this has no effect on a man? In fact, in the majority of cases when a woman has an abortion without her partner’s consent the relationship subsequently breaks down. We’re not robots. We’re not devoid of emotion. So please let’s have no more of this patronising nonsense that men should have no right to an opinion because we don’t know what it’s like or that abortion doesn’t affect us.
Of course, the argument leads to all manner of silliness: should only terminally ill people have a right to an opinion on euthanasia? Are disabled people the only ones qualified to dictate public policy concerning provision for disabled people? Are female doctors and surgeons incompetent when speaking on issues of testicular or prostate health? Perhaps all of us in the Western world should remain neutral on questions of third world aid since we don’t know what it’s like to be poor?
But, of course, the claim is merely a red-herring; little more than a lazy attempt to close off all debate, particularly when it’s going badly and a man is asking difficult questions of those who think it’s fine and dandy to take the life of an unborn child.
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Stephen J Graham
stephenjgraham 