Women have always had the ultimate choice in reproduction, and they always will, but one choice is terribly complicated and difficult. Our country decided, in a court room, in 1974 that the right of a woman to obtain an abortion was to be established in federal law. For years before that it was legal in several states.
This talk is designed for men.
The decision to have an abortion is one person’s alone: the woman in question. It will never be made illegal. It will not be undone. The state can no more force a woman to stay pregnant than it can force someone to GET pregnant. Will not happen, and it shouldn’t.
Ultimately the choice to end a baby’s life in the womb is a moral one. We can legislate forever, but it would be unenforceable.
There may be a thousand opinions on why to get an abortion and they would all be wrong for there is only one that counts… that of the mother in question.
Science supports life, and science is not democratic. The left repeats that the world will end in nine years, because the science says so. That people can be born the wrong gender and that’s okay, because the science says so. That wearing a mask and social distancing should be mandatory, except for protest marches and attendant lunacy, because the science says so.
All of these can be debated, except that life begins at conception, the person in utero has a unique DNA, and is innocent of the decisions made in his or her name before birth. That is what science says with a certainty.
Yes, the decision will always be the woman’s one to make. But men neglect to stand tall, even conveniently forget, they are half of the equation that can make all the difference in the world.
The man in a relationship must think little of his partner. He, too, has much culpability in the act that triggered this tragedy of abortion. A man who joins with a woman in love and passion, being given God’s greatest gift, a woman’s love, and then throws up his hands when confronted with the obvious potential consequence, and says “it’s your choice and I support you” is really saying “please let me off the hook.”
This man is a coward.
I believe through anecdotal experience that women are terrified of the lack of emotional and financial security that comes from not having a committed partner. The decision is never made lightly. It must be agonizing.
The decision of abortion, the wrong decision, will haunt this couple and define them for their lifetimes. Male moral cowardice in the face of abortion is an invisible stain that cannot be rubbed out and it cannot be reversed.
Men should act like men and live up to responsibility. It’s part of being an adult. Because of free love, or emancipation, or contraceptives, or abortion, the ultimate and fun act of love has little consequence in our culture anymore. A real man accepts the responsibility to provide and protect, especially in the face of unplanned procreation.
It is palpably easy for a man to assent to a woman’s right to make a decision of aborting a child. This is a copout. The man is equally answerable for a child conceived, but when a society allows the weak man to walk away from responsibility, the woman bears the anger, anguish, and emptiness alone.
It is cowardly to join with a woman and not live up to the consequences. It is cowardly for a man to abdicate his responsibility of fatherhood. It is equally heinous for a husband to quit the covenant of support he made with his marriage vows. Perhaps a couple’s perfect life together may be disrupted by continuing a pregnancy. But it is guaranteed that the pall of the abortion will hang over them every day of their manicured lives.
Reproductive decisions should be difficult, well thought out, discussed at length, agreed upon, and hopefully supported by the covenant of marriage. And more men should live up to their responsibility, and not suffer from male moral cowardice.
Gentlemen, if this is you, you need to man up. Tell her you love her and will support her and build a life together no matter how inconvenient. Beg her to accept your commitment.
If she decides not to keep the baby, there is nothing you can do about it. Learn from it.
Women who choose life under stressful circumstances have taken the more difficult path and they will always bear the greater burden. Men should walk that way, too.
edited and previously published in February 2019.