The world has a lot of opinions about what goes on inside of women's bodies. Many men, particularly those in Congress, seem to think that we women should not have basic reproductive freedoms, and they rail against our right to access safe and legal abortions because we are supposedly "irresponsible" when it comes to unwanted pregnancy. That's why New York Times bestselling author Gabrielle Blair took to Twitter to "shut that whole thing down" and explain why actually, men are the cause of abortion.
Blair, a Mormon mother of six, wrote, "ALL unwanted pregnancies are caused by the irresponsible ejaculations of men."
Men could mostly end abortion if they really wanted to, Blair said, but she believes they have "zero interest" in doing that.
Why does she think any of this? Allow her to explain:
First of all, women can only get pregnant for about two days per month.
"And though their sperm gets crappier as they age," she notes, "men can cause unwanted pregnancies from puberty till death." So biology plus opportunity means there is potential for a lot of unwanted pregnancies caused by men.
Sure, women can take birth control to prevent some of them, but Blair breaks down the problems with that line of thinking too.
Blair shared a piece by NPR that shows male birth control, while possible, doesn't exist yet because men in clinical trials said they couldn't handle side effects like acne, mood swings, and depression.
Luckily (I guess), women are willing to handle the shitty side effects.
In addition to the horrible side effects, Blair points out, women also get to deal with men constantly trying to restrict our access to birth control. "Birth control options for women require a doctor’s appointment and a prescription. It’s not free, and often not cheap," she wrote. "In fact there are many people trying to make it more expensive by fighting to make sure insurance companies refuse to cover it. Oral contraceptives for women can’t be acquired easily, or at the last minute. And they don't work instantly."
But, she notes, there is one form of birth control that does work instantly: condoms.
But men don't want to use condoms, do they?
Some of them are even secretly removing condoms during sex, a form of sexual assault, and then blaming women for the consequences.
When men refuse to use condoms, Blair points out, they aren't thinking about diseases, infections, pregnancy, or any other consequences. "So … there are men willing to risk getting a woman pregnant — which means literally risking her life, her health, her social status, her relationships, and her career, so that they can experience a few minutes of _slightly_ more pleasure? Is that for real? Yes. Yes it is," she wrote.
And, how big is the difference, really? "If there’s a pleasure scale, with pain beginning at zero and going down into the negatives, a back-scratch falling at 5, and an orgasm without a condom being a 10, where would sex with a condom fall?" Blair continued. "Like a 7 or 8? So it’s not like sex with a condom is _not_ pleasurable, it’s just not _as_ pleasurable."
Are you enraged yet? You should be. We all should be.
And keep in mind, Blair added, that a man cannot get a woman pregnant without having an orgasm. Meanwhile, women can have orgasm after orgasm and it will not ever cause a pregnancy on its own. So all those people who want to say "women shouldn't have sex unless they intend to get pregnant," are really just doing what people always do in abortion conversations — forcing women to shoulder the burden for the actions of men, in every possible way.
Men should be thinking about pregnancy and asking about it and actively working to prevent it. But they aren't, and they aren't facing any consequences for that. As Blair pointed out, "If the woman does tell him [a man] that he caused an unwanted pregnancy and that she’s having the baby, the closest thing to a consequence for him, is that he may need to pay child support. But our current child support system is well-known to be a joke. 61% of men (or women) who are legally required to pay it, simply don’t. With little or no repercussions.”
The thread has been retweeted more than 74,000 times at the time of this writing and people are blown away by it.
It's a very long thread, and you can read it in its entirety on Blair's Twitter. But the main takeaway is that abortions are not caused by "irresponsible women." They're caused by a society that refuses to hold men responsible for the unwanted pregnancies they create. People will say "there should be equal responsibility" until they're blue in the face, but is that really how we treat it? If it was, this wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
"Men mostly run our government. Men mostly make the laws. And men could eliminate abortions in 3 months or less without ever touching an abortion law or evening mentioning women," Blair wrote.
How? Stop shaming and blaming women, take responsibility for your own ejaculations, and use a f*cking condom. It's really that simple
