"If we can’t safely go out and have sex and know that we will have a choice after that, then why should we be expected to?"

Such a crazy question, asked by Caroline Healey, "a 22-year-old event coordinator," quoted in "Sex Strike! Abstinence trends on Twitter in wake of Roe v. Wade ruling" (NY Post).

It's not just on Twitter. The Post encountered Healy at a protest. She also said:

“I think it’s absolutely valid for us to be withholding the Holy Grail that men seem to think is important... Why shouldn’t we withhold it if we’re always worried that they’re not going put a condom on, that they’re going take one off after we ask them to...."

Well, first of all, if you're "always worried that they’re not going put a condom on," you're conceding that you have been using abortion as a form of birth control! You should have more secure birth control, something more than a condom. And why are you having sex with men who can't be trusted to use a condom? And why don't you look to see if they are using a condom and refuse to have sex if they don't? You should always have been "on strike" about the failure to use a condom! 

All right. With that appalling argument out of the way, let's look at what's left of the idea of a sex strike. It is premised on the idea that the woman wants to have sex when she is not having sex because she wants to have sex. 

I would say you should NEVER have that kind of sex, whether you have access to abortion or not. Of course, sexual activity has harsher potential consequences for a woman, and abortion rights may take some of the burden out of the activity, but that doesn't explain why a woman would give sex to a man because he wants it and not because she wants it.

Where did Healy get the idea that — while Roe lived — women were having sex because they were "expected to"? That's not feminism! That was subordination all along. It's abuse if someone with power over you is expecting you to give sex when you don't independently want it. And if you feel you are choosing it — you just want to "go out and have sex" — but only because it's "expected," then it's self-abuse. Respect yourself!

To say "it’s absolutely valid for us to be withholding the Holy Grail that men seem to think is important" is to imply that you don't put the same value on sex, that what's exceedingly precious to the man is just a form of currency for the woman. 

Of course, it's also perfectly obvious that these sex-strike organizers are doing exactly what social conservatives want: abstaining from sex unless they are open to the gift of life. And what a kick in the head it would be if it turned out that what makes sex as valuable to a women as it is to a man is this potential for creating a child.