June 1, 2022

"The impregnator — a clarifying term for a man who starts an unwanted pregnancy — suffers not one twinge of pain related to childbirth, only pleasure in the sexual act."

"And none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator.... Forced-birth laws mandate a woman not only to withstand childbirth but also to choose: either raise a child she does not want or surrender that child for adoption, a decision that some women embrace but others describe as a lifelong grief. In this way, abortion bans and restrictions could also be called 'forced child-surrender' or 'forced motherhood' laws.... A wise grandmother once told me: 'The decision to have a child is a decision to have your heart go walking outside your body for the rest of your life.' What happens if that decision is made in a statehouse? A courtroom? Does the lawmaker’s heart walk with a child — the one whose mother was denied an abortion — for life?"

From "Antiabortion laws are forced-birth laws. Here’s what that looks like" by Kate Manning (WaPo).

There's also this: "Like abortion foes who wave photos of bloody fetuses outside clinics (fetuses that could not survive outside a woman’s uterus), we who oppose the annihilation of our bodily autonomy ought to plaster statehouses with photos of our episiotomy incisions, our Caesarean scars, our intravenous-line hematomas, our bloody postnatal sanitary pads and bloodstained bedsheets, our cracked nipples and infected breasts."

109 comments:

Wince said...

And none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator.

Now do the existing law.

Patrick Henry was right! said...

Or, you could just use birth control or engaging in sex if you don't want children. But, by all means, show us the scars!!!! They are exactly the same as a dead baby.

Nancy said...

Yeah. Because cracked nipples are just like bloody fetuses. And surrendering a child is just like aborting it.

David Begley said...

The man has to pay child support. Ask Hunter Biden about this.

And why hasn’t Joe’s grandchild and the baby mama not been to the White House?

stonethrower said...

Hey, no one asked you to choose female gender.

gilbar said...

couldn't this All be prevented, by one aspirin (held between the knees)?

Gahrie said...

"And none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator....

That's because up to now, all the laws have had consequences for the "impregnators" (offensive, but better than splooge stooges) and none for pregnant women. Those laws are still in effect. Laws forcing women to give birth would merely be evening things out.

tim maguire said...

none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator

Right, there are no consequences for the father. That's about the level of ignorance I expect from the best and the brightest at the Washington Post.

A wise grandmother once told me: 'The decision to have a child is a decision to have your heart go walking outside your body for the rest of your life.'

I somehow doubt the wise grandmother meant it as a defense of abortion. The wise grandmother did not have a wise granddaughter.

Milo Minderbinder said...

Actually, the decision-making (to the extent it is voluntary) begins before impregnation, and the ability to control impregnation (through the next morning) is much higher than it was fifty years ago. However, whether impregnation is voluntary or involuntary I see zero basis not to assign co-equal financial responsibility for children to both pitcher and catcher. Why legislators can't deal with that aspect of this issue is beyond me. Judges sure as hell can't.

Enigma said...

Reality sucks.

Gravity sucks. Smelling my poo every day sucks. Cutting my hair sucks. Brushing my teeth sucks. Thorns on roses suck. Bee stings suck. Ticks suck when they suck. Mosquitoes suck when they suck.

NATURE SUCKS!

Who hires people like this? Hopefully the nihilists will reach their dead-end destinations without destroying or disrupting the rest of us.

Leland said...

Interesting how abortion laws that allow abortion for any reason through the first trimester are called "forced birth".

But that's not nearly as strange an argument as what Althouse emphasized in the pull quote. The old grandmother may have been wise, but she failed to pass on that wisdom to the listener. The existential heart is a metaphor of the love for the living child. If the author understood the wisdom, then she would realize that a pro-life "lawmaker’s heart walk with a child" as far as the lawmaker beliefs.

baghdadbob said...

The impregnator is on the hook for 18 years of child support, and he cannot demand an abortion or adoption. If a woman can unilaterally repudiate her unborn child (via abortion), why can't the man repudiate via a demand for abortion or adoption?

M said...

Or just use birth control. Get your tubes tied. Only have sex with a man you know has had a vasectomy. Pregnancy and giving birth is HARD and destructive to the body.

I 100% support women who want tubal ligation getting it done even if they have never had children. Many women complain their doctors won’t even discuss this with them until they have had children. But they only get one shot. Their insurance company and society at large shouldn’t have to pay to try to put everything back together for them when they decide they made a mistake and now want a kid.

This is all another instance of women wanting to have their cake and eating it to. “Men” didn’t create the reproductive habits of all mammals. God or Mother Nature did. It isn’t everyone else’s fault you were made this way and it isn’t everyone else’s burden to let you commit murder, and the destruction of the soul of society that brings with it, to “make things fair” for you.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

(fetuses that could not survive outside a woman’s uterus)

There’s a stork shortage now?

Anonymous said...

wave the bloody flag already?

n.n said...

The feminist, the masculinist - a clarifying term for a woman, a man, who deny women and men's dignity and agency, normalize the wicked solution for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes.

Temujin said...

I've not read the entire article, but from the clips you posted it sounds as if Ms. Manning is portraying women as innocent bystanders. As if they have no say in having sex, in having sex unprotected. As if they have all been dragged out of bed, penetrated in their sleep, woke up pregnant, and are now being made to care for a baby they neither planned for, nor want.

It's serious stuff, having a baby. It's wacky fun having sex, but given that it produces babies, and has since forever, that anyone gets surprised by the result in this day and age is somewhat shocking. Yet we do. Yes, of course, men do not have to carry the burden of pregnancy directly, though men who are present carry the burden of it in other ways that a woman may not understand. The wise quote that "the decision to have a child is to have your heart go walking outside your body for the rest of your life" is pretty darned accurate. What's missing and typically assumed to mean nothing, is what the man feels about it when the decision is made (by the woman) to abort. His heart is also in this in many cases.

Again- this is a problem that will not have an answer that is acceptable to all. But it cannot be denied that abortion is the act of ending another life. And I'm not surprised how quickly we've turned from screaming about the horrors of a mass school killing to the legalizing of mass baby killing. I guess it's the lack of familiarity, the fact that they're not yet named humans that makes it so palatable to some vs the kids in the school who had years with their families and friends. Yet those aborted would be those in the schools in just a few short years. And while I understand those who look at it gravely, yet need to have it done. It's hard for me to grasp the righteousness some have to claim the higher moral ground when it comes to guns, yet promote abortion as a religious sacrament, almost joyously.

I also don't understand those who approach this as if the woman had no say in it from the onset, and as if the man should have no say in it afterward. Not that the man should be allowed to 'command' the woman to have the baby. But to assume the man is not in the picture, or should have no opinion is to state that you had sex with a doormat, not a human being.

MadTownGuy said...

Dear Kate Manning: have you no shame?

All these things she describes are true of any full term birth. Further, to assert that overruling Roe will result in forced pregnancies is a strawman argument. She also ignores the physical and emotional trauma of abortion.

Ancient Mariner said...

Since the cost of a pregnancy is so much higher for a woman than for her "impregnator", one would think that the traditional rule for young women -- no sex until she has a ring and a wedding date -- would still be operative. As a former adolescent male, I know the truth of the old adage that "an erect penis has no conscience". The current sexual rules -- young women have as much right to the pleasures of casual sex as young men -- don't seem to be working so well.

n.n said...

'The decision to have a child is a decision to have your heart go walking outside your body for the rest of your life.'

Technically, a couple, a woman and man, each contribute 1/2 a heart to "our Posterity", which is denied by the Pro-Choice "ethical" religion that reduces human life to negotiable commodities (e.g. diversity [dogma] or color judgment, class-based bigotry). Keep women appointed, available, and taxable is the battle cry of the male and female chauvinist's narcissistic indulgence that opens women and girls to involuntary impregnation.

That said, there is no mystery in sex and conception, a woman, and man, have four choices: abstention, prevention, adoption (i.e. shared/shifted responsibility), and compassion (i.e. personal responsibility), and self-defense through reconciliation. The wicked solution, the final solution, is neither a good nor exclusive choice to relieve a child... a baby... "burden" ("our Posterity").

rhhardin said...

All put poetically by Marge Piercy Right to Life from The Moon Is Always Female.

ending
I will choose what enters me, what becomes
of my flesh. Without choice, no politics,
no ethics lives. I am not your cornfield,
not your uranium mine, not your calf
for fattening, not your cow for milking.
You may not use me as your factory.
Priests and legislators do not hold shares
in my womb or my mind.
This is my body. If I give it to you
I want it back. My life
is a non-negotiable demand.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

God forbid, terminators stay legal but rare. 🤯

wendybar said...

What is the woman experiencing?? WHY is she even having sex with a man who is an "impregnator??" The woman needs to close her legs and stop having sex with unwanted men. Most women made a CHOICE to have sex. Jeez. Not that hard to do. Personal responsibility people.

Birches said...

Oh brother.

Go ahead and post those pictures. Is a bloody pad supposed to be equal to a mutilated child? A stitched vulva similar to a dismembered, tiny arm? I don't think posting gruesome abortion photos is good strategy, but it's silly to equate the two.

I've also inadvertently seen the photos of the near term aborted babies in DC from a few months ago. Not gruesome, but it will shock because in other circumstances it could be mistaken for birth photos. Barbaric.

R C Belaire said...

Is this too harsh? : Every female gets at most one abortion, after which tubes are tied and that's it. I get the fact that a child is a burden to care for -- especially an unwanted and unloved child -- but there needs to be some parameters agreed to.

Birches said...

Not one woman has need to suffer from cracked, bloody nipples.

"I would have aborted this baby, but since I'm forced into giving birth, breast is best!"

Schizophrenic reasoning.

Lurker21 said...

The Impregnator.

Not another Marvel Comics movie, please.

Inquiry said...

Does the lawmaker usually have to suffer the consequences along with the person affected by the law? Do the lawmakers for child endangerment laws usually get torn from their families or forced to endure abusive homes? Do the lawmakers for mandatory sentencing usually have to endure time in prison?

Indeed the decision to abort would also be a "a decision that some women embrace but others describe as a lifelong grief." Do pro-choice" politicians currently walk with the latter group of women in their lifelong grief? For that matter, do they walk with the Fathers who wanted their children to live but had to watch them killed? Do they walk with the children who are killed?

Now perhaps there is a case to be made that our system would be greatly improved if politicians did have to suffer along with the citizens their votes affect, but I have yet to see a practical way of instituting such an idea.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Althouse’s presentation of this article is masterful. Her love of language and interest in how it is used to frame ideas and manipulate the public discussion is evident. If the “forced birth” title was used to introduce this article and discussion it would set off intense responses IMO to the many options a woman has before during and just after coitus to avoid the whole “forced birth” inevitability. Using the “impregnator” quote instead (which even now requires me to battle the iPhone’s desire to edit me) focuses the Althouse reader on the interesting new term the author deliberately thrusts upon us in the course of making a horrible generalization, even if we (mentally) avoid the rhetorical trap of “rape and incest” implied by the author.

Well done Althouse. I look forward to the reaction of your commentariat.

Mark said...

Impregnator = man is incredibly anti-trans.

Women can impregnate too. And men can get pregnant. Women can impregnate men.

n.n said...

The terminator - a clarifying term for a woman who chooses to have sex and elects to abort, cannibalize, or sequester an unwanted child ("carbon complex"). The matrix - a clarifying term for a social system that denies women and men's dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a negotiable commodity.

ConradBibby said...

These laws aren't "forced birth." They're "forced get an abortion within 15 weeks" or "forced get an abortion in another state (where probably 90 percent of abortions are performed already)."

Also, can't the same "forced motherhood" characterization be applied to laws banning infanticide? A mother who is not allowed to kill her one-year-old baby is also being "forced" to be a mom or live with the guilt of giving the child up for adoption.

MikeR said...

All this is undoubtedly true and it's really a lot and everyone knows that. The author can't really be oblivious to the other side of the issue, but chose to skip it.
Obviously, her glib dismissal of the "impregnator" (pathetic) is ridiculous as well. "If you have the right to murder the ___, we should have the right to abandon him!" Does she agree to that, or is she all ready to force the "impregnator" to pay for years under the decision of the "impregnated"?

Mark said...

Kate Manning demonstrates why the pro-abortionists cannot win by reason and persuasion. They can only prevail by raw power.

Now that they won't have the impregnable Roe wall to keep out reason and justice, they will find it a tougher go. Even in those states that are militantly anti-life. Like water, reason and justice will start creeping in through the cracks until they too crumble.

hombre said...

Oh, oh, oh, the ongoing saga of the child-woman who demands control of her own body but is at the mercy of "the impregnator" because safe sex is never an option.

Pity the child-woman. Cancel the impregnator.

n.n said...

we who oppose the annihilation of our bodily autonomy ought to plaster statehouses with photos of our episiotomy incisions...

Sexual reproduction? There is no mystery in sex and conception. Deny your Progressive Cult, Corporation, Chamber, Clinic. Lose your Pro-Choice "ethical" religion. The wicked solution is neither a good nor exclusive choice to a purportedly hard problem: socially liberal ideology, to keep women (and girls) appointed, available, and taxable.

rhhardin said...

Impregnator is a bad word etymologically. Pregnant is pre-gnant (before birth), which doesn't go with an agent.

Levi Starks said...

Birth control is hard.

Original Mike said...

If you didn't want to go to St. Paul, why did you get on the train?

Critter said...

So many lies by omission. So many distortions. If you only include the facts and experiences that support your conclusions, life is clear and simple. A partial list of things that should be part of her ramblings:

1. What is so fulfilling as a woman to have unprotected sex with a man who is not their husband? Humans have not changed since the sexual revolution. Why the need?
2. Science shows us that babies can survive outside the womb after the first trimester or so. What about those human beings who are brutally killed in abortion?
3. Much has been documented about abortion regret, so why only point to the experience of giving up a child to adoption?
4. Do moral values matter to this woman? Or does she only worship at a pool where she can see her reflection? What is the purpose of her life?
5. Why has she accepted the role of sex provider to men? Great deal for men, but is it a great deal for a woman?
6. Does she know any women who feel that their life was fulfilled without having a child? There may be some, but not many in my experience. And that feeling Carrie’s on long after they have forgotten the passing pleasure of sex with someone they have forgotten.
7. Why are arguments from abortion lovers always couched in a straw man type of argument? No one realistically expects that abortions will not be available if Roe is overturned. No one is forcing a woman to have a baby. Women have choices all along the way, including not using abortion as birth control.

I feel sorry for a person like her who cares so little for herself to see the issues the way she does. Not a path to true happiness in life.

n.n said...

bloody fetuses

Evolution! A bloody human life... baby. Fetus is a technical term of art to socially distance a technician, an abortionist, a feminist/masculinist, from a product or undesirable human life, has progressed with diverse judgments, labels (e.g. "burden", unworthy), and motives (e.g. fair weather, redistributive change, [clinical] cannibalism), over time and place. The modern model (e.g. diversity [dogma]) denies women (and girls), and mens (and boys), dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a negotiable commodity under an "ethical" religion.

GatorNavy said...

Impregnator= weasel word for dodging any shred of responsibility.

Humperdink said...

No twinge of pain for the impregnator? Someone hasn't been to child support court lately.

SJ said...

I have a great idea...

We should find a way to charge these 'impregnators' money, to aid the 'impregnated' in the task of raising a child.

We can call it something snappy, like 'child support payments'.

Don't you think that is a good idea, to put some pressure onto people to only trigger pregnancies in a responsible manner?

Mrs. X said...

Okay, now do bodily autonomy with vaccines. And don’t make the argument that people can opt out of vaccine mandates by quitting their jobs. No, they can’t. They need to pay for rent and food. But they can opt out of pregnancy—by not having sex.

Narayanan said...

I would call for mandatory vagina/penis control >>> a la calls for gun-control

Virgil Hilts said...

I'm pro choice but not a maniac about it. I remember Garret Hardin (maybe in Mandatory Motherhood) hypothesizing walking into court in a pro life country with a mason jar full of dozens of alive fertilized eggs in embryonic fluid and telling the court - here you go, 36 people who will die unless you save them and walking out.
Would you really go all out for those tiny things in a jar (they are saveble, it will just take a heck of lot of work, scrambling and implanting) the same way you would if a truck full of orphaned babies from say the Ukraine was left parked outside the courtroom?
Abortion arguments are repetitive; I always liked this one because it removes the motherhood element. If you don't treat the little floating fertilized eggs the same, why not? I am pro choice in part because I care so much more about the babies in the truck

Jamie said...

So, yet another incidence of women's total lack of agency in with whom and how they have sex.

Also - I'm offended by the conflation of the ending of what is undeniably at least a potential human life with post-birth discharge - which is a heavy period - and cracked nipples. For God's sake.

This person's point seems to be that a lot of men benefit from instructed abortion. That's what the pro-life side has been saying FOREVER: that like everything else about the Sexual Revolution, a primary effect has been to make women believe that they should treat their sexuality the way an unscrupulous man would. "Sex positive" my *as.

Narayanan said...

a la gun-control = since guns shoot people so do penises inject/impregnate and occasionally on target

Breezy said...

Yes, the gift of giving life to a new human can be painful, irritating and create scars where few can see. Welcome to biology 101. Do these motherhood effects outweigh choosing life? Most are temporary and heal relatively quickly. Is she likening this to a “first world problem”?

Ironclad said...

Excuse me? No consequences to the male other than 18 years of child support payments - and those have been fostered on guys that are not even the biological father. Forced birth? That’s a real joke, it just means you can’t kill it in the 9th month.

Funny how the “papers of record” never seem to mention the strict laws in Europe about abortion - easy at first, forbidden generally after 12 weeks. Are they “ forced birth too?”

farmgirl said...

I’m glad I can’t breach to read this article. Just reading the excerpt makes my heart tick up a notch. It makes such a mockery of pregnancy, birth &motherhood.

And: impregnator? Hah. I’ve always used sperm donor, myself. That was my 1st husband- no joke.

"Like abortion foes who wave photos of bloody fetuses outside clinics (fetuses that could not survive outside a woman’s uterus)…”. Yeah. No shit. Has it ever occurred to anyone of these smart people that they’re NOT SUPPOSED to BE outside the womb, in bloody pieces? That gestation is 9months? If someone rips out a planted garden, wheat fields flood-or nesting eggs are smashed from marauding species; is the answer: oh well, they wouldn’t ripen, yield or live outside of the garden, field, nest anyway.

F/k, no. It’s all: “Oh, the poor little embryonic birdies.”
10 to 1 they skip the embryonic modification.

Be best.

American Last.



Wa St Blogger said...

I am all for the splooge stooge taking on his responsibility. Activists can work toward that if they want, and I bet most pro-life advocates would join them. With DNA testing it would not be hard to prove paternity. Women who don't want children have more then the one option these people are disingenuously stating. Also, with forced paternity in the mix, the men will be much more careful about where their seed ends up.

I knew a girl in high school who desperately wanted a boy to love her forever, and tried to use pregnancy to achieve her goal. He was too careful for that and ended the relationship. She managed to get pregnant by another boy, but he didn't feel the obligation to fulfil his role as the father. I am sure things have not changed much in that area.

Christopher B said...

And none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator

Da fuq you say? I'm old enough to remember when we started assessing child support to men who weren't even baby daddies.

Yes, it's not child birth but it lasts a lot longer (9 mos vs 18+years)

Anonymous said...

I am surprised that the left has not co-opted the `giant photos' method when protesting school shootings. I'm betting gory photos of bloody children would be similarly hard to argue against.

John Pearley Huffman said...

Both sides of the abortion debate often express their position as minimizing regrets.

As if anyone will make it through life without regrets. Or that risking regrets isn't often a necessity to find joy.

Ohio Scrivener said...

I think the better term is "18-year child support payor".

True - he will have no pain in childbirth. But for any man with a legal income, there are no free riders.

ccscientist said...

there are so many forms of birth control. Laws restricting abortion are almost always restrictive of abortion after the first trimester or so. Almost no blanket bans are proposed. This is bait and switch argument.

Michael K said...

I assume she has never heard of child support laws that force men into poverty to support a child that may not even be his.

Bill Crawford said...

If "men qua men" have no say because abortion is a woman's choice, why does she have a say about the "impregnator" as she is not one? (With apologies to trans folk who identify as men but started out...not so much.)

Quaestor said...

With all the non-infanticidal means available to avoid an unwanted pregnancy (Not including abstinence, can't ask anyone to use that technique, can we?) what excuse do American women have other than stupidity?

Yancey Ward said...

She is fooling no one, I think or hope. The terms are "father-to-be" and "mother-to-be". We can renogotiate the terms afterwards based on how the individuals behave, but trying to change the language this way- in the same way the pro-abortion side tries to deny the fetus is, indeed, a human being- only highlights the weakness of the argument for abortion itself.

I have been pro-choice (there is me using the Left's desired, less truthful language!!!) my entire life, and still am- I won't support a full ban on abortion, and I will encourage my representatives to keep it legal during the first 2-3 months of pregnancy even though I fully recognize the act itself as nothing really less than murder of an innocent human being.

I was emotionally struck by a comment someone left here last week- the commenter mentioned remembering every year, with tears in his eyes, a daughter-to-be who was aborted late-term when he was a young man. I had never really thought about it in exactly that way since I have never faced the same situation with full knowledge. After reading the comment, I realized I would feel the same way- a grief that never goes away, even if I never knew the child at all.

Tom said...

Life’s hard. We’re not allowed to kill other people when life gets hard.

Carol said...

Physical and emotional pain aside, with DNA testing there's no way a guy can falsely deny paternity now, and can be dunned for child support wherever he can be found.

I knew of guys moving to the wilds of Alaska to escape CS. They may do okay working off the books but any future respectable life is unlikely.

So there's that.

mikee said...

OH DEAR GOD! This is where I came in, with parents who were anti-abortion activist Catholics, back in the 1960s. I've heard it all, I've seen it all. Legislate the issue, and get it over with, because the gravy train of abortion political activism without any resolution is about to run off the rails and plunge into the ravine, in a steaming pile of angry people.

SGT Ted said...

What? The splooge stooge will have to pay child support.

Why does the author pretend that child support doesn't exist?

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

"And none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator..."

That's because those laws are already on the books. No need to write new ones.

Feminism is at its root the idea that women get to change their minds about anything at any time and not pay consequences. Unfettered abortion is just another assertion that women need not conform to reality when it is inconvenient or unpleasant for them.

Eleanor said...

Unless "an impregnator" is a rapist, he has an accomplice in creating the pregnancy. I think the thing that has made me "not a feminist" is the willingness of Feminists to give up their agency. They take no responsibility for anything. It's all a man's fault if they become pregnant. The disparities in income are not because they choose careers that pay less. They act like "sluts" and then get offended when they get treated like "sluts". Their word, not mine. If there are women who cannot see anything but the downside of being pregnant and delivering a child, the means are there to never have to experience it. The surgery is quick, doesn't require general anesthesia, and is safer than an abortion. One day of her life, and she never has to blame a man for impregnating her.

Elliott A said...

Unless a victim of rape, the pregnant woman chose to get pregnant by having sex without any means of birth control.

Sebastian said...

"'The decision to have a child is a decision to have your heart go walking outside your body for the rest of your life.'"

So, think before you have sex. Protect yourself. Take the morning-after pill if necessary. But remember that killing the baby is tantamount to killing your heart that could go walking outside your body for the rest of your life. How could you be more cruel to yourself?

farmgirl said...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/fetal-remains-mississippi-water-treatment

It’s not like it could live outside of the womb, anyway. Right?
Civilization- civilized people- bury their dead.

What are fetal remains?
Human?

That slippery slope?
It’s a cliff.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

All we are saying is give the terminators a chance.

Bitter Clinger said...

"And none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator..." Yeah, except for the child support for the next 18-21 years.

I'm not arguing against child support, but these arguments that men don't have to deal with consequences from sex are BS. Not only do men have to deal with consequences, they have no right whatsoever to decide whether their child lives or dies.

Men who bring this issue up are typically told they should have considered that before having sex. So why shouldn't women be held to the same standard? Shouldn't women be able to rationally consider the likelihood of pregnancy and motherhood before having sex, just as men must consider the likelihood of fatherhood? If they can't be expected to understand the consequences of their decisions, how can society give them the right to vote, own property, enter into contracts, etc.?

Bitter Clinger said...

"And none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator..." Yeah, except for the child support for the next 18-21 years.

I'm not arguing against child support, but these arguments that men don't have to deal with consequences from sex are BS. Not only do men have to deal with consequences, they have no right whatsoever to decide whether their child lives or dies.

Men who bring this issue up are typically told they should have considered that before having sex. So why shouldn't women be held to the same standard? Shouldn't women be able to rationally consider the likelihood of pregnancy and motherhood before having sex, just as men must consider the likelihood of fatherhood? If they can't be expected to understand the consequences of their decisions, how can society give them the right to vote, own property, enter into contracts, etc.?

n.n said...

Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Women, men, and "our Posterity" are conceived on Earth. Oh, the "burden" of humanity. Welcome to Earth.

PeterJ said...

Advances in medical science should make it possible to have the "man who starts a pregnancy" suffer, let's say, a bit of the pain: DNA analysis could allow his identity to be established in a court of law.
How that might work: the woman could accuse the impregnator, and genetic testing could establish if he was indeed the man responsible.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Oh… is this a “raping is going to be rampant if you Supremes do this” argument?

Achilles said...

The Roe supporters just cannot be honest.

The Mississippi law gives a woman 15 weeks to make a decision.

This is more time than most European countries allow. France gives women 14 weeks and requires counseling before the act.

Supporters of Roe are radical and outside the mainstream and dishonest about what they want. The only people that want widespread use of abortion after 15 weeks are ghouls that support selling baby parts and people who want sex selective abortions or the execution of children with Down’s syndrome after detection. They are Spartans throwing babies off the cliff.

Rollo said...

So write both the child and the father out af the picture, and treat childbearing as such an ordeal that you probably make the lives of any children you do have into a living hell. Good advice.

Anne-I-Am said...

What I find so interesting about the women claiming "forced birth" is the abdication of agency--as though none of them had the ability to say no to sex or yes to contraception. Really, what these women want is abortion as contraception. They want the same guilt-free libido-satisfying that they claim men have--sex with no consequences.

But human nature and biology don't work that way. Sex always has consequences--emotional, mental, often physical.

This is of a piece with what seems to me to be the zeitgeist of our time: indulgence of the animal appetites above all, coupled with the demand that others celebrate the hedonic behavior. This is morally abhorrent.

Jupiter said...

OK, we get the picture, you don't want to reproduce. There's an operation for that.

Kate said...

Well, pro-life women could post all of those pictures of afterbirth, too. What a silly suggestion. Does she think that women who choose to carry to term don't suffer?

Where the article has traction is in talking about the father. The Left never leans in too heavily on this topic, though. They might find themselves allied with the Right, which they seem to avoid at all costs.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

"And none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator"

Bullshit

The impregnator is now down for 18 years of child support, will he or nil he.

Yes, the woman faces some more than that, in that there's an additional 9 months of good, and bad.

OTOH, pretty sure the woman gets to chose whether to give the child up for adoption (doing that 18 years of child support) or not.

What's that? Women have more "skin in the game" when it comes to pregnancy?

No shit, sherlock.

That's why it's easier for a woman to get laid than a man, because the risks are different, depending on your sex.

You're just now figuring that out? Let us know to ignore you, since you're obviously terminally stupid

Greg The Class Traitor said...

From "Antiabortion laws are forced-birth laws. Here’s what that looks like" by Kate Manning (WaPo).

No, they're not.

No one's forcing you to have sex, or if they are, it's rape, which is a crime.

No one's forcing you not to use birth control, or to screw it up when you do use it.

Antiabortion laws are "you claim to be an adult, so act like one" laws. Because if your'e not an adult, capable of handling adult responsibilities, you shouldn't be having sex

Firehand said...

Brings to mind a question I've wondered about.

Numerous sci-fi book series have had some type of artificial womb so a woman doesn't have to carry to birth. What happens when they're available, a woman decides on an abortion and the guy says "I'll take it. I'll pay all the costs of the growth and birth, you don't have to take any responsibility for the kid, I want it." And the woman says "But I want an abortion!"

It will get interesting.

Hey Skipper said...

Forced-birth laws mandate a woman not only to withstand childbirth but also to choose: either raise a child she does not want or surrender that child for adoption, a decision that some women embrace but others describe as a lifelong grief. In this way, abortion bans and restrictions could also be called 'forced child-surrender' or 'forced motherhood' laws
...

What happens if that decision is made in a statehouse? A courtroom? Does the lawmaker’s heart walk with a child — the one whose mother was denied an abortion — for life?


Ok, Ms. Manning, here's a puzzler for you.

Once a human life begins, there are precisely five ways of ending it:

1. End stage senescence (i.e., old age)
2. Terminal disease
3. Accident
4. Killing (morally justified intentional ending of a life; e.g., self-defense, or defending a third party against grievous bodily harm)
5. Murder

All abortions are either instances of killing or murder.

A few abortions, such as those involving an ectopic pregnancy, are clear cases of self-defense both for the women, and defending a third party for the doctors.

However, almost all abortions, on the order of 99.7% are essentially murders of convenience.

There are only two ways out of this conclusion, Ms. Manning. Either abortions happen before life begins — good luck arguing that; or, human life does not have an intrinsic value.

If you wish to argue the latter, that ending some lives isn't murder because those lives aren't sufficiently valued by those ending them, you had better consider the consequences.

It is a shame that nature is so unfair as to place all the burdens of pregnancy and childbirth on women. NB: nature's fairness, or lack thereof, is prominently absent in deciding what abortions are.

John henry said...

Doesn't the penis-person A/K/A "man" have to pay child support?

That can cause a twinge of pain. 216 twinges actually, repeated monthly for 18 years

John LGKTQ Henry

Rob C said...

Would the age-old admonishment of "they should have kept in [out] of their pants" be considered a fair retort as was offered to the men complaining about ponying up child support for 18 years?

Inga said...

Ms Manning hits most of the highlights or lowlights if you will, on the effects of pregnancy on the female body. For those who dismiss the realities of pregnancy and birth and support forced pregnancy and birth, you haven’t thought deeply enough on the ramifications of forced birth on society and individual women. The choice to go ahead with a pregnancy on to birth or not must remain with the woman who is pregnant, no one knows her circumstances better than she does. I doubt that the proponents of forced birth will volunteer in sufficient numbers to care for financial needs the babies and their mothers, who will need extra help. As for the physical processes that happen to a woman during pregnancy or birth, they are real, they can be very serious, even deadly.

Let women decide what risks they choose to take regarding their own bodies and lives. I’ve had four pregnancies and four births and I still live with the effects on my body from these pregnancies. I chose to get and remain pregnant, and give birth. I don’t regret my decision, but I had a good support system, was in general good health so I survived the compression of the vena cava by my huge uterus that held my third daughter, a 10 pounder. The chest pain was immense and going through labor with chest pain is even more horribly painful than a normal uneventful labor. I was so ill after that birth that I needed help for the first two weeks, caring for my newborn and two other children, thankfully my mother was there and willing and able to help.

I don’t think men who are ferociously pro forced birth have a clue about what pregnancy and birth are. I wish they could experience it.

JaimeRoberto said...

"And none of the new laws forcing pregnant women to give birth have mandated consequences for the impregnator.... "

Really? There's no such thing as child support in those states?


"Forced-birth laws mandate a woman not only to withstand childbirth but also to choose: either raise a child she does not want or surrender that child for adoption, a decision that some women embrace but others describe as a lifelong grief."

There's less grief in terminating the pregnancy or killing the baby (depending on you point of view)?

Greg The Class Traitor said...

"a clarifying term for a man who starts an unwanted pregnancy"

What do we call a woman "who starts an unwanted pregnancy"?

Or do women not need to take responsibility for their actions?

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

Ha ha. Y'all are insane. Tough shit.

dbp said...

It seems to me as if abortion restrictions more-or-less put women on the same legal standing as men have been on for a long time. Men don't get to decide to keep or abort, but whatever choice the woman makes, the man is financially responsible.

Scott said...

The next step after full-term abortion will be post-partum infanticide. A mother's self-esteem is sacrosanct.

Joe Smith said...

Then don't get pregnant.

Birth control in this country is virtually free.

"(fetuses that could not survive outside a woman’s uterus)'

And yet liberals still want the option to abort a baby up to the minute before birth.

Some have even gone so far as to want the option to kill children after they are born.

Doug said...

1. Move to NY and have Silk the additions you want. 2 Keep your legs together until you were ready to raise a child. 3. Ummm, the Pill?

n.n said...

Ideally, both the splooge stooge (a.k.a. male sex) and egg basket (a.k.a. female sex) will take equal and complementary responsibility to each other and "our Posterity" from conception. That said, there is no mystery, four choices, and self-defense through reconciliation. The wicked solution is neither a good nor exclusive choice, but is both a phobic and inclusive reaction to a well understood "burden".

Doug said...

Hey, thanx a bunch for censoring my post. What the hell did i do wrong?

Greg The Class Traitor said...

"a clarifying term for a man who starts an unwanted pregnancy"

What do we call a woman "who starts an unwanted pregnancy"?

Or do women not need to take responsibility for their actions?

Gahrie said...

Forced-birth laws mandate a woman not only to withstand childbirth but also to choose: either raise a child she does not want or surrender that child for adoption, a decision that some women embrace but others describe as a lifelong grief."

Men are already forced to deal with having those choices imposed on them with no say in the matter.

Gahrie said...

This is of a piece with what seems to me to be the zeitgeist of our time: indulgence of the animal appetites above all, coupled with the demand that others celebrate the hedonic behavior. This is morally abhorrent.

It has been my prediction that historians will label this period the Age of Indulgence.

Jon Burack said...

Good grief, what ugliness. This language of force, power, pain and disfigurement. This hardness is one big price for fifty years of bitter recriminations set in motion by Roe.

Kai Akker said...

---What the hell did i do wrong?

You cared too much.

Kai Akker said...

--- "... our episiotomy incisions, our Caesarean scars, our intravenous-line hematomas, our bloody postnatal sanitary pads and bloodstained bedsheets, our cracked nipples and infected breasts."

No one here gets out alive.

(But really, is that the worst you can come up with?!)

JAORE said...

"episiotomy incisions, our Caesarean scars, our intravenous-line hematomas, our bloody postnatal sanitary pads and bloodstained bedsheets, our cracked nipples and infected breasts"

M is for the millions that adore her,
O is for .....

Leland said...

Agree wholeheartedly with Mike at 8:49AM yesterday. It's like my heart took a walk.

n.n said...

Or do women not need to take responsibility for their actions?

Feminists and masculinists overwhelmingly adopt the Pro-Choice ethical protocol that denies women and men's dignity and agency, and reduces human life to negotiable commodities that should be managed, expunged, sequestered by single/central/monopolistic mortal deities, experts, authorities for social justice and progress. Many, but certainly not all, women will lean in to this nominally "secular" religious philosophy and sacrifice "our Posterity" for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes in order to break the glass ceiling and realize the dream that women, and girls, should take a knee, beg, and kept appointed, available, and taxable. It's a neat trick to reduce evolutionary pressure on those leaders who can inculcate women and men in their progressive cult.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Inga said...
Let women decide what risks they choose to take regarding their own bodies and lives.

We do.

That's why rape is a crime.

You chose to have sex? Well then, you chose the risks

Martin said...

The one thing I would like to know about each and every person taking the bodily privacy/integrity line, is what was their position on vaccine mandates.

If they opposed thoe mandates as vigorously as they oppose restrictions on abortion, I will listen to what they have to say. But, given the political alignments around those two issues, I strongly suspect that if my question is answered honestly, there are not many people I wold be obligated to hear.