Abortion . . . It's Really a Male Issue!

By George W. Sarris

With the controversy continuing to build over the HHS Contraception Mandate which includes the requirement that all health insurance plans must include coverage for abortion inducing drugs, along with the recent decision that abortion coverage itself in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would only require an additional premium of a dollar per month, it’s important to understand what the root issue is in the abortion controversy.

Abortion has very little to do with a woman’s “right to choose.” It has very much to do with a man’s “right” to sleep around!

I went to college in the late 1960’s, during the height of the free love movement. Free love is great . . . for men! They can sow their wild oats as often as they please and then simply get up and leave. No strings. No apparent consequences.

But, what about women who freely love? Unlike men, they cannot simply get up after a night’s fling and go on their merry way. Free love produces babies. And, it is the woman who literally “bears” the responsibility of the night’s activities in the form of a child.

It was all too often the case in the sixties that men – read irresponsible, immature, self-centered males who never grew up and learned what it meant to be a real man – abandoned their children and the mothers of their children in pursuit of greener pastures. That pattern continues today, except that the “men” can soothe their consciences to a certain degree by telling themselves that if “she” gets pregnant, she can always get an abortion!

Considering the abysmal record of those in high public office when it comes to personal morality, it’s no wonder abortion legislation passes. Their actions are too often motivated not by a concern for the best interests of women, but by a concern for what they see as the best interests for themselves – they can have their cake, and eat it, too!

Pro-Life Feminists

Most people don’t realize it, but the women who began the feminist movement in the nineteenth century were strongly pro-life. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage and others understood correctly that abortion then, as now, is sometimes injurious to women . . . and 100% fatal for their unborn children.

Gage, writing in the April 9, 1868 issue of The Revolution – the official newspaper of the National Woman Suffrage Association begun by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – wrote:

. . . the crime of abortion is not one in which the guilt lies solely or even chiefly with the woman....I hesitate not to assert that most of this crime of "child murder," "abortion," "infanticide," lies at the door of the male sex.

Mattie Brinkerhoff wrote in that same publication a year later,

When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society – so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances she has been greatly wronged.

Susan B. Anthony commented,

Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death. But, oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to desperation which impelled her to the crime!

The reason why these women were opposed to abortion is actually quite obvious. Abortion cuts to the core of what it means to be a woman. For only she can be the agent of one of the most miraculous events that can occur here on earth – the conception and birth of a child.

The feminist movement in the late 1960”s became pro-choice out of self-defense. The question they asked over and over again was,

Where were the men when the babies were born?!

In the words of a sign I once carried outside an abortion clinic – Real Feminists Don’t Kill Babies!

A Question of Access

Sometime in the 1990’s when I was walking down the streets of New York City, I saw some of the most disgusting flyers I have ever seen posted all over the city. I won’t describe them here, but the message was graphic and to the point.

A bill was being proposed in Albany that would require some type of limit on abortions. The photocopied flyers urged all New Yorkers to call their state representatives to tell them to vote “No” on the bill. The reason? A very explicit photograph with the caption: “If You Do Not, My Lips Will Be Sealed” made the message unmistakable. Women would deny men access to their bodies if there were no recourse in the event of an unwanted pregnancy.

The message was clear. And, it was clearly directed to “men” by “men.” Contrary to popular opinion, abortion really is a “man’s” issue. The problem is that the men in positions of leadership today are not really “men.”

Noah Webster defined a “man” as:

. . . a male adult of some uncommon qualifications; particularly, the sense of strength, vigor, bravery, virile powers or magnanimity, as distinguished from the weakness, timidity or impotence of a boy, or from the narrowmindedness of low bred men.

Real men are not boys . . . they are not animals . . . and their moral values do not come from the gutter. They are image-bearers of God and called to be responsible in their leadership.

In the fight against abortion, real men need to understand what the real issue is, and step in and act like real men!

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