We all know what happens to a pregnant woman in a red state.
Roe v. Wade has been turned down. Depending on where you live, you have up to 6 weeks to terminate a pregnancy – that’s about 2 weeks after you missed a period. You may not have any time at all. Instead, you may have to carry a baby that resulted from rape or incest. You may have to carry a baby that you can’t afford and who will financially strangle the rest of your family.
You may have to birth the baby even if it threatens your life.
Where’s Daddy?
Behind every pregnancy (except in vitro, Trans men, and non-binary people) there’s a man. Ask nature. In order to make a baby there has to be a man.
What are their consequences? Do they have to suffer through nine months of pregnancy, countless hours of labor, and the chore of raising a child they don’t want? What happens to the father who impregnated a woman in a red state?
As Stacey Abrams said, in red states that ban abortion, it might be pregnancy (to term) or jail.
Where’s Daddy?
Morally, some daddies will help out. Legally, they’re free to go on, impregnate countless other women, and don’t have the problem of raising an unwanted child. Men have a choice. Women do not. The National Survey of Family Growth estimated that one in five men impregnated a woman who had an abortion. That’s most likely an undercount because many men don’t even know their partners had an abortion.
Susan Mulligan in US News reported Matthew Gaetz’s tweet:
How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?
The Florida Congressman later added that women protesting abortion access are less likely to get pregnant because they aren’t attractive.
That’s the attitude of many white Christian males, including those in the U.S. Supreme Court. What is really behind Roe v. Wade? It’s not only abortion – it’s about keeping women in “their place”, validating a patriarchal society, exerting power over women, and perhaps soon, limiting other reproductive rights, contraception, and sex education. You know the saying, barefoot and pregnant.
Where’s Daddy?
Men lose, too. There’s a rush on vasectomies. In one study by Dr. Bethany Everett et.al, 58.5% of men who reported a pregnancy that ended in abortion, were able to graduate from college. Everett’s conclusion was “women’s use of abortion services were associated with educational benefits for men who report teen pregnancies.”
The loss of Roe v Wade is not just pregnancy termination, it’s reduced care for women, fear of legal action, potential risk of mortality, and difficulty in getting medical care, such as a DNC, which might resemble abortion. We all know the story of the 10-year old who was raped and impregnated and had to go to a different state to terminate the pregnancy.
How many girls and women have to suffer or die because a handful of unelected white men want to keep them in their place?
Where’s Daddy?
Men fighting for abortion is essential. It’s their way of denying a patriarchal, reactionary court/government quite willing to throw women under the bus. What about you? Are you one of those daddies who get to walk away? Are you one of those men, as Mulligan describes them, harboring a “deep resentment of the successes and choices women now have?” Do you buy into an old, patriarchal structure that “frees” you of responsibility? If so, ask yourself the question.
Where’s Daddy?
