If you live in the United States, you have probably learned more about women's health in the last year than you ever wanted to know - and even with the supersaturation of information, the take home lesson still leaves me perplexed.
If you listen to Sandra Fluke, the truly empowered woman should not be responsible for the cost of her own birth control lest it interfere with her freedom to engage in casual sex without consequence.
If you listen to Nancy Pelosi (and let me add that if you can do this at all without your ears bleeding, you are a stronger woman than I), the truly empowered woman must have access to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy because if you only give her three or six months, your end goal is to watch her bleed to death on the floor of an unsanitary clinic (which she also tries to pretend does not exist).
If you listen to the women fighting HB 2 in Texas which passed last week and limited abortions to the first twenty weeks of pregnancy, the truly empowered woman needs access to abortion for a full nine months of pregnancy because five months is not long enough for a woman of average intelligence to determine that she probably should have either paid $30 a month for birth control or insisted that her partner wear a condom.
The final assessment, according to these sources, is that women are generally too stupid or helpless to prevent pregnancy. With that as a given, they must therefore be granted unlimited access to a procedure that absolves them of responsibility for their chosen actions. If you deny them that access, #WarOnWomen!!!
So what happens when we put the shoe on the other foot? What about men who engage in sex without protection and get their partners pregnant? Barring the woman's subsequent choice, what procedure can a man opt for that absolves him of responsibility? What choice does he have other than either pay up or risk being labeled a "deadbeat" and facing legal action?
Why do we accept - in fact encourage - a lack of responsibility from women when we demand responsibility from men for the exact same actions? What happened to equality for women? At what point do we admit that the call here is not for equality, but for the ability to impose our own sexist demands on men in order to shirk responsibility for our own choices?
The point they are all missing is very simple: freedom of action does not guarantee freedom from responsibility. If you do the crime, you must do the time. If you go to bed unprotected, why should a man automatically be held responsible for his choice while a woman gets another retroactive choice as to whether or not she will accept responsibility for the consequences of the *SAME CHOICE.*
Love this line "freedom of action does not guarantee freedom from responsibility." I always say I'm pro-choice because we have the choice as to who we sleep with (most of the time.)
ReplyDelete"that women are generally too stupid or helpless to prevent pregnancy." and I'd like to add that this makes them seem too stupid to raise a child.