Thanks to alert reader, JP, we learn that the anti-abortion crowd is trying a new approach–“Ladies, don’t you see? When you have an abortion, you not only end the potential for a new life, you potentially make a man feel bad, maybe not today, but someday, in the future!”
I don’t have anything more insightful to say than Scott’s saying over at World-O-Crap, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to be the first one to use the “Our Bodies, Your Selves” title, because, really, how funny is that?
You’d think that thinking people would be embarrassed to advance an argument that can be summed up in LOLcat as “I r the patriarchy. Do wat I want.” But I guess not.
Scott says:
But I’m sure these testimonials aren’t just cynical histrionics designed to restore mens’ traditional property rights over the uterus and its contents. And to prove it, I’m willing to make this offer: I will happily accept that we have abortions if, whenever a woman dies in childbirth, the father is immediately executed.
Oh, silly Scott, don’t you know? It’s perfectly fine for a boss to take credit for the work of his underling. The problem is just getting it codified into law that women are men’s underlings.
Sorry, this just tickles me so much.
And, just think, if it’s not about men taking control of uteruses… uteri… back from those women who just can’t be trusted with them, how much fun we can all have. Say I feel personally invested in you and your future, I’m going to take a lot more interest in making sure our prostate is healthy. How often can we schedule those exams?
Tiny Cat Pants 
That line is… um… delicious.
*rolls eyes*
For some reason, that reminds me of this article from yesterday’s LA Times. Apparently, not only might we make men feel bad, but when they’re involved, they feel like they’ve had abortions too! We should totally center their feelings whenever we make choices. (Ow, I think I broke my sarcasometer…)
Whoops. That link should’ve ended after the word “article.”
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Oh for heaven’s sake.
You know what this sounds exactly like? The ridiculous rationale I hear from men nearly every freaking day about how they are harmed and oh so wounded by not having some sort of sexual access to me or marital ownership over me. They tell me they are in pain because I don’t hand over my body to them. I tell them I am in pain because Bill Gates doesn’t hand over his fortune to me. They say it’s not the same. I say, “Ok, I’ll take your spinal column instead. Cut it out right now and hand it to me, and then *maybe* your argument might be something other than self-serving rationalization.”
I’ve had no takers yet.
I suspect this new idiocy is going where all the others of that ilk go — rape apologism. You can see it coming now — some waste of oxygen will rape and impregnate a woman, but there will be a huge furor over how he is the victim because she had an abortion. I’m sure the goofballs advancing the above stupidity are already there, but it just hasn’t shown up in the mainstream media yet.
The ridiculous rationale I hear from men nearly every freaking day about how they are harmed and oh so wounded by not having some sort of sexual access to me or marital ownership over me.
That’s some place you work at.
Aww, Exador is back with the illogic again. Let’s see, Exador equates “men Helen is harassed by” with “men Helen works with”. It looks like Exador is trying to tell us he harasses his female coworkers.
*snerk*
We don’t have any female workers here. We used to have one, but she kept calling in sick all the time.
Hmm, I wonder why…
If ya can’t cut in the big boys’ world, stay home and make babies.
Wow, most men would not be so generous as to advocate women spend their days fucking the delivery men, but I always thought you had a bit of the decadent libertine about you, Ex.
I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to feel the disturbance in the force from feminists heads exploding.
I think you must not understand feminism, because, really, if given the option between working with the likes of you (well, a less good looking, less charming you, with wimpier shoulders) and spending the day making long delicious love, we’re going to usually opt for the days of long delicious love-making.
“I wanted to feel the disturbance in the force from feminists heads exploding.”
From yet another tired cliché? Huh. Evidently you think if you utter the cliché it gives is Magical Exploding Power. Ego problems much?
Come on, Helen, I’m trying to drink here, and you’re making it very difficult, if I have to keep laughing at what you say.
I’m hoping if it lands on the screen, I’ll get some.
No more egotistical than thinking that…how did it go again?
I hear from men nearly every freaking day about how they are harmed and oh so wounded by not having some sort of sexual access to me or marital ownership over me.
Sista, PLEASE!
Tired clichés *and* reading comprehension problems. That wasn’t my thinking I reported, but the behavior of others. If you look in a dictionary, you’ll see those are two different things
I guess the part about “I hear from men” threw me.
My bad.
Rather than “alert reader, JP,” I prefer to think of myself as an eyepatch and Persian cat away from being a Bond villain, JP.
.
Not only is this ridiculous on its face, it’s a mockery of what a responsible man’s role should be when faced with that particular dilemma.
Having had some personal experience with this situation, I feel the need to pipe up here. Make no mistake about it, if he wants the baby and she does not, the decision to end the pregnancy is going to be painful for him. It really does feel like shit, and not every male who says so is speaking out of bad faith or otherwise ideologically motivated.
In rejecting this claptrap, that fact should not be overlooked.
“Make no mistake about it, if he wants the baby and she does not, the decision to end the pregnancy is going to be painful for him.”
Why? I understand the pain where you have two people making joint decisions about their lives together, but I don’t understand why it would be painful if someone with whom you have no agreement to reproduce doesn’t want to risk their life to reproduce with you. How can someone else having free will be a source of pain? If you can’t handle your partner’s reproductive choices, why would you have sex with them in the first place?
I can understand a man feeling pain and regret. There was a potential for life there and now there’s not. In some cases, that’s a relief and in other cases, it sucks.
A person’s got a right to his or her feelings. What he doesn’t have a right to is to expect that his feelings on the matter trump her right to decide for herself what happens to her body.
“I can understand a man feeling pain and regret. There was a potential for life there and now there’s not.”
I can understand that part too. The part I don’t understand is choosing to have sex with someone who is running on a different reproductive strategy than you are. This is Adult Behavior 101 stuff — if having sex with someone whose reproductive choices don’t currently align with yours will hurt you, then pick a different sexual partner.
“I can understand that part too. The part I don’t understand is choosing to have sex with someone who is running on a different reproductive strategy than you are. This is Adult Behavior 101 stuff — if having sex with someone whose reproductive choices don’t currently align with yours will hurt you, then pick a different sexual partner.”
I’m on board with that 100%.
Ben, go read the thoughtful posts asking you what you hope to accomplish here and have the courtesy to answer them. At this point you’re clearly just wanking.