*This is a copy of a post entry on my other blog. But it is of such great importance that it bears repeating.
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Sigh of exhaustion. Okay, look, I have tried my damnedest to pretend that unplanned pregnancies are equally the male and the female's fault, that responsibility is shared 50/50 between the two parties, that it takes two to tango, et cetera.
But sigh, I just can't keep up this charade any longer. I have been beating myself in the head forcing myself to feel what I do not feel, forcing myself to be politically correct, forcing myself to pretend that my feelings are not what they truly are, and forcing my logical to not arrive at the conclusions to which it arrives. I have been shoving my cognition processes and natural feelings into doing what society at large approves of, and when I say "society," I mostly mean the mass media. Ever since time immeasurable, liberal media pop culture has promoted an unrealistic extreme stance that is mostly reactionary to religious zealot born-again Christian unrealistic extreme stance.
My long treatise where I am taking mostly females to task for not wanting to accept any responsibility whatsoever for creating a fetus. The females are saying it's entirely the male's fault for getting them pregnant, that she herself had no hand in the matter, she was a good pure angelic little angel that did absolutely nothing to warrant a pregnancy. The males do not want to take any responsibility whatsoever, they skip town, they haul ass, they take a bus ticket and leave, blah blah. Conservatives tend to only blame the female, and liberals tend to only blame the male. Come on, people, Lauryn Hill has already told us all this, twelve years ago with “That Thing,” but it seems that skulls have only gotten thicker since then, so it bears repeating.
First of all I need to establish clarity that I am specifically talking about consensual acts between two people similar in age. I am NOT talking about r---, pedophilia, statutory, or other sexual abuse. That is not the same thing as sex between two people who both agreed to do it. Those are sick depraved crimes that the a-hole needs to rot in prison for, and after that in hell, and that is another issue entirely.
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I thought feminism was supposed to be about women having rights, including rights over what do with their own bodies. And rightfully so. That is absolutely correct. That is finally having some long-awaited evolution in human thought and procession that has been a long time coming. Women should not have to sell their bodies. Women, just like men and children, have the inherent human right to decide not to do something with their bodies. They have the intrinsic, undeniable right to say NO. Women should never have to be faced with the cruelty of having to cough up a reason NOT to do something with their bodies. You have to believe me on this, I am glad that this is the case.
But then you know what? That also means you have to take that much *responsibility* for your actions. That means you have to take that much responsibility for your body.
I'm sorry women, but the notion that someone else has to take responsibility for what *your* body does is illogical bullshyte. I do not understand the justification for this pseudo-philosophy at all. It is frankly insulting to me as a woman that some people think that a female should not be considered responsible for causing her own damn pregnancy.
It is also insulting, not to mention illogical, that a woman should only be considered 50% responsible and no more. That's right, I said it. I fervently believe that a woman inherently carries greater responsibility for causing a fetus than a man does. I don't care how politically incorrect this sounds; it is common sense. Not to mention, it is simple biology. It is the truth.
I rescind statements in my earlier articles wherein I insisted that a pregnancy is equal responsibility of the two contributing parties. Pregnancy is NOtttt equally the responsibility 50/50 of the two participants. I had been beating my brains out for many years trying to force myself into believing that the fault lies equally with both parties. But I cannot deny what I truly think. Sorry, but I don't buy that. I never truly have. It just seems plainly illogical. Your body, you are the one that would get pregnant, therefore your share of responsibility is greater than the male's.
It is insulting for a woman not to be considered the responsible party, because it implies that she is a stupid invalid who does not understand cause and effect, actions and consequences. It implies that she is a primitive idiot that has no control over what she decides to do with her body. It is insulting because it means that a given female does not possess rational decision-making capabilities.
Shockingly and unfortunately, in this modern day and age females are the ones primarily making this false claim that they bear little responsibility for creating a fetus. Females are astoundingly the ones making the false claim that men are responsible for making sure females don't get pregnant. Females are trying to make the claim that what their own damn uteruses do is someone else's fault.
This is illogical and bizarre.
You can't be all, "it's MY body, I have the right to do whatever I want with MY body" -- But then at the same time, then refuse to take responsibility for what you consensually did with your own body.
Sorry girls, but it doesn’t work that way. From a practical, logical standpoint it does not work, and from a philosophical standpoint it does not work. Come on, females, I figured this out when I was twelve years old in the seventh grade while watching news stories about teen pregnancies. And now that I look over things, I realize it does not work that way with anything in life. If you have that much rights, then you have that much responsibility.
Why are you girls being that ignorant and expecting someone else to care about YOUR body? If you can’t even be careful enough to respect your OWN body, you sure as hell can't expect someone else to care about your body for you.
For god's sakes, it's *your* body, so act like it. It's YOUR body, so it's YOUR responsibility.
I just don’t get the way some females think. For goodness sake, it’s YOUR body; YOU are the one who would have to pay the biggest price if things go wrong with sex. Therefore it only makes sense that YOU should be more careful and less sloppy than a guy would. It only makes sense that you would be more vigilant. Have some goddamn accountability for what you do to yourself.
Being a woman, I know for a fact that if something goes wrong with the birth control, anything at all, *I* am the one who would have to pay the biggest price, *I* am the one who would have to suffer the worst consequences. This is basic biology. Therefore, it only makes sense that I am the one who should be more vigilant about these things. It is the logical, common sensical thing. That I should be more vigilant about taking care of MY body, more vigilant about respect for MY body. Why the hell would I want to risk screwing up my life, screwing up my body, screwing up my health for some guy? If some guy doesn’t respect that, then you need to respect yourself and kick that guy out of your life.
Feminism has demanded that men, and other women of course, respect our bodies. They should, there is no question about that. It only works, however, if you respect your own body first.
Do some of us girls need to review basic biology? Ever heard of pregnancy? Ever heard of how it happens? Ever heard of which of us humans would have to do it? If you are pregnant, you are not going to be able to unload and shove the pregnancy onto the guy with whom you got that way, as much as you would like to.
I remember back in the early 1990s, the news was ablaze with all those reports of how "ohmigosh the guys are getting girls pregnant. The teenage boy pigs with their evil sadistic sperm are getting these sweet angelic pure little teenage girl angels pregnant." And yet almost simultaneously, the current events were also fired up with stories of how "strong capable women are in charge of their own bodies."
Even back then to my own tween ears, this sounded patently asinine. If she is really in charge of her own body, then why is it only the guy's fault?
If the consequences are such a biiigg responsibility that it would jeopardize your life, then guess what. It should have been a big enough risk to think about before you had sex. Do me a favor and don't tell me, "hindsight is twenty-twenty" or "Monday morning quarterbacks" or any of that crap. One, this is a basic rule of biology. And Two, this is a major derailing from course if things go wrong. Together, that should give anyone with half a brain lobe enough incentive to think before they act. (Not even half a brain is required; only half of one lobe is sufficient.)
YOUR body -- YOUR responsibility.
You are greater than 50 percent responsible for bringing that baby into the world. Yet you are sitting there acting as if you are zero percent responsible. When you made the decision to have sex possibly with crappy birth control, you knew what the consequences were going to be. Again, perhaps we should review basic biology.
I will not ever, nor do I ever plan to, understand why so many females sleep with males that do not give a crap about them. I am going to declare the following statement and I do not care how much this offends liberals. I do not care how much this offends those rather unhinged, few-screws-loose whory nutbags who deign to call themselves "feminists" or "girl power" or whatever.
Here is the statement: If you females don't want to get pregnant, then don't have sex. Simple as that. This quite literally is not rocket surgery.
Perhaps we need a trip back to sixth grade sex-ed class. Believe it or not, sex can lead to pregnancy. Yeah, new groundbreaking research, just discovered. (Turn to the person on my right.) Did you know that sex can lead to pregnancy? (Turn to the person on my left.) Did you know that sex can lead to pregnancy? Cause I did. And apparently I am alone in this super duper multi looper top-secret Pentagon-security clearance-level knowledge.
Especially if you did not bother to be hyper-vigilant with the birth control. This is a subtle truth that seems to be lost on a lot of people. Just one form of birth control alone is usually not enough to prevent pregnancy.
This is also something that was covered in middle school sex ed. I remember we got a chart that listed all the different types of birth control available, and it also listed the statistical efficacy of each of those birth control options. I remember that condoms hovered at about 90%. Hormonal birth control pills were at a crisp 99%. But again dood, if you are only relying on your sex partner to take care of fetus prevention, then it is your own fault for being a gullible idiot. You don't want to face responsibility, then take precautions yourself. Just because you didn't learn about this stuff in sixth grade is no excuse not to know now. What the hell are any of you thinking, having sex without making sure you don't reproduce?
YOUR uterus -- YOUR responsibility.
Oh, waaaaiiiiit now I like totally get it. So you’re saying you're nothing but a plastic mannequin dummy that does not participate in your own life. You have no control, you have no say over what happens to you, no control over what you make happen to yourself. You’re saying you’re an auxiliary spectator bystander in your own damn life. Suuuurrrrreee.
You don’t want to take care of your own body, and you expect him to take care of your body for you?
Wrong. YOUR body -- YOUR responsibility.
This is going to elicit a predictable response from a lot of people -- “Oh you have no respect for women, you think women should be staying in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant. Oh you hate strong independent women.” These people think I am saying that the girl is wrong for giving it up without a wedding ring and the ilk. And then they accuse me of not liking strong women, ad nauseum.
Sigh. Forehead into my hands. Lord, you don't even know. You really don't have a clue, do you? I am NOT saying you females are being too strong and independent.
I am saying that you females are not being strong and independent *enough*. For god’s sake, have some cynicism. Have some healthy skepticism, have some suspicion. It will serve you well in life. If the guy says, "yeah baby don’t worry about it, I’ve got it covered, I’ll wear a condom" -- don’t believe him. Take whatever precautions you have to, to protect yourself. You need to worry about yourself first. You need to do what you have to, to preserve your own physical health and safety.
YOUR body -- YOUR responsibility.
Some analogies: a) Free speech -- the first amendment is supposed to mean that with great freedom comes great responsibility. (However in weird ways this has been both abused and restricted, but that is a different essay.) b) Medical doctors -- if they are given that much authority, given that much power in society, then so too do they have that much responsibility to be benevolent and magnanimous to their patients. c) Corporate execs that run the economy thought they were above and exempt from responsibility that naturally accompanies economic power, and look where the country is now. d) Celebrities, though not actually powerful, more like just subject to constant peeping tomfoolery, engage in cheap publicity stunts all the time -- sex tapes, wardrobe malfunctions, cokeouts and other forms of public OD-ing. But then they turn around and whine and complain that people don't respect their privacy. It is a comical, pathetic degree of non-self-awareness.
What I’m hearing is that apparently a lot of guys say to girls, "don't worry baby, nothing will happen, nothing will go wrong." Apparently the girl believes him. Again, let us review basic sex ed class from sixth grade. (Well, then again, I had sex ed in fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade, and then also in tenth grade, so maybe I'm more informed than most.) There is no birth control that exists that is one hundred percent fool-proof effective.
"""Well I totally say he should stay and take care of his responsibility..."""
Oh yeah? How’s that working for ya? He could skip town, and then what would you do?
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And YOU. (Rounding on the males this time and yelling at them.)
Unfortunately, this is the reality for males. After you have delivered your genetic material, there is not much more you can do after that. The male is not really able to take part in the decision of whether or not the blastula and zygote will be allowed to grow to full term.
You are probably thinking this is incredibly unfair. I agree, it is unfair. Unfortunately, once the horse has left the starting gates, there is not much you can do about it at that point. After that, because the fetus is housed within the female's body, it becomes solely her decision whether or not to keep it. And once it becomes an actual human being and is popped out, you have to support it. That is the morally right thing to do. After it is born, it is a human being, and it the duty of both parents to support it and take care of it.
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that with this mention of being "morally right," the female should have been morally right and not had sex with a casual acquaintance in the first place. I agree with you, she should not have. But we have witnessed that she is phenomenally stupid. Her decision-making abilities, judgment, and morals are woefully subpar. Her respect for her own body and reproductive capabilities is nil.
By associating with a female like that, you are stuck. You should not have taken a chance with a chick that is so stupid that she can't be bothered to care about her own reproductive health.
I remember an episode of ER where a girl came into the emergency room, and she was pregnant in addition to whatever ailment befell her. She wasn’t showing yet, it seemed the pregnancy was in the early stages. She wanted to keep the baby. The um, father, sperm donor, whatever you want to call it, vehemently did not want her to keep it. I honestly don’t remember if she expected anything from the guy or not. (If she did expect the guy to stay with her and help with everything, she was 100 percent justified in doing so.) But she was willing to keep the baby. She was going to be a mother -- she had accepted that it was happening and she made her peace with it. And I dare say, now that she had accepted it, she was looking forward to it and was happy about it.
Unfortunately... he served her some sort of herbal concoction, some sort of tea or something -- that induced a miscarriage. He served it to her with the specific purpose of inducing a miscarriage, will full intent of doing so. I believe he had to go to some sort of specialty shop that was really far out of the way to obtain that herbal stuff. In short, he aborted the baby without her consent.
And the ER resident physician called the cops on his ass for committing murder. I agree with the physician one hundred percent. Damn right he should have called the police.
Look, biological father dude, she has decreed that the fetus will become a human being, and that decision is final. She decided it is. Therefore it is. This is reality. Accept it.
Dear reader, whether you are a man or a woman, you might have picked up on another point I’m trying to make. I've noticed this for a very long time, at least since high school. Women in general are not nearly as “pro-choice” (i.e., pro-abortion) as the media makes them out to be. And men are not nearly as pro-life as the media makes them out to be. To be honest, this is really rather puzzling to me, but it is what's out there.
Sure, the media hypes that all women are pro-choice and all men are pro-life, but this is a far cry from what I have witnessed in my dealings with actual people. Most women I have seen and read comments from, are overjoyed to be growing a fetus. This is usually regardless of their marital status with the biological father (which frankly I find exasperating and abhorrent but that's not the point). I have also seen in message boards the internet over, in various word-choice permutations, men keep writing sickening crap synonymous with the following: "waaaaaahhh!! why don't us poor mens get a choice not to take responsibly for keeping a fetus??? if it takes two to create it, then it should take two to decide if it lives!!! this is going to cramp my game!!! I don't want a fetus so she should have killed it!!!"
I’m pro-choice enough, but even I have to admit that if a woman does not want to kill her fetus, then she does not want to. End of discussion. To demand a woman kill her fetus against her will is pretty gruesome and abusive.
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I will end this diatribe with addressing all of society, specifically both the men and women conservatives that demand, that do not want women to be in control of their own bodies.
Extreme conservative republicans in society will probably reply aghast, offended. "So wait a minute -- are you saying that it’s all up to her??! Are you dare saying it is ultimately up to the person who is actually carrying the fetus and would potentially have to go through forty grueling weeks of backbreaking labor beginning with morning sickness; completely changing around her metabolism and chemistry; devouring a great deal of her body's nourishment, blood supply, and oxygen requirement; making her more susceptible to various viral or bacterial illness because in order for a pregnancy to work a woman's immune system has to almost completely shut down? What about the rest of society? Are you saying WE don’t get a say in whether or not she should keep the fetus?"
DAMN STRAIGHT.
Yes, that is EXACTLY what I am saying.
That is the pregnant woman’s decision -- the decision is ultimately hers, about whether or not to have this fetus. It is the woman’s job, that right, the pregnant woman’s decision, whether or not this fetus is a baby or not.
If she decides to keep the baby, and raise it and grow it into a human being, then back the hell off. That is her decision. If she decided to get rid of the fetus, then back the hell off.
You conservatives don't want her to abort the fetus. But she wants to, get the hell over it. Now, I do agree with conservatives in my personal opinion of abortion. I do consider it morally reprehensible, if it is not in the case of extreme need and is simply used as a form of birth control. However, it is that woman's body and she has a right to keep her body healthy. Nobody on this planet has a right to harm her body. Yes, that's right, from a medical scientific standpoint, pregnancy does more harm to the body than good. And therefore if the woman is not one hundred percent consenting to grow the fetus to term, that is harm to her body.
Some conservative will ask, aghast: Oh dearie me, are you saying that the woman who houses the fetus has the ultimate say in what happens to that fetus? Are you saying that it's up to the woman tasked with the burden of carrying it, to decide whether it will live or not? To decide the course of time-space that this timeline will travel? The course of what will potentially or won't potentially happen in this crossroads??
Yes. That is exactly what I am saying.
Liberals and conservatives are both incredibly stupid for the most part. They usually fall neatly into two very disturbing, pathologically far-gone camps. One school of thought states that people including women should take responsibility for their own actions, for their decisions, for what happens in their life. That's fine, but unfortunately this is extended to the notion that absolutely anything that happens in a woman's life is her fault. Including the situation where (god forbid) she is a crime victim. Still conservatives have the sick, nasty notion to blame the woman for a crime that some sickeningly subhuman hominid carried out on her. The other equally depraved, troubling, but on the opposite extreme of the spectrum notion, that of liberals, declares that nothing, absolutely nothing that happens in a woman's life is her responsibility.
