It seems that whenever people bring up the term ‘reproductive rights’, the spotlight shifts onto women’s reproductive rights, and men’s are ignored. For example, when I debated Kevin Logan on whether women are still disadvantaged in modern society. Of course, he gave generic answers, nothing I hadn’t heard several times before, “Wage Gap,” “Rape Culture”, and more generic feminist responses. It seemed that the overall opinion of viewers was that I was victorious in the debate, as even a few of Kevin Logan’s subscriber’s pointed out how almost all of his ‘debate’ on Rape Culture was a long list of concessions.
In all fairness to Kevin, although I disagreed with him on several points, he for the most part made sense. His arguments, though in my opinion incorrect, were based off of statistical errors or misunderstandings rather than off of prejudice and misandry. He didn’t seem to have any issues of self-hatred, and seemed to genuinely believe what he was saying, which is more than can be said for many male feminists.
However, there was one issue that really struck a nerve with me, and is continuing to make my brain fizz out from the stupidity of the opposing argument. That is, of course, the aforementioned reproductive rights.
In the video, Kevin states that women are being oppressed because people are trying to take away their reproductive rights in countries like Poland, Ireland, and the United States. While it is true that there are people trying to take away reproductive rights, it isn’t oppressive to women.
Yes, not being able to get an abortion sucks. I support the right for women to get an abortion, and I support the free distribution of birth control to those who can’t afford it. However, the fact that women aren’t receiving these services isn’t a case of sex based oppression, for the simple reason that men aren’t receiving these benefits either.
Whenever I bring up men’s reproductive rights, there’s always a misunderstanding that I want fathers to be able to force the mother to get an abortion. This is simply not the case. There are plenty of legal alternatives that could create a similar alternative to abortion. For example, a legal Paternal Surrender, in which if the father requests an abortion and the mother refuses, he can fill out the paperwork to make the child not officially his. Sounds reasonable, right?
Well, when you bring up the idea of Paternal Surrender, also known as a Paper Abortion, you will receive looks of disgust, as if you’re the worst possible human on the planet for even suggesting that fathers should have the same reproductive rights that mothers have.
The left and the right will collectively gasp at this suggestion. After all, rights are for humans, and men aren’t humans, right?
The neo-conservative morons will give some rambling sentence about how “deadbeat dads are going to destroy family values” or some other synonymous buzzword. Meanwhile, the left will shit out something about how men having the same rights as women is “misogynistic” because…reasons.
However, the most infuriating argument you will hear will be a bipartisan one.
“If you don’t want kids, you shouldn’t have sex.”
This argument, which led to the tremendous failure known as “abstinence only education.” The argument of abstinence as birth control is a ridiculous denial of human nature, believing that you can socialize humans out of wanting to fuck through corny “educational films from the early 90s.
Of course, there’s also the infuriating double standard regarding the gender of the unwilling parent. If a man feels he isn’t prepared to be a father and chooses to not have a kid, he’s a deadbeat, a cast-out of society, a drain on the system, and the parent at fault for any problems that the child will face growing up with a single parent.
Modern society has this strange idea that “deadbeat dads” are off living the good life, smoking pot on some Caribbean beach surrounded by expensive prostitutes and sipping luxury rum from a coconut, while the mother slaves away trying to support her kid all by herself, however, this couldn’t be lessA John Hopkin’s University study found that Low-Income fathers, the majority of child support payers, pay for the child, on average, as much as the mother does. The difference? Fathers tend to provide this money through food, clothes, and gifts, rather than through direct cash deposits. There’s one myth expelled.
For one, most of them aren’t off having fun and pretending their kids don’t exist.
A 2001 Urban Institute study found that of the 7 million fathers who didn’t pay child support each year, 2.5 million simply didn’t have enough money to pay for the child support payments in addition to necessary living expenses (i.e. food, utilities, rent, etc.) While that is already a large percentage of child support payers who simply can’t afford the bill, the number has likely grown in recent years. In 2001, when the study was created, the poverty rate was 12.2%. More recently, 15% of Americans are impoverished despite the fact that the definition of poverty was much more conservatively used in 2010 than in 2001.
There’s two myths dispelled.
So, what should you take from that data? So called deadbeat dads are often as impoverished as the mother’s are, and can’t afford to raise children or pay for another to raise children. Why is it that when fathers demand the equal ability to raise their kids, the argument is considered so ludicrous by both the liberals and conservatives.
The simple answer is, the idea of men being given the same rights as women is considered ludicrous. The idea that women shouldn’t be given preferential treatment just because of how they were born is considered ludicrous. The idea that men are human beings who need to take care of themselves and don’t live to serve the needs of others is considered ludicrous.