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A group of friends and former students and I swap articles on issues related to women and gender issues on a listserv, otherwise I would never have seen Gabrielle Blair’s tweetstorm, for I stay off social media (thanks, Ashley, for sending!). And even more delightful was the fact that Blair self-identifies as a “Mormon mother of 6”! In the assumption that some of our readers may likewise never stumble across this terrific mini-essay from 13 September 2018, I am copying it here because it deserves a wide reading within our faith community (you can find the original at this link).

I’m a mother of six, and a Mormon. I have a good understanding of arguments surrounding abortion, religious and otherwise. I've been listening to men grandstand about women's reproductive rights, and I'm convinced men actually have zero interest in stopping abortion. Here's why…
If you want to stop abortion, you need to prevent unwanted pregnancies. And men are 100% responsible for unwanted pregnancies. No for real, they are. Perhaps you are thinking: IT TAKES TWO! And yes, it does take two for _intentional_ pregnancies.
But ALL unwanted pregnancies are caused by the irresponsible ejaculations of men. Period. Don’t believe me? Let me walk you through it. Let’s start with this: women can only get pregnant about 2 days each month. And that’s for a limited number of years.
That makes 24 days a year a women might get pregnant. But men can _cause_ pregnancy 365 days a year. In fact, if you’re a man who ejaculates multiple times a day, you could cause multiple pregnancies daily. In theory a man could cause 1000+ unwanted pregnancies in just one year.
And though their sperm gets crappier as they age, men can cause unwanted pregnancies from puberty till death. So just starting with basic biology + the calendar it’s easy to see men are the issue here.
But what about birth control? If a woman doesn’t want to risk an unwanted pregnancy, why wouldn’t she just use birth control? If a women can manage to figure out how to get an abortion, surely she can get birth control, right? Great questions.
Modern birth control is possibly the greatest invention of the last century, and I am very grateful for it. It’s also brutal. The side effects for many women are ridiculously harmful. So ridiculous, that when an oral contraception for men was created, it wasn’t approved…
… because of the side effects. And the list of side effects was about 1/3 as long as the known side effects for women's oral contraception.
There’s a lot to be unpacked just in that story, but I’ll simply point out (in case you didn’t know) that as a society, we really don’t mind if women suffer, physically or mentally, as long as it makes things easier for men.
But good news, Men: Even with the horrible side effects, women are still very willing to use birth control. Unfortunately it’s harder to get than it should be. Birth control options for women require a doctor’s appointment and a prescription. It’s not free, and often not cheap.
In fact there are many people trying to make it more expensive by fighting to make sure insurance companies refuse to cover it. Oral contraceptives for women can’t be acquired easily, or at the last minute. And they don't work instantly.
If we’re talking about the pill, it requires consistent daily use and doesn’t leave much room for mistakes, forgetfulness, or unexpected disruptions to daily schedules. And again, the side effects can be brutal. I’M STILL GRATEFUL FOR IT PLEASE DON’T TAKE IT AWAY.
I’m just saying women's birth control isn’t simple or easy. In contrast, let’s look at birth control for men, meaning condoms. Condoms are readily available at all hours, inexpensive, convenient, and don’t require a prescription. They’re effective, and work on demand, instantly.
Men can keep them stocked up just in case, so they’re always prepared. Amazing! They are so much easier than birth control options for women. As a bonus, in general, women love when men use condoms. They keep us from getting STDs, they don’t lessen our pleasure during sex…
… or prevent us from climaxing. And the best part? Clean up is so much easier — no waddling to the toilet as your jizz drips down our legs. So why in the world are there ever unwanted pregnancies? Why don't men just use condoms every time they have sex? Seems so simple, right?
Oh. I remember. Men _don’t_ love condoms. In fact, men frequently pressure women to have sex without a condom. And it’s not unheard of for men to remove the condom during sex, without the women’s permission or knowledge. (Pro-tip: That's assault.)
Why would men want to have sex without a condom? Good question. Apparently it’s because for the minutes they are penetrating their partner, having no condom on gives the experience more pleasure.
So… there are men willing to risk getting a woman pregnant — which means literally risking her life, her health, her social status, her relationships, and her career, so that they can experience a few minutes of _slightly_ more pleasure? Is that for real? Yes. Yes it is.
What are we talking about here pleasure-wise? If there’s a pleasure scale, with pain beginning at zero and going down into the negatives, a back-scratch falling at 5, and an orgasm without a condom being a 10, where would sex _with_ a condom fall? Like a 7 or 8?
So it’s not like sex with a condom is _not_ pleasurable, it’s just not _as_ pleasurable. An 8 instead of a 10. Let me emphasize that again: Men regularly choose to put women at massive risk by having non-condom sex, in order to experience a few minutes of slightly more pleasure.
Now keep in mind, for the truly condom-averse, men also have a non-condom, always-ready birth control built right in, called the pull out. It’s not perfect, and it's a favorite joke, but it is also 96% effective.
So surely, we can expect men who aren’t wearing a condom to at least pull out every time they have sex, right? Nope. And why not?
Well, again, apparently it’s _slightly_ more pleasurable to climax inside a vagina than, say, on their partner’s stomach. So men are willing to risk the life, health and well-being of women, in order to experience a tiny bit more pleasure for like 5 seconds during orgasm.
It’s mind-boggling and disturbing when you realize that’s the choice men are making. And honestly, I’m not as mad as I should be about this, because we’ve trained men from birth that their pleasure is of utmost importance in the world. (And to dis-associate sex and pregnancy.)
While we’re here, let’s talk a bit more about pleasure and biology. Did you know that a man CAN'T get a woman pregnant without having an orgasm? Which means that we can conclude getting a woman pregnant is a pleasurable act for men.
But did you further know that men CAN get a woman pregnant without HER feeling any pleasure at all? In fact, it’s totally possible for a man to impregnate a woman even while causing her excruciating pain, trauma or horror.
In contrast, a woman can have non-stop orgasms with or without a partner and never once get herself pregnant. A woman’s orgasm has literally nothing to do with pregnancy or fertility — her clitoris exists not for creating new babies, but simply for pleasure.
No matter how many orgasms she has, they won’t make her pregnant. Pregnancies can only happen when men have an orgasm. Unwanted pregnancies can only happen when men orgasm irresponsibly.
What this means is a woman can be the sluttiest slut in the entire world who loves having orgasms all day long and all night long and she will never find herself with an unwanted pregnancy unless a man shows up and ejaculates irresponsibly.
Women enjoying sex does not equal unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Men enjoying sex and having irresponsible ejaculations is what causes unwanted pregnancies and abortion.
Let’s talk more about responsibility. Men often don’t know, and don’t ask, and don’t think to ask, if they’ve caused a pregnancy. They may never think of it, or associate sex with making babies at all. Why? Because there are 0 consequences for men who cause unwanted pregnancies.
If the woman decides to have an abortion, the man may never know he caused an unwanted pregnancy with his irresponsible ejaculation.
If the woman decides to have the baby, or put the baby up for adoption, the man may never know he caused an unwanted pregnancy with his irresponsible ejaculation, or that there’s now a child walking around with 50% of his DNA.
If the woman does tell him that he caused an unwanted pregnancy and that she’s having the baby, the closest thing to a consequence for him, is that he may need to pay child support. But our current child support system is well-known to be a joke.
61% of men (or women) who are legally required to pay it, simply don’t. With little or no repercussions. Their credit isn’t even affected. So, many men keep going as is, causing unwanted pregnancies with irresponsible ejaculations and never giving it thought.
When the topic of abortion comes up, men might think: Abortion is horrible; women should not have abortions. And never once consider the man who CAUSED the unwanted pregnancy. If you’re not holding men responsible for unwanted pregnancies, then you are wasting your time.
Stop protesting at clinics. Stop shaming women. Stop trying to overturn abortion laws. If you actually care about reducing or eliminating the number of abortions in our country, simply HOLD MEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS.

Blair is absolutely right in all she says. If the pro-life movement does not address the elephant in the room—irresponsible male ejaculation—it will never succeed. I say that as a Latter-day Saint woman who fully supports the Church’s position that sometimes abortion can justifiably be considered—in circumstances of rape, incest, where the life of the mother is at stake, where the child cannot survive birth, where serious health consequences to the mother would result from continuing the pregnancy, and so forth (https://www.lds.org/topics/abortion?lang=eng ). But abortion is always a tragedy, even in those circumstances, and Latter-day Saints hope abortion can be diminished as a practice until it would hopefully only be occurring in these justifiable contexts. Outside these contexts, the Church is plain on where it stands: “Human life is a sacred gift from God. Elective abortion for personal or social convenience is contrary to the will and the commandments of God. Church members who submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions may lose their membership in the Church.” [1]

Some historical memory is well worth bringing to bear at this point. In fact, it is extremely relevant to remember that long before Margaret Sanger, birth control (and abortion) were first publicly championed not by women, but by men—men who craved sex with no strings as a foundational component of male freedom. (Langer, 1975). Back then, this was not an issue primarily of women’s liberation, but an issue of men’s liberation from commitment to women they might impregnate through their ejaculations.

That was why the first wave of American feminists were so utterly opposed to abortion. They saw this was not about liberating women, but about freeing men from the responsibility to care about the women into whose bodies they ejaculated. They saw that broad acceptance of abortion would fuel, if it were possible, even greater levels of male sexual incontinence.

Fortunately, the organization Feminists for Life has kept alive the truth of what our feminist foremothers saw. Talk about an inconvenient truth! Here, for example, is an excerpt from an article “Marriage and Maternity,” signed by “A.” in Susan B. Anthony’s newsletter The Revolution in July 1869, which some attribute to Anthony herself:

Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification...drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime.
Much as I deplore the horrible crime of child-murder, earnestly as I desire its suppression, I cannot believe... that such a law would have the desired effect. It would only be mowing off the top of the noxious weed, while the root remains. We want prevention, not merely punishment. We must reach the root of the evil, and destroy it.
All the articles on this subject.... denounce women alone as guilty, and never include man in any plans proposed for the remedy of the evil.... If man takes [woman’s] individuality [by subjecting her to his demands] he must also take her responsibility. Let him suffer. [2] (emphasis mine)

Notice how “A” saw precisely what Blair sees today; abortion is about men’s convenience and freedom, and the problem of abortion cannot be solved until the root of the evil—male irresponsible ejaculation—is addressed. Here’s Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in an 1873 letter to Julia Ward Howe, who echoes the above sentiments: “When we consider that woman are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” [3] As this NGO’s motto asserts, “Women deserve better than abortion,” [4] or as Daphne De Jong put it. “Women who will not accept that a woman’s value be measured by how far some man wants her body or needs her services, now demand that the unborn be judged by the same standards.” [5] More stridently, Frederica Matthewes-Green suggests “abortion is a woman’s right to capitulate”. [6]

I have a couple of my own proposed slogans to add to the mix. The first is: “Sperm causes abortion.” Like Blair, what I see is that, aside from the historical Mary, a woman’s ovum cannot be fertilized except by the introduction of male sperm into her body. No introduction, no pregnancy. No introduction, no unwanted pregnancies. Therefore it is the sperm that, in the first place, caused the abortion. No woman’s ova/gametes enter another person’s body, yet male sperm/gametes leave his body and enters another person’s body. It is the sperm that is transgressive, in the literal sense of that word meaning “to pass over or go beyond a limit or boundary.”

It is astonishing to me that male dominance is so heavy on our eyes that we cannot see this. If women all of a sudden secreted a substance from their palms that when rubbed on a man’s skin caused him to break out in huge pus-filled boils, we would not say, “It takes two to tango; those men should have known better. The boils are proof of the man’s poor choices.” No, we would lock up any woman who went around smearing secretions on men’s bodies! That is such a no-brainer, so why is it so hard to acknowledge the same with sperm? I can only conclude it is because most men do not wish to be responsible for their ejaculations at all, and so refuse this realistic framing of the situation. The prevalence of abortion is not due primarily to women’s irresponsibility and selfishness (though women may exhibit both traits); it is clearly due to men’s. Men apparently believe they are owed sex with no strings attached.

This is also evident with regard to male attitudes towards being responsible for ensuring birth control. As Blair rightly points out, most men couldn’t care less. Because of their feeling of entitlement, it’s all up to women to take care of birth control—as if those men who could get boils should wrap their entire body in cellophane instead of women wearing gloves to prevent any accidents. Abortion simply gives men a further pass—as if a man who got boils should go to the doctor to get them sliced off his body rather than, heaven forbid, a woman be required on pain of punishment to wear gloves to prevent any such horrible necessity.

My second slogan is, “Zip your pants and watch the store of misery in the world plummet.” The one thing that above all else could make this world a better place is if men did not ejaculate into the bodies of women who did not wish to become pregnant. Think about all the sorrow, misery, despair, and horror that would be prevented. Think about the women’s lives saved; think about the children’s lives saved. Think about the positive consequences for the entire nation. Think about the blessings of God that would be showered down on that people. It would be the #1 most effective development policy, at a minimum, and would do more to raise the Happiness Index of a nation that any other change.

In fact, when you think about it, given all the negative ramifications of men’s irresponsible ejaculation, you might imagine that such behavior would be severely punished by governments. You might imagine that a man who caused an abortion due to unplanned pregnancy through irresponsible ejaculation would be punished as a murderer—or at a minimum castrated so he could never do such a thing again. But once more, the backdrop of male dominance prevents such expectations and renders them fantastical, doesn’t it? It is as if there is s force insisting that, no matter what, we must be prevented from seeing the real culpability of men in creating the immense store of misery in the world, seemingly because the “freedom” to irresponsibly ejaculate is just so supernally important to men.

Sperm causes abortion. Zip your pants and watch the store of misery in the world plummet.


Joy Pullmann’s Critique of Blair

One would think that an influential conservative woman such as Joy Pullmann of The Federalist would see the wisdom of Blair’s re-envisioning. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Pullmann severely criticized Blair’s stand a few days after it was written, referring to her as “some chick [who] wrote a Twitter thread”. Pullmann accuses Blair of not understanding human biology or human responsibility.

While Pullmann acknowledges that abortion lets men off the hook in terms of caring for the children they help create, she pulls out the old trope that not all men are this way. Well, yes, that’s true. But we all know that. In another essay in this journal issue, I call it the “30M” problem, indicating that it appears to be about 30% of men who apparently cannot consider women to be worthy of attention, compassion, or care. That leaves 70% who do, which is wonderful. But 30% is significant, and it does refer to a uniquely male problem. So let’s just agree that a large majority of men are OK—though we may question the veracity of that statement in the next section where we discuss the pornification of our men.

Where Pullmann pulls away from Blair is that she feels Blair understates women’s responsibility for unwanted pregnancies. Further, she also asserts that since sperm lives for up to 5 days, that a woman is fertile 12 days a month, which is just not true. A woman’s ovum is only capable of selecting a sperm for approximately 24 hours. Both of Pullmann’s critiques actually exhibit the same logical error—Pullmann substitutes what is specifically male for what is female. It makes the male standpoint the natural, default one.

But this is precisely what Blair is problematizing. Women are not fertile 12 days a month—men’s sperm “live” longer than female ova, 5 days compared to 1 day. It foregrounds the sperm and not the egg to suggest women are fertile for 5 days because men’s sperm are. [7] It is only from the man’s standpoint as being the ejaculator that women “are fertile” for more than 24 hours. Likewise, male responsibility for unwanted pregnancy and female responsibility for unwanted pregnancy are simply apples and oranges. The woman does not inject DNA material into a male body. Nothing from her body transgresses his. [8] But the man injects his DNA material into a female body. His sperm transgresses her body. A man impregnates a woman. A woman cannot impregnate a man. The two responsibilities are horses of completely different colors, which is why the Restored Church of Jesus Christ acknowledges that rape and incest leading to pregnancy might be justifiable grounds for termination of the pregnancy.

Pullmann also suggests that condoms and withdrawal, methods that Blair advocates, are not 100% foolproof. This is no news flash. But somehow she concludes from that, in a very twisted logic, that men are not responsible for all unwanted pregnancies. No, what that means is that sometimes male forms of birth control fail, and when they do that alters the nature of the resulting male responsibility. There is a vast ethical difference between a man using birth control that has a small but not insignificant chance of failing and a man refusing to use birth control at all.

Pullmann concludes by suggesting Blair is simply peddling yet another form of victimhood to women so that they can evade responsibility for their sexual choices. I disagree that this is Blair’s aim, which I feel instead is to rightfully problematize how we conceptualize “unwanted pregnancy,” and to “see,” finally and in a way that suggests a more effective approach to reducing the incidence of abortion, the true nature of male responsibility which has been obscured in our policy debates. Pullman rightly states, “In consensual adult sex both partners participate and both should be responsible for the results.” But the fact is men have not been held responsible for the results for quite some time now: shotgun marriages have gone the way of the dodo bird. In such a cultural context, Gabrielle Blair usefully clarifies our vision, and we should offer her thanks instead of criticism for that.


#MeToo Meets Irresponsible Ejaculation, Unwanted Sex, and Pornified Men

But there is another problem whose outlines are only now dimly coming into view. I actually have hopes—not high hopes, but hopes—that the train wreck coming our way will be the catalyst for positive change in male:female relations in our society.

That two freight trains are headed right for each other is no longer in doubt, I think. The genuine awakening that is #MeToo reveals that many men have treated nearly all women in sexually abominable ways and women will no longer put up with it. Women are determined to tell their stories, and this means that women will thus no longer be confronting male sexual predation without support or perspective. Women now have the opportunity to really think about whether they are willing to put up with men treating them terribly when it comes to sex. How I wish I had had that opportunity when I was a young woman.

There’s been a literal explosion of women revealing how disgustingly they’ve been treated—from harassment in public spaces to harassment on the job to awful private behavior such as stealthing (that is, a male surreptitiously, purposefully removing a condom during sex with a woman to impregnate her by deception). Even more powerful is women’s revelation of the emotional blackmail, not just the physical coercion, they have endured from men to the end that they (women) will “put out” in relationships with their male “lovers.” The entire notion of consent is muddied by the context in which such consent has been procured from a woman. Women are having sexual relations they actually do not want. Women are having sex that hurts their bodies, hurts their dignity, and hurts their spirit. And, no, Joy Pullmann, this is not technically consensual sex because it is not wanted but only endured.

And women’s initiation into sex is usually not technically consensual, either, but only endured. According to the CDC, in the USA, “Eighteen percent of US women reported sexual coercion and 8.4% experienced sexual violence at first intercourse” (Williams, Clear, and Coker, 2013) Things may be even worse elsewhere, as this chart on unwanted sex in several African nations demonstrates.


When unwanted, pressured sex was your very first experience, it socializes you to feel that is just the way it is. Sex is simply something men will expect of you, like doing the laundry, and you might as well just get it over with and do it. The infamous date “Grace” had with Aziz Ansari is a great case in point. Soul-crushing, unwanted, dissociated sex: ugh. And yet women are socialized to accept this as normal.

In an excellent analysis piece, Lili Loufborow of The Week reveals statistics our culture never talks about: “Research shows that 30 percent of women report pain during vaginal sex, 72 percent report pain during anal sex, and "large proportions" don't tell their partners when sex hurts.” “Bad sex” for men, she writes, is when they are bored; “bad sex” for women is when they wind up injured and in pain. And this disparity in socially expected pain is not just about sex—even simply conforming to female stereotypes demonstrates the same:

Women are constantly and specifically trained out of noticing or responding to their bodily discomfort, particularly if they want to be sexually "viable." Have you looked at how women are "supposed" to present themselves as sexually attractive? High heels? Trainers? Spanx? These are things designed to wrench bodies. Men can be appealing in comfy clothes. They walk in shoes that don't shorten their Achilles tendons. They don't need to get the hair ripped off their genitals or take needles to the face to be perceived as "conventionally" attractive. They can — just as women can — opt out of all this, but the baseline expectations are simply different, and it's ludicrous to pretend they aren't. The old implied social bargain between women and men that one side will endure a great deal of discomfort and pain for the other's pleasure and delight. And we've all agreed to act like that's normal, and just how the world works.
Women are supposed to perform comfort and pleasure they do not feel under conditions that make genuine comfort almost impossible. Next time you see a woman breezily laughing in a complicated and revealing gown that requires her not to eat or drink for hours, know a) that you are witnessing the work of a consummate illusionist acting her heart out and b) that you have been trained to see that extraordinary, Oscar-worthy performance as merely routine. Now think about how that training might filter down to sexual contexts.
One side effect of teaching one gender to outsource its pleasure to a third party (and endure a lot of discomfort in the process) is that they're going to be poor analysts of their own discomfort, which they have been persistently taught to ignore.
Women have spent decades politely ignoring their own discomfort and pain to give men maximal pleasure. They've gamely pursued love and sexual fulfillment despite tearing and bleeding and other symptoms of "bad sex." They've worked in industries where their objectification and harassment was normalized, and chased love and sexual fulfillment despite painful conditions no one, especially not their doctors, took seriously.

In such a context, what is genuine consent on the part of a woman? How can sex be consensual if it is in reality not wanted? An unplanned pregnancy resulting from this morass of unwanted-but-felt-pressured-into-it sex may well feel to a woman as if it were the product of a rape. Justifiably so, in my opinion.

At the very same time women are (finally!) raising these types of issues and becoming quite unhappy with the status quo, the other freight train is barreling down the track. That other freight train is the pornification of our men. Even if one looks only at Christian men ages 18-30, 29% admit to watching porn one or several times a day. 63% admit to watching at least once per week. 80% admit to watching porn once a month or more. Our men, even our religious men, are literally marinating themselves in pornography. RCJC bishops I have spoken to corroborate these numbers for Latter-day Saint men. And these survey figures are based on self-reporting, which often underestimates frequency of use. Only 7% of Christian men in this age group say they never view porn.

These are figures to weep over. Our men are socialized by porn to see women as things that exist for men’s pleasure. They are socialized to see sex as the slaking of an appetite rather than the loving connection of two souls. They are socialized that sex is nothing more than a recreational sport. They are socialized into treating women’s bodies in a way that will hurt and degrade. And they are socialized into believing they should have sexual experiences continually and constantly, and these experiences should be as expansive for the man as possible—to wit, they should be ejaculating whenever and however and into whomever or whatever they please.

Great. This “cheap sex” may be sought by men, but it’s like mainlining heroin to find happiness—in other words, you can’t get there from here. At the same time, women are starting to see that “cheap sex” is actually soulless, painful, unwanted, and ultimately not worth it. As our men gorge themselves on “heroin sex,” our women are increasingly nauseated by it. That’s a real train wreck in the making.

The only way to turn sex into something that increases, rather than decreases, happiness is trite but true—it can only be done the Lord’s way. The meeting ground of sexual interest between men and women can only ever be companionate, committed, faithful marriage. Anything else is exploitative of women and degrading to men. Is it possible that this train wreck of “#MeToo meets 93% porn-using men” sufficient to re-establish that healthy, happy meeting ground? A girl can hope, can’t she? [9]

And in this way, at the end of this essay, we come full circle. If that meeting ground of faithful, committed marriage were to be resurrected as a result of the coming train wreck, what would happen to unplanned pregnancy? What would happen to the abortion rate? Precisely.


REFERENCES

Lange, William L. (1975) “The Origins of the Birth Control Movement in England in the Early Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 5 No, 4 (The History of the Family, II (Spring)), pp 669-686; https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/202864.pdf?casa_token=DnHo6glG_ZUAAAAA:kLTiPmbtlw8cIYTkufLKg9L0OEMu1QSCTaKH4yQMwuM8r0HRB74S9GlLPPfZ1WJB-El0tXItWPG9FrHXtf-RMU7FSxTMobC0DZQsTRm9Wy7Zv6AjG3w (click accept at this link and the paper can be viewed)

Williams, Corrine, Emily Clear, and Ann Coker (2013) “Sexual Coercion and Sexual Violence at First Intercourse Associated with Sexually Transmitted Infections,” Sexually Transmitted Disease, Vol. 40 No, 10 (October), pp. 771-5; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927639/

NOTES:

[1] The Church makes exceptions in cases such as rape, incest, life of the mother, inevitable stillbirth, and other tragic circumstances. Membership in the Church is not in play in such cases. [Back to manuscript].


[2] https://feministsforlife.org/-taf/2007/spring-2007.pdf, accessed 2018. [Back to manuscript].

[3] https://feministsforlife.org/-taf/2003/winter/RewardingMotherhood.pdf, accessed 2018. [Back to manuscript].

[4] https://feministsforlife.org/-news/WDBSMF150.pdf, accessed 2018. [Back to manuscript].

[5] https://feministsforlife.org/-taf/1999/winter/Winter99-00.pdf, accessed 2018. [Back to manuscript].

[6] https://www.feministsforlife.org/the-bitter-price-of-choice/, accessed 2018. [Back to manuscript].

[7] I am really not sure why Pullmann says women can get pregnant after their ova have shut down after the 24 hour period in which they are fertilizable. They just can’t. I suppose one could say there is a 3-5 day period per month in which if a man ejaculated into a woman’s body, she could become pregnant. [Back to manuscript].


[8] Though of course if she is harboring bacteria, viruses, or fungi, they may jump ship. But those are not part of her body.[Back to manuscript].


[9] Indeed, though I have never read it, I think this accounts for the popularity of Fifty Shades of Gray. As I understand it, the plot sees a young woman convert a pornified young man back into vanilla sex so that they can get married and start a family. It’s a fairy tale handcrafted for out time. [Back to manuscript].



Full Citation for this Article: Cassler, V.H. (2018) "Thank You, Gabrielle Blair (@designmom), Or, Abortion is a Man’s Issue," SquareTwo, Vol. 11 No. 3 (Fall 2018), http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleCasslerAbortionManIssue.html, accessed <give access date>.

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