Let’s Make Things Really Equal

April 7, 2002

by Charles E. Perry

Supposedly, the purpose of feminism was to make men and women perfectly equal in all things. I suppose that’s a noble goal, though why women would want to give up their superiority I can’t imagine, but it certainly hasn’t been achieved. Despite all the laws, despite all the rhetoric, despite all the marches and protests, men remain second class citizens in one area: that of abortion. Read on, and you’ll see why I say that.

We are told, by feminists, that women must have the right to abort an unborn child, because no one should be forced to be a parent against their will. Now, some would argue that if you have sex willingly, and you know that pregnancy is a possible consequence, then you aren’t being forced to be a parent against your will, but I’m not going to get into that. Let’s accept the premise for argument’s sake.

Okay, so we’ve accepted that it’s wrong to force a woman to become a parent against her will by making her continue an unwanted pregnancy. Well, wouldn’t it, therefore, be equally wrong to force a man to become a parent against his will? Yet we do that every day. If a woman decides to keep her baby, the man is forced, against his will, to become a father. He is enslaved for eighteen to twenty-one years of child support, against his will. He has no "choice," and feminists have told us that "choice" is a good thing. If "choice" is so good for the woman, why isn’t it good for the man?

All of the arguments feminists use to justify abortion can be used equally well to justify letting men off the hook too. His life can be ruined by an unplanned child as easily as the woman’s can. He can be forced out of school into some low paying job to support the child, thus condemning him to a life of poverty and drudgery with no hope of bettering himself. And, to make it worse, this is forced on him, against his will, by an oppressive and uncaring society.

I’m sure any feminist who is reading this is, by this point, screaming nasty words at the computer screen, and condemning me to wallow in the pits of some feminist hell for all of eternity. That just makes me smile. No feminist I have ever run across has ever been able to tell me why, if "choice" is so good for women, it’s so bad for men, and they tend to foam at the mouth when I throw their own arguments back at them. This also makes me smile.

Feminists think women should be able to end the life of their child for any or no reason. They call this "choice," but if you even suggest that men should have an equal "choice," they tend to form enraged lynch mobs and start talking about things like responsibility. Aha! We have come to the crux of the matter: feminists want men to have responsibility, but not women. Not when it comes to pregnancy.

Let’s talk truth here. If you willingly engage in sexual intercourse, knowing that pregnancy might be the result, then nobody has "forced" you to become a parent if you do end up pregnant. You made the choice to risk creating a new life, and you created for yourself an obligation to that new life. Your obligation is to nurture it, care for it, and educate it until it can fend for itself, and that obligation extends equally to both parties involved. With abortion, there is no equality between the sexes. Equality comes without abortion. Both parties then have the exact same choice: do they want to get married to care for the child? Or do they want to do it separately?

Women have been sold fake goods. They were told that abortion would make them equal. All it has done is make them shallow. They can now engage in sex without responsibility and be treated like a little child after if they happen to get pregnant. Don’t worry dear, we’ll make it all better for you.

You know, society wasn’t so dumb with shotgun marriages, but we’ve gotten dumber of late.

_________________________________________

Charles E. Perry is a freelance writer living in Michigan. He has done a variety of things in his life, including Ward Supervisor at the State of Michigan's Maximum Security Mental Facility. His degree is in accounting, but he discovered writing and now spends his time hunched over a keyboard, hollow-eyed, looking for just the right word. Perry is the author of "How Government Should Work: A Look at the Federalist Papers and the Constitution of the United States," currently pending publication.

Send the author an E mail at Perry@ConservativeTruth.org.

For more of Charlie's articles, visit his archives.