As the New Abortion Caravan makes its way across the country, many of the attendees at presentations in various cities have made interesting remarks about the number of young men who have joined the pro-life caravan (while the women outnumber the men, there are eleven young men on the caravan.) Some have commented that it is encouraging to see young men join the pro-life cause, since feminist orthodoxy seems to have succeeded in convincing the large majority to avoid the issue. Others have asked how we respond to the argument that men have no place in a debate surrounding what is perceived as “a woman’s right to choose.”
While I have written in the past on the place of men in the abortion debate, reflecting on these questions over the last two weeks has led me to believe even more strongly that men must engage the culture on the abortion question.
First of all, as I’ve said before, I firmly believe that many, many abortions would not take place if men would shoulder the responsibility they bear for their offspring. While some women choose single motherhood, an enormous number of them are abandoned by men undeserving of the title, who see no problem in having a one night stand and then leaving, or even walking out on their partners and children after they decide the relationship doesn’t work for them. I’ve been told by countless women that they have abortions either to prevent someone from breaking up with them, or because they simply assume that the boys they’ve been fooling around with have no interest in parenting the offspring they helped create.
Indeed, the illusion of “choice” created by the abortion movement often leaves women with the feeling that they do not have one. Many men have bought into the lie that they have no responsibility or say, and even when they desperately want their partners to choose life for their children. The women of the 1970 Abortion Caravan plotted and predicted this, stating in a letter to the Toronto Daily Star that, “Naturally, the very fact that our husbands and fathers of our unborn (assuming they are one and the same person) will then be totally emasculated should be of only fleeting concern.”
The men of the New Abortion Caravan reject both the lie that people should have the right to dismember their own offspring in the womb, and the lie that men should step aside and abandon their responsibilities to our country’s most vulnerable. Indeed, we see that the repulsive ideologies of pro-“choice” result in enormous damage to both post-abortive men and women. Slate magazine even published an article a few days ago asking the question “Should a man be responsible for supporting a baby he didn’t want?” with the conclusion that it is a very difficult question, and that while we know men should have no say in what happens to their pre-born children, perhaps they shouldn’t even have to care for their born children.
Do you want to know why men often fail women so miserably? It is because of the pro-“choice” ideology that both denies men a say and claims to absolve them of responsibility. It is because we have devalued the lives of our pre-born children that Slate magazine can ask such a revolting question. And those of us who have joined the New Abortion Caravan reject these notions out of hand.
It is time for men to be men. We have faith in your abilities. Turn off the X-box and go fight for your children. They’ve been waiting too long.