You don't get to feel cheated
Asguard said:
Unless your sugesting that abortion should be only avialable for emergency and rape ect?
I think you're extending the argument too far here. But we need to put your statement alongside another:
as long as [men can't get pregnant] you get all the responcability Orleander. Your choice your responcability
Look, abortion isn't for men. At least, not until we can get pregnant. You cannot disconnect the act of sexual intercourse from a pregnancy unless that pregnancy is deliberately conceived through artificial insemination. So, yes ...
your choice, your responsibility. And that includes the
choice to
get on the woman and get your rocks off.
I suppose one way of looking at it would be to look at such a child as you decry and tell them, every day, "You should have been aborted. The fact that you exist is
so unfair to me."
And I know that's harsh, but so is your position. If a woman doesn't want to do what a man wants her to do, that does not necessarily absolve him of the effects of his actions. My partner explained her decision to carry our daughter to term with fallacy. "I might not have another chance," she said. Which was crap. She was thirty. Yeah, I feel cheated. Not by the decision, but because she did everything she could to take away or diminish what should have been a series of "great moments" in any man's life. I mean, what am I supposed to say to that? What about being told I had a child on the way? I learned because a
severely drunk woman thought she could hurt me with the knowledge that she was carrying my child. Not only was the embryo
loaded at the moment, but it was being used
as a weapon. But you know what? Absolutely
none of that has
anything to do with my daughter. There's a part of me that would have ached over an abortion. But that's just manly pride. I already know that my line should have stopped with me. That point is irrelevant now. Instead of moping over that fact, instead of calling my daughter a mistake, it seems to me I might as well make the best of an unexpected circumstance. It's fairly easy to do; I have a blood relative, which for me is a wholly unique experience. And life goes on. You're complaining about what is, at best, a one-in-four outcome:
From a man's perspective: Basic considerations
(1) Both parents want child: positive outcome.
(2) Father wants child, mother aborts: stings; man should consider whether he's invested in the right woman.
(3) Both parents want abortion: positive outcome.
(4) Father wants abortion, mother has child: well, that just rips it. There's no way a man should be obliged to deal with the effects of his choices.
I'm glad you have faith in your girlfriend. But if you think for a moment that you can put that faith up against the power of biochemistry and self-governance, be neither surprised nor bitter if you lose. Because
that contrast between what she says ("We'll decide as a couple") and the reality of how a pregnancy makes a woman feel is part of the gamble you take when you get on her in the first place.
Someday, someone reading this discussion might actually face a
genuine consideration when their girlfriend, who always said they would decide as a couple, takes that decision into her own hands. That potential outcome is one we accept when we make the choice to fuck her in the first place.
We have no comparative equivalent for what a pregnancy means and does to a woman. If I say you're yammering out your ass on this one, it's because that's about all we men can do when it comes to pregnancy. Until either men can get pregnant and carry a child to term—
• Do you have the remotest clue what it feels like to get kicked in the bladder? From inside your body? Neither do I.
• Have you ever crossed the line and pressured, harassed, or coerced a woman into having sex with you? (Don't answer that, it's a rhetorical proposition.) The average man would have to multiply severely the power of his hormones in chasing tail before he could experience what the fact of pregnancy does to a woman. We might make jokes about what pregnancy does to women's behavior°, but most of that is just stereotype and we need to shut our mouths. However, the question at hand—whether or not a woman will grant you influence over her reproductive decisions—justly falls within this range°.
• Have you any chemical addictions°? Have you ever beaten one? The difference is orders of magnitude.
—we really don't have any real clue what we're talking about. Even my outlook on the power of biochemistry is, to a degree, speculative. I can tell you what women tell me. I can compare states of mind° intellectually, but not directly.
But one thing I can tell you is that principle crumbles in the face of natural reality. Just like saying you shouldn't be banging the woman in the first place, only more so. Exponentially more so. And
if in your life you face this particular outcome, no, you
don't get to feel cheated.
Well, you
can. But that wouldn't mean you were right.
____________________
Notes:
° jokes about what pregnancy does to women's behavior — And I've got a great one. So, if a harried man ever asks me how I put up with my partner when she was pregnant, I would shrug and say, "I didn't really notice the difference". Compared to the stereotype implied by the question, that's a huge indictment of my daughter's mother.
° justly falls within this range — Unfortunately, most of us only understand impulsion to this degree from a critical standpoint: addiction, psychosis, &c. Depression is about as mild an example as I can think of right now. There are days on which I simply will not be happy. It doesn't feel right. On those days, happiness feels so false that you might as well be insisting I sacrifice my intellect and take up religion. Any attempt to improve my mood would only offend me and increase my ire. And yet, for some reason, in those moments, it feels absolutely proper that I should feel that way. Comparatively, though, I know I've only experienced an infinitesimal fraction of nature's power.
° addictions — Having broken a growing cocaine habit and also quit smoking tobacco over the last eighteen months, I'm fairly confident of where I stand in relation to addiction. I also know, however, that not everyone is so fortunately-endowed. There are those who will be tortured every day of their lives without a cigarette or a line. There are those who simply can't stop drinking alcohol. My ability to quit cigarettes, or quash a cocaine habit before it exploded into full-blown addiction, has absolutely nothing of use to tell people so cursed by their demons. Comparatively, the power of life itself, unleashed on a woman's brain and body, will trump anything you might claim as your right in deciding whether to abort or carry to term. And if the woman in question is so affected by biochemistry, there is nothing
° states of mind — For instance, eating raw meat. We might nod and think it's understandable that, even though we're accustomed to thinking something is disgusting, we might do it anyway. But that's not quite the same thing. Can we imagine looking at raw ground beef and openly desiring to eat it? To demand to eat it? As is? Nothing disgusting about it? Without thinking about the significance of it being raw? As in, all of our conditioning about raw meat is absent? When I'm stoned, I can eat certain pepperoni pizzas or fettuccine alfredos without any coherent thoughts. Literally, I disappear into sensation until its over. There is something chemical taking place in my brain as this happens. That is as close as I can come to sympathizing with the eating of raw meat. I can't imagine raw hamburger doing the same to me. Then again, I'll never be pregnant.