Dear Men,
And by that, I mean people, all people. I am tired of women’s marches, women’s rallies, women’s rights, and women’s issues. I am tired of the binary divide between women and men, by which most people mean cisgender women and cisgender men. I am tired of the near-constant attacks on the rights of all people.
We are interdependent. An attack on the rights of one, impacts the rights of all, even if those impacts are not always immediately apparent. So it is, with the recently leaked documents from the Supreme Court indicating that Roe v. Wade may soon be overturned. If this were to happen, the results would impact all of us, not just women who are able to conceive and carry a pregnancy.
This is a call to action. Not just for the women, of all kinds, who already know and understand how this erosion of rights will impact them, but for all people, including, and especially, those who identify as men.
Imagine a world in which…
You are responsible for every pregnancy you help to conceive. That means being physically, emotionally, and financially present for every child, whether conceived intentionally or accidentally, assuming you are a responsible kind of guy. If not, you’re still on the hook financially. DNA testing can prove you are the father, and you will owe child support as well as financial assistance through college.
Even if you have been accustomed, in the past, to participating in your partner’s decisions about whether to carry a pregnancy to full-term or not, you will no longer be allowed to do so. She/they will have no decision-making ability. That means you won’t either.
Even if your future child will be born with significant medical issues that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat, and from which they will be unlikely to ultimately survive, and which will take an immeasurably high emotional toll on both you and your entire family, you will be responsible for it all; you will not be able to choose otherwise.
Even if the pregnancy will, beyond all doubt, end with a stillbirth, you will not be able to choose otherwise.
Perhaps worst of all, though it is really hard to say what would be worst of all in these kinds of situations, if your girlfriend/wife/partner/spouse conceives a child as a result of a traumatic event, such as rape, you will have the moral responsibility and burden of accompanying and supporting her/them through a full pregnancy and live birth.
I could go on, but I hope you get the idea by now. Your freedom, your choices, will be lessened, too.
So, I’ll leave you with one question. If Roe v Wade gets overturned, what might come next? Illegal vasectomies? Required reversal of all previous vasectomies? A prohibition on selling condoms? Something even worse?
Act now. This is about all of us.
Rev. Michelle
Thank you sooo much for this Michelle!!
If the tables were turned…it would be a different world!
Lorry: Michelle, Thank you so much for speaking out on this issue. Yes, the world would certainly be different. Maybe a spirit of cooperation would become the norm.
✊ Yes yes yes yes yes to all of this! Bless you
Thank you, Rev Michelle. It’s great to see exhortations to men to “get it.” As the father of two “inconvenient pregnancy” children, I do.
Working for change, however, is another thing. I’m a 65 yo cis male, raised feminist by a feminist mother, and I’ve worked for reproductive rights and feminist issues all my life. But in trying to work in groups working for change, I’ve often been given to know, subtly or flat out, that as a male, I wasn’t wanted. Because things have to be led and done by women. Or, we’re happy to have you do this small job but please stay quiet. I get that too, and there’s some fairness for me in my turn to experience it.
I keep working for change and justice because I believe in the work. But often it’s on my own, and I miss the synergy and encouragement and joy of working with others.
Something to think about when exhorting men.