Melissa and Cara have already covered this one really well, but I couldn’t resist pointing out this article in the LA Times about post-abortion syndrome in men.
Now, “post-abortion syndrome” is bullshit — in women and men. That isn’t to say that some women don’t experience feelings of sadness, regret or depression after abortion — some do, and that should be recognized and honored. But it’s not a universal experience; the majority of women report “relief” as their chief post-abortion emotion. And more women experience depression after childbirth than after abortion.
But that’s not here nor there, since this article isn’t about women at all — it’s about men. Men whose partners terminated pregnancies, and who now want to tell other women that they can’t make the same choice.
Abortion is usually portrayed as a woman’s issue: her body, her choice, her relief or her regret. This new movement — both political and deeply personal in nature — contends that the pronoun is all wrong.
“We had abortions,” said Mark B. Morrow, a Christian counselor. “I’ve had abortions.”
This is kind of a nifty new argument — if I’m close to someone who has had a certain medical procedure, then I’ve had it, too! Especially if I shared my DNA with them in any way. If that’s the case, I’ve had two kids, surgery for a broken neck and the removal of a benign tumor. Hell, if an exchange of body fluids is all it takes to adopt someone else’s experience, then I’ve been to India and I speak fluent French.
I know women who have had abortions, too. I’ve been close with them. I’ve talked with them about their choice. But, having never had an abortion myself, I never thought to co-opt their experience and claim that because I know someone who underwent a particular procedure, I underwent it too. It smacks of total self-delusion and narcissism. Which, well:
Chris Aubert, a Houston lawyer, felt only indifference in 1985 when a girlfriend told him she was pregnant and planned on an abortion. When she asked if he wanted to come to the clinic, he said he couldn’t; he played softball on Saturdays. He stuck a check for $200 in her door and never talked to her again.
Aubert, 50, was equally untroubled when another girlfriend had an abortion in 1991. “It was a complete irrelevancy,” he said. But years later, Aubert felt a rising sense of unease. He and his wife were cooing at an ultrasound of their first baby when it struck him — “from the depths of my belly,” he said — that abortion was wrong.
Aubert has since converted to Catholicism. He and his wife have five children, and they sometimes protest in front of abortion clinics. Every now and then, though, Aubert wonders: What if his first girlfriend had not aborted? How would his life look different?
He might have endured a loveless marriage and, perhaps, a sad divorce. He might have been saddled with child support as he tried to build his legal practice. He might never have met his wife. Their children — Christine, Kyle, Roch, Paul, Vance — might not exist.
“I wouldn’t have the blessings I have now,” Aubert said. So in a way, he said, the two abortions may have cleared his path to future happiness.
“That’s an intellectual debate I have with myself,” he said. “I struggle with it.”
In the end, Aubert says his moral objection to abortion always wins. If he could go back in time, he would try to save the babies.
But would his long-ago girlfriends agree? Or might they also consider the abortions a choice that set them on a better path?
Aubert looks startled. “I never really thought about it for the woman,” he says slowly.
Well I am just dumbstruck.
I don’t doubt that there are some men out there who feel sad or depressed about the abortions their partners have had. Those feelings should be respected, and I hope the men do find ways to work through their feelings.
But this is about entitlement. It’s about men thinking that their feelings trump women’s most basic human rights. It’s about misogyny — and it’s no surprise that the men involved have long histories of it, well before their stints in the anti-choice movement.
Of course men have the right to political opinions. Of course they have the right to grieve, and to define their own experiences. But they don’t get to use their feelings as justification to curb my rights. Because at the end of the day, their co-opting of women’s actual experiences isn’t being used for healing; it’s being used as a tool to promote forced pregnancy. And that, no matter how you slice it, is a tool of oppression.