If I were allowed to redesign humans, I’d have some significant biological changes to suggest when it came to reproductive matters. Babies would be assigned by committee. Aspiring parents would be asked to submit their applications to an impartial body – a cross between Customs and the British Board of Film Classification, if you like – that would grant children to those who could demonstrate, perhaps with a series of Powerpoint presentations, that they could look after them and would take the responsibility seriously.
It wouldn’t matter whether you were single or in a relationship, and your ethnicity or sexuality would have no bearing on the matter. You’d just need to prove that you actively wanted children, you could make financial provisions for them, you’d do your very best, every day, to ensure they grew up feeling loved and wanted, and you’d stop them from hitting strangers’ knees on the bus.
Getting children as a result of sexual intercourse seems as sane as getting pregnant every time you had an especially good sandwich, or laughed extra hard at an especially funny bit of You’ve Been Framed. Nearly everyone I know enjoys sex, and has been doing it for quite some time. Personally, I have been sexually active for over 13 years. And at no point over the course of those 13 years would a pregnancy have resulted in any response other than, ‘Bloody hell, if I looked after this phantom baby the way I look after myself, Social Services will remove it in nanoseconds.’
If I get pregnant, I don’t have to give birth to a baby – and I see that as the hallmark of a civillised society.
I do not want to have a child. But happily, where biology has fucked up, law and medicine have stepped in. If I get pregnant, I don’t have to give birth to a baby – and I see that as the hallmark of a civillised society. In countries where abortion is banned or severely restricted, women generally have a fairly shitty time of it. When men make the laws, women don’t get to be in charge of their own bodies.
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For that reason I was chilled to read this piece in the Telegraph from Tony Perry, who writes that he wanted to prevent his girlfriend’s abortion. It’s interesting because it reverses the stereotypical, mythical tale we’re used to hearing in which a woman, desperate for babies, decides to continue with a pregnancy, despite the distress of her unwilling partner.
Perry is now a father, and clearly feels it is his destiny, but however hard one wants to sympathise, it’s difficult. How can he possibly think that baby would have a happy life when its mother clearly wasn’t ready for a pregnancy, or willing?
It might be rare to hear a man publicly voice an opinion like Perry’s, but it sounds pretty familiar to Danni*, 26. When she fell pregnant and needed an abortion, her most vocal opponent was her male housemate (who, incidentally, wasn’t even the guy who’d got her pregnant).
‘I got pregnant after sleeping with a guy I hadn’t been seeing for long. The condom came off, and when I went to get the morning-after pill the nurse at the pharmacy told me to leave it because I was on my period anyway,’ she tells me of her experience. ‘There was no way I could have a baby, I live in a tiny room in Zone 5, I’ve just started a new job and I’m trying to pay off credit cards. My housemate and I are quite close so I asked him to come with me, and he wouldn’t do it unless I told the guy, and was making a case for us making a go of things.’
He had no real idea of the realities of pregnancy or raising a baby. He just seemed to be of the opinion that it would all magically work out.
‘His argument was more or less based on baby knitwear he’d seen and liked the look of. Sadly, it’s changed our friendship. I was blown away by the fact that he was not overly concerned with my feelings or emotions, but seemed determined to thrust fatherhood on this bloke he’d never properly met! And he had no real idea of the realities of pregnancy or raising a baby. He just seemed to be of the opinion that it would all magically work out.’
This sentiment – that everything would ‘magically work out’ – is also a common theme in Perry’s piece. Tellingly, he also seems to brush over the fact that his girlfriend didn’t seem particularly invested in their relationship. What if, to put it bluntly, she simply didn’t want to spend the next 20 years tied to him?
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You can sort of see her point. Perry is so fixated on his own personal hurt and anguish that this doesn’t even seem to occur to him. But it’s something Lita*, 28, can totally relate to. When she fell pregnant, she knew there was no way she could raise a child with the man she was sleeping with.
‘I’d been with this emotionally manipulative guy and to be honest, I wasn’t careful about contraception,’ she says.
I absolutely did the right thing, but I felt like it was a horrible, horrible secret. I told this guy what happened, and he actually called me a whore and a baby killer.
‘I wasn’t trying to get pregnant, but I was bad at taking care of myself and not great at thinking about my own health. I ended up having an abortion because my sensible friends said, “When he makes you feel this bad, all the time, having a kid isn’t going to fix that. You’re just creating one more person for this guy to be mean to.”
‘I absolutely did the right thing, but I felt like it was a horrible, horrible secret. I told this guy what happened, and he actually called me a whore and a baby killer, which was the worst. But then, imagine raising a child with a man who thought it was ever OK to call women names like that!’
A shit boyfriend, no money, no home – all excellent reasons to have an abortion, right? But what if you don’t have a good reason? Well, that’s the point. Even if a woman is in a stable relationship with a man she loves and has every means to raise a child, if she doesn’t want to continue with the pregnancy, then she doesn’t have to – no matter how her partner feels about it.
He doesn’t have to agree, he can dump you for it if he wants to, and he can even write emotionally wrought articles about his hurt and regret about it eight years later – that’s his right. But if you start taking away a woman’s right to chose, and putting caveats and conditions on it in the interests of ‘fairness’, you risk creating a system that’s rife for abuse at the point where women are at their most vulnerable.
Tony Perry, Danni’s flatmate and Lita’s ex-boyfriend don’t have to like it. And, fortunately, they don’t get any say in the matter. Being pro-choice is about protecting women – ultimately, it’s just not a man’s choice to make.
Follow Daisy on Twitter @NotRollerGirl
**Liked this? You might also be interested in: **
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**Names have been changed
Picture: Li Hui
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.