If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this old, tired argument I’d be rich. It’s an all too common one thrown at pro-life men who dare to speak against abortion.
I’m going to evaluate the claim and we’ll see how it holds up to scrutiny.
Hint: Not well.
Can’t Experience
The “big” argument abortion supporters use to support this claim is that since men can’t experience pregnancy, we have no room to talk. As if, pregnancy is akin to a menstrual cycle, it’s none of our business, and we should stay out of the debate.
We’ll ignore, for a moment, the hypocrisy of allowing pro-abortion men to voice their opinion and point out that pregnancy is not an issue that only affects women.
First, men are essential to the process. Without a man, there is no baby. Second, men may never experience being pregnant, but we do experience pregnancy. The claim here is that pregnancy is none of a man’s business. I wonder how many excited, expecting fathers agree? What about the men who experience loss, pain and suffering when their child is miscarried? Are they allowed an opinion? Are they afforded their feelings? I think most compassionate people would argue yes, yes they are.
Do women become pregnant solely as a result of their own body? We’ve already proven that to be false. Men are necessary for procreation. The egg will not become a zygote without the introduction of sperm. It will never happen. The man is—quite intimately—involved in the process.
It’s basic biology. That baby is composed of 23 of his chromosomes, half his DNA. That baby will not be a clone of the mother. He or she will be a unique human being that is the result of two people. Not one.
Hypocrisy
What might be the biggest hypocrisy in this argument is how almost always, pro-abortion men are lauded as champions of women’s rights. Men who push and encourage women to kill their children are not barred by this “no men allowed” rule. Men who are vocal supporters of abortion are more than welcome to their opinions.
It seems to me that the issue isn’t that men are involving themselves in a “women’s issue” but that the opinion is unsatisfactory to the women who want the power to unilaterally decide life and death.
If men aren’t allowed to have opinions, then all men should be barred from the discussion. But they aren’t. There is an inherent bias. It has nothing to do with men having opinions. It’s with men having opinions that conflict with the people making this absurd argument.
Personal & Private
At this point, the claim changes to remain relevant.
It’s none of your business if it’s not your baby. It’s personal and private.
So, you’re saying that the taking of another human being’s life is none of my business? I’m curious, why are murder trials “The People Vs…”? What about rape? If a man is never involved in a rape, are you saying it’s none of his business to condemn it?
I’ve never been involved in any type of sexual assault. Why should rape be any of my business? If a man I’ve never met decides to rape a woman I’ve never met, why should I care? That man made the personal and private choice of a raping a woman. His body, his choice, amiright? The problem is, as everyone can agree, it doesn’t involve just his body. It involves her body too.
Likewise, abortion doesn’t just involve the women’s body, it involves the body of another human being.
I don’t have to be Jew or German to condemn the Holocaust. I don’t need to be Sudanese to be outraged over the genocide in South Sudan. I don’t need to be Iraqi to care that ISIS Daesh is murdering, raping, torturing and killing people.
The killing of 58,000,000 children since 1973, the genocide of 1.3 billion children worldwide since 1980, has a global, societal impact. One person can have a profound effect on your life. How can 1.2 billion dead children have no effect on me? How is that NOT my business?
To quote the author, John Donne,
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
Mankind is my business
The killing of another human being is my business. The suffering and death of other people should be of great concern to all of us. As the late President Reagan once said, “As a former fetus, I oppose abortion.”
I could have been aborted. You could have been aborted. The 1.3 billion humans killed were no different than you or I—only that our mothers chose to spare our lives. Some of us were spared because our mothers would never think of killing their child. Others of us were saved by men and women working tirelessly to speak the pro-life message out of love and urgency. For some of us, our mothers heeded that message.
If someone should kill another human being—I should be outraged. We know murder is wrong. It’s one of the most basic, most sacred laws around the world. It irrevocably takes a life. Yet, when it comes to a precious baby, it’s none of my business? I don’t think so.
This claim boils down to this: sexism, selfishness and power trips. Women who want to be free to kill without guilt or shame don’t want to hear men—or women—who convict them. It’s a lot easier to do something evil when nobody is telling you it’s evil.
Mankind is my business. It’s all of our business.
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