Abortion: Playing to the lowest common denominator

So, I got myself involved in a (mercifully brief) late-night “discussion” of abortion with a couple of feminists on Twitter…

Of course, it all turned graphically anatomical in the twinkling of an eye:

But here’s what struck me afterwards:

Abortion plays to the lowest common denominator of relationships between men and women.

I use you for sex; you agree to me using you for sex.

We agree we will not see each other again, or at least not see each other for very long.

I care not that you get pregnant. You don’t care either. Surgery can deal with the consequences.

I’m not likely to volunteer hold your hand before, during, or after the termination procedure. I’ve done what a man does (ejaculate and leave); you do what a woman does (get pregnant; have surgery; cry in private; go on marches for your reproductive rights).

Abortion, so you tell me, is your right as a woman. Great! Because unfettered, consequence- and commitment-free sex is clearly my right as a man.

No, really: I don’t have to paint a nursery, put up shelves, mow the lawn, attend pre-natal classes with you, hold your hand during cramps, rub your back for you, bring you cups of tea, change nappies, get up in the night to provide bottle-feeds, listen to you bang on about womanly things or your expectations of me as husband and (partial?) provider, and much, much more.

I don’t even have to share the remote control or give up my video-game marathons.

I just fuck and go.

And, frankly: fuck your feelings!

Why am I writing like this on what is ostensibly a Christian blog?

I’m sorry if the four-letter language causes any offence. Most of my posts aren’t like this. I’m trying to work towards this point:

There has to be a better way.

What if, instead of using women for sex and then abandoning them to unwanted pregnancies and abortions (and letting them suffer unnecessary emotional trauma), men treated women with reverence?  With love? With an attitude of commitment?

What if women saw the merit in marriage, and actively prepared for it, instead of joining men in the gutter of commitment-free sex (and later wondering where all the good, eligible men are)? (Clue: they married women who saw the merit in settling down earlier in life while you were busy having drunken flings with one-night stands or spending long years in relationships with men who were happy to have sex but weren’t playing for keeps.)*

What if we didn’t kill unborn babies because we created a world (even just our little corner of the world) in which we didn’t need to kill unborn babies?

When we take the love and commitment out of sex, we almost inevitably end up feeling the need to kill the offspring that results from such sex.

Maybe it’s time we admitted that such a lifestyle is not sustainable. The possibility of killing an unborn child ought to be a huge red flag that warns us off uncommitted sex in the first place.

When we talk about “pro-choice”, let’s be sure of what we are choosing, and where that path leads. Is having sex with people who don’t care about you and won’t stand by you really all it’s cracked up to be? Or is it actually a little bit immature and pointless – merely satisfying our urges with no thought of what happens to those who get in the way? Toddlers do that. The rest of us ought to have grown out of it.

You see, in a way I’m “pro-choice” too.

I’m “pro” the choice to treat people as people, not as objects.

I’m “pro” the choice to treat a woman with respect, rather than as a living, breathing extension of pornography, to be picked up and used and dumped at my convenience.

I’m “pro” the choice to take responsibility for the children we conceive – to love them and bring them up well, rather than to cast them aside.

I’m “pro” the choice to do decent, praiseworthy, God-mandated things that are hard, rather than selfish, lust-driven things that are easy.

I’m “pro” the choice to raise the level of the game I play (and to hold out the same example to others), so that I can be proud of how I’ve lived, safe in the knowledge that my testimony will speak for itself, rather than having to defend my actions.

As I’ve discussed in previous posts, a lot of these choices stem from my hopeless clinging to an outdated, bigoted, sexually repressive, anti-women Bronze-Age made-up religion that is completely laughable and worthy only of your contempt, unless of course the truth about it is somewhat more positive and you’ve missed the point while you were busy rallying for something or other.

Whatever your convictions about my convictions, I refuse to reduce relationships to the lowest common denominator of convenience and self-centredness.

I won’t do it before marriage, and I won’t do it during marriage either, so help me God.

So how about we bring the love back? How about making this a better world?

 

(EDIT) Since writing this post I’ve discovered a couple of articles that I thought were quite telling:

– Stella Morabito at The Federalist concurs: Why Pro-Abortion Men are Anti-Woman.
… and you know that hook-up culture has really taken hold when Vanity Fair examines it objectively: Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse.

 

Footnote:

I have nothing but sympathy for women (and men) who have been involved in abortions. Most feel at least some level of guilt; many have bitter regrets. When the Bible talks about repentance from sin and says that we can be forgiven, it applies to this sin as much as to any other. The death of Jesus Christ on the Cross is the proof that God forgives repentant people of all sin, including sexual sin and the killing of the unborn child.

God loves you. God forgives you. Receive His forgiveness and sin no more.

We also need God’s help to love each other and to live a better way.

Why not make that your choice today?

*link is monetised