The three types of men who support abortion

The other day I read perhaps the best article on abortion that I've ever read, and I started looking through the combox. There was one man, John, who seemed to be making the bulk of the pro-"choice" arguments, and so, like many others there, I engaged him.

He and I went back and forth a bit, but a red flag came up for me when the answers to very simple questions were met with multiple long and (seemingly) lofty philosophical treatises, metaphysics trumping science (the old "personhood" question), a limited understanding of history, and analogies that didn't make logical connections and/or proper distinctions. I tried to pull him back to basics, attempting a pseudo-socratic dialogue, but his words and paragraphs -- and justifications -- kept multiplying.

John insisted that his arguments for the killing of the unborn are based on "nuanced" considerations about which he has given much thought. And don't get me wrong, I am sure that he has indeed given a lot of thought to how he and society can justify abortion.

But as his academic theories, word play, and relativism reached higher and higher into the ethers, I came back with this:

Don't whitewash what you believe. Own it. Don't multiply words to justify it. Own it. You believe that an entire class of human beings may be killed at will by the stronger and more powerful. There is hardly a more fitting description of oppression. When the strong kill the weak, and champion it, it is most dishonorable. As a woman, it's the most disturbing thing in the world to find men such as yourself, who instead of protecting and providing, join the cads and the players who love nothing more than to help women get rid of their "mistakes." 

I hope you will be an honorable man one day and protect the weak, not champion their killing. We have a crisis of manhood in America, and a strong, honorable, decent man is hard to find these days. Step up to your role, John.

His response was to quickly wave away my challenge ("One person's strong, honorable, and decent man is another's trash," he said, whatever that means), and return to the ethers of philosophy and why he has decided that some humans are less human than others.

Which brings me to my thoughts today. What follows is pretty much a stream-of-consciousness in which I attempt my own amateur (!) psychoanalysis of men who support abortion.

As I see it, there are three general types of male abortion supporters.


1. The Ignorant Apathetic

The ignorant and/or apathetic man supports abortion for no other reason than it's legal and it's what we have done in America for some 40+ years. "Sure, I support a woman's right to choose." And that's it. Not much thought goes into it, not much investment one way or the other. Just your typical man in the mushy-middle of morality and policy, a ball bearing who goes with the tilt of the culture.


2. The Lech (otherwise known as the cad, the reprobate, the rake, the libertine, the debaucher...)

The lecherous man supports abortion for obvious reasons: He uses women as objects for his own selfish pleasure, eschews any responsibility for her heart or her human dignity, and needs abortion to be readily available in case the baby-making act makes a baby. The lech demands consequence-free sex, and he must have freedom to use and abuse at will, with no respect for life, love, honor, or moral obligation. Abortion is a necessary "good" in his life, and he will vociferously defend its legality and accessibility.


3. The Man Trained Against Manhood

This man, in my humble opinion, is the saddest case. I believe this man is exemplified by Barack Obama. Stay with me.

I've often wondered why Obama, who is generally such a weak and unmanly man, would be so fierce, unyielding, and completely committed to abortion (even voting to let a child die who survives abortion). Why? How could this be? But it's a phenomenon that makes sense if we consider his background.

Obama was raised by a radical-leftist-secular-feminist-socialist mother. His father wanted nothing to do with little Barack, essentially abandoning him, and became simply a myth and a longing in young Barack's life and dreams. It's actually incredibly tragic to ponder, truly heartbreaking.

So, this fatherless boy was not raised to know what it means to be a strong man who stays, protects, provides. He had no idea, and in fact the opposite was modeled to him by his absent, negligent father. Meantime, he had his strong, outspoken, and deeply committed feminist mother who taught him what a "man" should be, according to her radical template. Obama himself has described his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, as "the dominant figure in my formative years.... The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics." He called her "a lonely witness for secular humanism."

Not surprisingly, he grew up and married another strong radical feminist, Michelle Robinson. Both these women were and are the dominant forces his life, and they no doubt pounded it home to him that women have an absolute right to abortion. I'd be surprised if Barack Obama has ever had a true friendship with a strong pro-life woman, or even meaningful interaction with one. But the message he received time and again, from all the women in his life -- the woman that raised and formed him, the woman that married him, and even the radical women he hung out with at Columbia and later in politics -- goes like this: "You men have no right to tell us women what to do with our bodies. We have a right to abortion on demand and without apology. You are either with us on this most basic of freedoms, or you are a misogynist brute oppressor."

What is a fatherless, lonely, ungrounded boy/man to do? I can hardly blame men like this, because at least for a time, they simply don't know any better. They defer to the women they love regarding "women's issues" and "women's bodies" and "justice for women", because they really believe it's not their place to speak. These men really believe that this is how one "supports" women.

They don't know that millions and millions of women do not believe that our liberation, success, and joy hinges on a contrived death match between mother and child.

They don't know that legions of strong, outspoken, intelligent women (including the classical feminists) do not accept that the "right" to shred and dismember our own offspring is essential to being "a fully participating member of society".

They don't realize that inherent in honorable manhood is the loving protection of the most weak and vulnerable.

I can only speculate that it's because they have rarely seen an honorable man up close. Maybe they haven't had a role model of a man who sacrifices his life for others, keeps his commitments, and steps up to defend and protect women and children.

But at base, this type of man champions abortion because he believes that's what he's supposed to do to show that he cares about women. His manhood is deeply impoverished, for sure, and it's been trained out of him, and I feel most sorry for this kind of man.


So there you have it. My thoughts for this day. Take them or leave them.

But women, we have a huge role here in supporting our men. We must continue to impress upon the men in our lives (and online, frankly) that real men, honorable men, are those who step up and protect the weak and the vulnerable, not try to find pseudo-intellectual loopholes to strip human rights from a whole class of defenseless human beings. We must impress upon them that they are hard-wired for this task, and that we women want them to be good men.

John from the combox, I don't know what shaped your views on abortion, but I want you to be a good, strong man. We women are cheering you on. You were made for this challenge. Live up to it, my friend. We need you.

+++++++

All you need to know about abortion

That's really all you need to know.

Because you already know this:

We don't target and kill innocent human beings.
We don't use violence to solve our problems.
We don't pit mothers against their own children in a death match.

Roe v. Wade is a dark and evil mark on our nation, and it must not stand.

Pray, march, speak, and work to end abortion.

Lord, have mercy.

Man to Man: Combatting the Crisis of Manhood

All right, men! Stop right now and find ten minutes to watch this incredible video that was lovingly prepared just for you by other Catholic men who are your brothers (and in the case of Diocese of Phoenix men, it comes from your spiritual father, Bishop Olmsted).

Women, grab your men and (after you watch this) invite them to immerse themselves in this message.

Too many Catholic men -- and too many of all men, frankly -- are floundering, wandering, trying to find their mission and identity. Let's get to it:

(Go here for Spanish subtitles.)

The Death of Friendship: The heartbreaking fallout of the gay/transgender movements

All my children and grandchildren have gone back to home/school, and now I continue on with book writing and emails (help, Lord!). But this is something that needs discussing....


I came across this article (please, please, read the whole thing) and it has put words to the ache I have felt in my heart as I watch in real life even clearly non-homosexual, non-"gender fluid" teens suddenly begin to question their sexuality and even find an opposite-sex alter ego.

From "How to Stop Sexualizing Everything", emphasis mine:

The more friendship is misunderstood and ignored, the more people will identify as homosexual and bisexual. The more we condition our perceptions in a sexual way and the more children are exposed to sex even before they develop meaningful friendships, the less likely they will be able to separate healthy nonsexual feelings from sexual ones. Sex will become the defining feature of all their feelings. Eros will have slain phileo.

The death of true same-sex friendship.

I could have never imagined it even a few years ago, but now American children are expected -- expected -- to question their sexuality and "gender identity". They are not to assume they are heterosexual or male/female according to their very biology. They are not to be bound by those "societal constructs" which are now seen as destructive and repressive, even abusive.

On the heels of the first article, I read a brilliant analysis by (my new favorite author) Anthony Esolen, who writes in "A Requiem for Friendship":

Language is not language if it is not communal; it is a neat trick of political abracadabra to argue for an individual’s right to change the very medium of our thought and our social intercourse. If clothing is optional on a beach, then that is a nude beach. It cannot be a nude beach for some and an ordinary beach for others; to wear clothes at that beach at the very least means something that it had not meant before. If you may paint your house phosphorescent orange and violet, and you persuade a couple of your neighbors to do likewise, you no longer have what anybody would call a historic neighborhood. 

If all of Kate’s friends leap into bed with whatever male gives them a hearty dinner at Burger King and a round of miniature golf, and Kate chooses instead to kiss her date once on the cheek and leave him on the porch, she will suggest to everybody that she is a prude. She may be, or may not be; she may be more firmly in the grip of lust than they are, for all we know, and may just detest the boy. But her actions have connotations they did not use to have. 

Imagine a world wherein the taboo has been broken and incest is loudly and defiantly celebrated. Your wife’s unmarried brother puts his hand on your daughter’s shoulder. That gesture, once innocent, must now mean something, or at least suggest something. If the uncle were wise and considerate, he would not make it in the first place. You see a father hugging his teenage daughter as she leaves the car to go to school. The possibility flits before your mind. The language has changed, and the individual can do nothing about it. 

By now the reader must see the point. I might say that of all human actions there is nothing more powerfully public than what two consenting adults do with their bodies behind (we hope) closed doors. Open homosexuality, loudly and defiantly celebrated, changes the language for everyone. If a man throws his arm around another man’s waist, it is now a sign—whether he is on the political right or the left, whether he believes in biblical proscriptions of homosexuality or not. 

If a man cradles the head of his weeping friend, the shadow of suspicion must cross your mind. If a teenage boy is found skinny-dipping with another boy—not five of them, but two—it is the first thing you will think, and you will think it despite the obvious fact that until swim trunks were invented this was exactly how two men or boys would go for a swim. 

Because language is communal, the individual can choose to make a sign or not. He cannot determine what the sign is to mean, not to others, not to the one he signals, and not even to himself.

You see what he's getting at, right? You see what we have lost? What boys and young men have lost, especially? Please take the time to read it all.

The loss of pure, un-sexualized, un-suspicious same-sex friendship is a catastrophe. How on earth do we get it back?