Is the guy in the original card supposed to be sucking his thumb?

I definitely like your cards better than theirs.

That website, BTW, is super creeptactular. I never realized I could be so emotionally crushed by someone else making a decision that doesn’t concern me at all.

“I understand your pain” meaning, I suppose, “yeah, I had a bitch who pulled that on me too”?

This is especially irritating because yes, may feel grief, sadness, loss and just plain unhappy if a woman aborts a pregnancy while also being 100% supportive of the woman’s choice and respecting her right to make that decision for herself.

You really have to gape at people who say, with a straight face, that the discussion of abortion is “myopically woman-centric”.

Here’s mine. Not as clever as yours.

Nice, Mighty.

And yeah, people experience a bunch of different emotions when it comes to abortion.  It’s one of those experiences that really brings out the diversity in people, in fact.  But this isn’t even remotely what these assholes are concerned with.

Don’t sell yourself short Mighty Ponygirl. That was good.

Won’t someone think of the Man-Child?

Priceless.

It would be interesting to see survey results about abortion in which the woman who is having the abortion is asked the following questions:

1) Does the father know?
2) If he knows, is he supportive of your decision?
3) Is a substantial factor in your decision to have this procedure due to behaviors by the father that indicate to you that he would be unfit and/or neglectful of the child?

I would be fascinated to see the intersections of question 2 and 3.

“So sorry your uterus is stuck inside some stupid bitch. Here’s hoping your next one is inside someone better.”

“During this difficult time, your sperm is in our thoughts and prayers.”

I’m surprised the Patriarchy came up with cards that says anything but:

“I’m sorry…

you’re being such a pussy about this. Now suck it up and be a man.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8

Zif—they’ve done surveys about the reason for getting an abortion, and it’s pretty heavily majority “I/we can’t afford a child at this time.”

But I think that the special sort of douchebag who would get all butthurt because his sperm was rejected is probably likely to have behaved like a complete and utter cock before the decision to abort, which may have been a big contributing factor to having the procedure done. When the pee stick turned blue (or whatever these newfangled devices do these days—I’m sure there’s one that will twitter your results) she had to actually sit down and make the decision and decided to err on the side of caution and NOT have him in her life indefinitely (or get saddled with raising his kid on her own).

Interesting how this also implies that a man SHOULD be sad and not, well, relieved?  Like there is no other way to feel about it ... or no other far more popular way to feel about it? 

Of all the women that I’ve known who have had abortions, the vast majority were escorted and supported by their boyfriends or husbands (and the rest were abandoned and told it was their problem).

“Is the guy in the original card supposed to be sucking his thumb?”

I think he’s just trying to portray the moody, emo, Edward Cullen type that whoever receives the card already thinks he is.  He can show off the card at christianist pickup events to help him trap the next girl that will abort his child.  Chicks really dig that moody shit…

http://i1041.photobucket.com/albums/b419/oldfeminist/drblack.jpg

I think feeling sad or relieved are feelings, and we should be honest about them.  I’m sure there are many people who were saddened to have lost a potential child due to misfortune, and having to select abortion would just be salt on the wound.  Feelings are, after all, not something we can personally control.

...Of course, these cards are totally the wrong way to go about validating these feelings.

“That website, BTW, is super creeptactular. I never realized I could be so emotionally crushed by someone else making a decision that doesn’t concern me at all.”

It does concern the dude, Mark, if the woman aborting is a big part of his life and not just some casual hook-up. Of course, what I mean by that is that he should be a part of helping his partner and supporting her decision since it’s ultimately her body that gets co-opted for nine months and her health that’s put at risk.

I get why a dude might feel disappointed or let down if his partner aborts, but pretending he’s a wronged party is where we veer off into wacko-misogyny land. Maybe I’m biased because when my mom considered aborting my sister, my step dad told her that he’d support whatever decision she made. I guess I got it into my stupid little girl head that that’s how men are supposed to react.

Crissa—except that you didn’t “lose the child to abortion” in those cases. You lost the child to misfortune (like an accident or something went wrong with the pregnancy).

Giving someone sympathy because their partner’s pregnancy went molar and they had to abort and they’re very sad and broken-up about it is not the same thing as this by a longshot. This is “YOU lost YOUR child to HER ABORTION.”

Cola [wassap!] let’s not forget that the purpose of this card is that it is a card that one man sends to another on the occasion that his mighty man-sauce is rejected.

I’m trying to figure out a scenario where this card would actually be sent and it at least involves a man telling another friend who is obviously anti-abortion that the partner he supposedly cares about had an abortion (and opening her up to getting a shit ton of grief from that friend). Mostly, I’m just coming up with douches.

If a man tried to pull that crap with me, I’d tell him that if he cares about the embryo so much then he should get to work on inventing a way to transfer the pregnancy into his own body.  Oh, you don’t really want this thing to leech off your body for several months?  Well, I don’t either.

I also love the “I understand your pain” line at the end.

Even when the man is attempting to show sympathy to another man, he still has to make it All About Him.

Shocking, Iknowrite?

The most telling thing is something that is so common to this kind of asshole Christian.

If they really thought that the fetus was a child, and they really thought that the father was experiencing this event as the loss of his child, then they wouldn’t need to include the word abortion in it.

Seriously, are they going to come out with cards that say “The grief of losing your child to a drunk driver is a difficult experience to endure” or “The grief of losing your child to choking on toys you bought him is a difficult experience to endure”? For that matter, it’s pretty condescending to send one saying “The grief of losing your child to a terminal illness is a difficult experience to endure.” It kind of hints that there are ways of losing your child that are more festive and fun.

So the thing invalidates itself from the start. Nobody whose intention was to really condole someone on a loss would go near the damn things. At most, “Sorry for your loss” might be appropriate.

Which leaves it purely as one of those sanctimonious “In your time of difficulty, I’m choosing to kick you while you are down in a way that lets me be offended if you call me on it.”

Everyone is right that this is utterly patriarchal, but I think the real message is “You let her kill your baby.”

My guess is that if any of these abominations sell, they will be used far more often as weapons aimed at men who supported the right to choose than as actual condolence cards in the belief the message is welcome.

I think that we should create some cards for women who are forced into continued pregnancy against their will.  Any woman who has ever given birth can say “I understand your pain”, and maybe include a description of the pain that comes with pregnancy and childbirth.

MP @14, I suspect that a lot of those reasons are because “we can’t afford it” is a reason that many people sort of find acceptable for an abortion. Saying “I hate being pregnant” or “I don’t want another kid at forty-five, even if we can technically afford it” or “for crissakes I was drunk and don’t remember who the father is” are considered Bad Reasons and the woman having the abortion is a horrible slut.

agreed—but that’s the problem with self-reporting.

I don’t think my proposed survey would ameliorate that problem, since admitting in a survey that you got knocked up by someone you don’t want to be tied down to for the rest of your life would be just as undesirable of a response for same horrible slut reasons.

BTW, I related your knife-sharpening comments in a previous thread to friends over the weekend much to their delight.

@18 Crissa:  Grief after an abortion can be a perfectly legitimate feeling ... and who knows, maybe even worthy of a sympathy card.  But the only valid grief after an abortion includes the feelings and interests of the pregnant woman.  Centering on a man, with no woman in the picture, stinks.

Mythago@26:
The “I am 45 and not having another kid, even though we could technically afford it” is exactly what I would say if I got pregnant.  I could add, the issues of Rh negative, two already completely adult children and a husband with a heart condition; but basically, it boils down to “I am 45” and that is too old for me to be starting a second round of kids.

@Cola82:

Didn’t mean it to sound bad. I just meant its the woman’s decision. If she asks for the man’s input, right on. If not, so be it.

But Helen—Jesus is trying to TELL you that you can do this when you get knocked up at 45. Don’t you understand that?

Honestly, this is something that I have encountered with people. They look at every birth control failure (esp the lower the failure rate for the method) as some sort of Message From God that you were MEANT to have that kid. That’s the Christian end of things. There’s a similar feminist woo argument that touts that it’s “the body’s wisdom” that causes the pregnancy.

This is becoming a really common meme lately from the right wing noise machine—that the REAL victims are the men or something.

There have been several articles on right wing websites about it recently, and that’s always how it starts. Then Mr. Oxy Contin brings it up on his radio show, then the little wingnut drones troll liberal blogs comments sections repeating it word for word, usually within minutes of eachother.

This is happens *every* time, most recently with the bullshit about how millionaires are going to leave Manhattan for Mississippi because of tax rates.  So get ready for a siege.

#24 - you nailed it. That’s exactly what this is.  Its not honest sympathy at all. It’s the “lets try to convert you into an anti-choice misogynist” ploy.

Purpleshoes @ 34, I was just scrolling down to agree w/Unree and say that yeah, if someone is sad after an abortion there are already cards for that—they say “I’m thinking of you” or “I’m sorry for your loss”.

They look at every birth control failure (esp the lower the failure rate for the method) as some sort of Message From God that you were MEANT to have that kid. That’s the Christian end of things. There’s a similar feminist woo argument that touts that it’s “the body’s wisdom” that causes the pregnancy.

“Jeebus and/or Mother Nature BEAT that evil SCIENCY stuff!”

true. and sad .

mythago, I wouldn’t even say those are euphemisms or dodges.  “I can’t afford” means a lot of things in the common parlance.  Like, if you’re really busy and you say, “I can’t afford to add another chore to my plate right now,” that doesn’t mean you can’t pay for it.  The Guttmacher folks have been very clear in explaining that “can’t afford a baby” means a lot of things—-no money, no family support, no desire, no time—-and that attempts to address that by looking only at financial support are going to fail miserably.

Which isn’t to say that we shouldn’t support women who want to have their babies.  But we’ll find that no matter how much financial support we throw at them, it probably won’t have the dramatic effect on the abortion rate that’s promised by the “common ground” people.

millionaires are going to leave Manhattan for Mississippi because of tax rates.

How is this a problem…. for ANYone?

I mean, it’ll suck a wee bit for Mississippi, but they can probably use a few more millionaires down there.  Those people like to spend money.

Did you notice that your name came up in the comments section at Scott’s place Amanda?  You are really like the boogeyman to right wing, anti-feminist men.  It’s funny.

“You are really like the boogeyman to right wing, anti-feminist men.”

FemiNazi Woman!

Of course, it would be ever so much better for them if Amanda was a unwashed man-hating hippie chick with lesbian tendencies, Marxist politics, an environut who lived in a tree for a year to keep the lumber co. from cutting it down, a wrong-headed peacnik who went to North Korea to support Kim Jong-Il, and a rabid PETA member who is now washing oil off pelicans in the gulf, but I guess they can’t have everything they want…

Has anybody read some of the “testimonials” on the FFF site? Yikes.

A bunch of whinging and crying about how a woman’s abortion has ruined their lives.

A sadder bunch of selfish douchwads I’ve never had the misfortune to come across - if they exist at all. There’s a similarity of style to all the stories varied as they may be.

Could we have one from the woman to the man who tried to stop her from getting an abortion?  it could be a musical card that plays a parody of that revolting “Having My Baby” song:

Killing your baby
What a lovely way to say I don’t care about you…

Amanda @37: sure, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all that “can’t afford” means “can’t handle” for all kinds of reasons, financial or otherwise. But I also suspect that “can’t afford” is also offered by women who might be able to theoretically cope with having another child, but who understand that women in our culture aren’t allowed to say that they simply don’t want to be pregnant.

I’m trying to figure out a scenario where this card would actually be sent and it at least involves a man telling another friend who is obviously anti-abortion that the partner he supposedly cares about had an abortion (and opening her up to getting a shit ton of grief from that friend). Mostly, I’m just coming up with douches.
Comment #21: Mighty Ponygirl on 06/22 at 03:52 PM

I can also see it being sent by the catty new girlfriend wannabee.

Mighty Ponygirl says: I’m trying to figure out a scenario where this card would actually be sent and it at least involves a man telling another friend who is obviously anti-abortion that the partner he supposedly cares about had an abortion (and opening her up to getting a shit ton of grief from that friend). Mostly, I’m just coming up with douches.

LOL!!!  Given that manly men don’t do Hallmark, I’m only only coming up with whiny-ass-tittybabies sending (or receiving) this landfill pollution.
A real man would probably carve his sentiments on a stump of wood, with his mighty chainsaw, then haul it in his gas-sucking monster truck to his bud’s crib - or treehouse - remember girls have cooties!

I can totally see millionaires flocking to Real Merka, a place defined by poverty gripped rural communties where there’s not much else to do besides driving around aimlessly, meth and window shopping at the mall*, because of tax cuts**. Especially when your other option is one of the most connected, populated, and influential cities in the goddamn world. 

Can you not see it?!?

*Before anyone takes offense, I live in SW Missouri and just got back from window shopping. It’s so goddamn boring here.

**Incidentally, MO has a low tax rate under the pretense of attracting industry. Which ended up never happening. Fancy that.

Definitely, myth, definitely.  Which is why the abortion rate in countries with a much stronger safety net isn’t exactly zero…..and they were able to get the abortion rate down through better sex ed and health care than simply by supporting pregnant women.  The right has really started to sing this song about how abortion is only and always a choice made out of fear, and it worries me, because, like you said, many women getting abortions will use that as cover to avoid the older, uglier stereotype of women getting abortions because they’re sluts.

mythago @45

But I also suspect that “can’t afford” is also offered by women who might be able to theoretically cope with having another child, but who understand that women in our culture aren’t allowed to say that they simply don’t want to be pregnant. (emphasis mine)

Isn’t one of the choices usually offered by these surveys “I’m done having kids”?  That would seem to take care of the specific situation you’re referring to here.  Seems like an acceptably non-slutty reason, but who the hell knows how society views these things.

That would be me, BTW.  32, married, great support system, kids are still young, another one would be tough financially but not ruinous.  And if the BC fails before we get around to doing something permanent, I’ll be on hold with my gyno while waiting for the damned stick to turn blue.

Might I also add that women in are culture are also not allowed to say “I don’t want kids at all.”

I just love the scare quotes on “A Woman’s “Choice” That Affects Men” like even the woman was just a victim of circumstance when that abortion simply *happened.*

Dymphna @52, yep. Which is another thing that might be covered by saying “oh, I can’t afford to have a child right now”. Adding “and even if I could, I wouldn’t anyway!” is Not Okay.

It reminds me a bit of how women make excuses for having a paid job when they have small children by saying “we need the money” - because of course only bad women would say “because I would go nuts at home all day” or “because we like being able to have nice things” or “why aren’t you asking my husband this question?”

Women are supposed to do their womanly duty unless some external force prevents them, in which case it’s barely acceptable as long as they are apologetic about it.

Whoa.

Oh, no, I’m pretty sure that Daniel’s quote is part of an Internet meme.

<blockquote>Cola [wassap!] let’s not forget that the purpose of this card is that it is a card that one man sends to another on the occasion that his mighty man-sauce is rejected. </blockuote>

Well, rejected in a very particular way.

Perhaps there should be a whole line of cards:

“I’m sorry she made you use a condom”
“I share your pain in finding out about her diaphragm”
“You’d be a dad if it weren’t for that IUD. I feel your agony.”

And of course for that very special anti-choicer:

“I’m sorry she told you she was on the pill.”

According to an Alan Guttmacher Institute study of 1,900 abortion patients, in 1988, “Why Do Women Have Abortions?”, the six most frequently used reasons, most giving between three to five reasons, are as follows:

76% concern about how having a baby would change the woman’s life
68% inability to afford a child right now
51% problems in the relationship or not wanting to be a single parent
31% not ready for the responsibility of parenthood
31% not wanting others to know that the woman was pregnant or sexually active
30% (but most common among the youngest patients) not being mature or old enough for a child
One quarter of the women said they had all the children they wanted or grown-up children.
23% gave as a reason the husband’s or partner’s wish that she have an abortion.

The women were then asked to list the reasons in order of importance to their ultimate decision. The women in the sample most frequently cited not being able to afford a child and not being ready. When asked for more details about their reason’s, most of the women (67%) who expressed concern about how the child would affect their lives, explained that having a child would interfere with their job or career. Half the women in this subgroup said that a child would interfere with school; 28% reported that a child would interfere with the women’s obligations to others who depended on her for care.

http://www.angelfire.com/co/hellfiredb/abort.reasons.html

Dogg It Must Feel Sick As Hell to Receive a Card From a Dude

This Is Just Sick as Hell

Ah, Post Abortion Syndrome, how you rear your ugly head. I also quite like that their list of symptoms includes everything but hair loss and constipation.

MP @ 20:  You’re very, very right.

You know, I’d have no problem whatsoever with my partner having an abortion, but now that someone’s mentioned it, I would feel slighted if I didn’t receive a card.  Now that I know it’s an option.

Although, frankly, this just raises the question of when my lazy, thoughtless dude-friends are going to buy me cards to help me mourn all the other children I’ve lost in tissues, pajamas, bedsheets, the pill, and the my partner’s throat.

But the funniest part is the Wittgenstein language game I’ll be playing for the next several days to imagine any plausible scenario in which any guy would intentionally send this to another guy.  I think “Sorry she didn’t fuck you” is a much more plausible market, yet Hallmark isn’t exactly returning my calls on that one.

Oh, while we’re at it, I feel the site in question to be remiss in pointing out that there is EXACTLY THE SAME body of scientific data suggesting that abortion causes breast cancer in men as there is suggesting that abortion causes breast cancer in women.

Here’s mine, with a nifty missile command theme:

http://monkeycheeks.blogspot.com/2010/06/who-will-think-of-zygotes.html

Sorry—couldn’t figure out how to do the link any other way.

Well, since you asked, this is my first shot at it.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/267s2jk

I’m great, Pony! Super stressed out, but getting by. I miss your blog, still. =(

I got the sentiment behind the original card. I was just responding to the commenter who suggested that a woman choosing to abort doesn’t affect her partner at all. I believe that it does, but as I said, not in the way the card suggests it should.

In confidence, now that we are in our 50’s, a man I knew told me about his first girlfriend.  When she got pregnant, he told her the relationship would be over if she had the baby but he would stay with her if she got an abortion.  She chose to keep the baby.  He left.  It probably took him 30 years to realize what a jerk he was:  illustrative of the oft-held position that male ownership of the uterus includes the right to decide whether or not a baby may result from the pronging.  These cards are playing up just one side of the deal.

The interesting thing about all of these privileged sites is how deeply angry and unhappy the men are, and how its so obviously a choice.  That they have the opportunity to construct meaningful and fully realized lives, and they reject it in favor of whiny blame games.

Is this a manifestation of male depression?  Can we slip Prozac into the Extenze?

@Daniel-138: Thanks, man.  I had a similar reaction.

mythago @ 54:
That was also me.  My spouse was a SHF after kid 2 because I had a job, with benefits and he didn’t.  He easily could have gotten a job, but not one with benefits.  But I made it plain, to anyone who commented (especially those who felt they just HAD to be sympathetic to my “having” to work) that even if that hadn’t been the case, I would have been back at school and work full time as soon as childcare could have been arranged because I would go insane at home all day with small children.

Might I also add that women in are culture are also not allowed to say “I don’t want kids at all.”

True, but that is a tiny percentage of women having abortions.  The stereotype of a woman having abortions that affects people is the “selfish” woman who never wants to care for a family.  I don’t think that’s selfish—-I think having kids because it’s what you’re supposed to do is way more selfish—-but in the world of real politics it’s important that people understand that over 60% of women having abortions are already mothers, and the vast majority of the rest will be one day.

Byronic @66: You win the internet today.

Also, for people looking for actual e-cards to send after abortion that are genuinely sympathetic and not propaganda, I recommend Exhale’s cards.  Unlike the anti-choice one above, you can actually send these, too, and don’t have to do a screenshot!

There are encouraging ones, sympathetic ones, etc.  The selection acknowledges that women (and men) can feel different emotions after an abortion.  I also think some of the more generic encouragement or sympathy cards available would work.  Is it all that different than sending a card to someone who needs a little reassurance if they struggled with a decision to move, change jobs, or break up with someone?  I think not.

From what I’ve read and heard, most of these “post-abortive men” are people who freaked out and pushed a woman into an abortion and then deeply regretted it. They might feel worse about hurting the woman than about not having a child. (Also, the women usually left these guys immediately after, so maybe that’s what they’re upset about.)

Ashley—whuaaa? So let me get this straight:

Dude finds out girlfriend is pregnant and bullies her into an abortion she isn’t sure she wanted.

Girlfriend has abortion but experience requires her to re-evaluate relationship with boyfriend, and decides that she doesn’t want to be with a man who doesn’t share her values wrt to children and abortion and leaves in search of someone who does.

Dude goes into a funk because the relationship has ended. Rather than soul-searching and trying to evaluate how his own behavior may have caused the relationship to fracture, he decides to latch onto the abortion as the sole culprit. Because if he’d been saddled caring for a kid he didn’t want, magical baby rays would have made his life perfect. But abortion cancels out magical baby rays of love.

So instead of being upset over the end of the relationship, he’s decided *fuck her,* and rather than fixate on the flesh-and-blood woman that he ostensibly loved, he’s going to throw her under the bus and fixate on the fetus he forced her to abort. Because she was a stupid bitch for caring enough about him that she did something she didn’t want to do because it’s what he wanted.

Bonus points! This card is then GIVEN TO HIM by a guy who apparently WENT THROUGH THE EXACT SAME EXPERIENCE.

Yeah, I’m still coming up douches. :D

Man, The “true stories” on that website are laughable I would bet good money that not one is true. I thought lying was a sin?

Yeah, most of those men are channeling their anger about rejection into the abortion.  They don’t take many pains to hide that they’re bitter the girlfriend’s pregnancy made her realize she wanted out, instead of it becoming a moment to seal the deal. 

A *lot* of men have a fantasy about an unintended pregnancy fixing their lives for them.  It’s such an alluring fantasy—-nature/god decides she’s The One, so you don’t have to think about it.  You don’t have to worry about some elaborate proposal—-in fact, you’re a hero for making an honest woman of her.  You get the wife and family without having to think too hard about it.  And then a woman has an abortion and disrupts the narrative, and also kills your male entitlement-based belief that women will simply be grateful for your attention because you have a penis.

To be clear, I think this fantasy has different amounts of grip on different men.  Some men find this whole idea repulsive, either because they don’t want children or they don’t want to passively slide into marriage and babies.  A lot of men aren’t repulsed by the idea of being assertive and proactive about marriage, because they’re romantics who like the idea of winning a woman over instead of just winning the sperm-meets-egg lottery.  And then some men are ambivalent—-the fantasy has power, but they aren’t mega assholes who would deny that a woman has a right to say no to his fantasy.

“I thought lying was a sin?”

Oh no, it’s not a sin if you lie and sucker somebody into becoming another fundnut.  Then it’s actually a virtue and something all Real True Christians™ should use as much as possible.

It’s all about souls, and a person’s soul snatched through cons and lies is just as good as the soul of a person who decided on their own to believe the claptrap.  After all, a church, in the end, is just a factory for delivering souls to Jaysus…

I’m in no way condoning these men’s behavior, or saying it’s right (pressuring a woman into abortion, then being angry and hurt that she did it). But it does seem to be the case with a lot of them. I suspect some of them are abusers who pressured for the abortion, then flipped out when the woman took it as her cue to leave.

I think it’s perfectly understandable for men to be upset about an abortion, as some women are. But not when his issue is clearly a loss of control.

Ashley—I wasn’t suggesting you were. Didn’t you see the smiley face at the end of my post?

“Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.”

- Monty Python

http://www.someecards.com/usercards/create
I don’t know how to send just the card. :/

Oh no, it’s not a sin if you lie and sucker somebody into becoming another fundnut.  Then it’s actually a virtue and something all Real True Christians™ should use as much as possible.

Not to mention “flirty fishing”, otherwise known as “cock-teasing for Christ”.

I’m not sure the nuns who taught me as a kid would have approved.

I don’t think it’s fair, though, to paint every single guy who feels pain over a partner’s abortion as an abuser/misogynist. People can’t be expected to follow one pattern of behavior for a given experience. It’s not very compassionate to mock the guys who supported their partners but ended up feeling very depressed about losing the pregnancy and/or relationship.

I support women who regret their abortions, as well as the ones who don’t. I’d tell any woman to consider whether she’s 100% sure. And I think it’s okay for the partner to have feelings about it too.

Millenium1 @ 70 - There were a lot of non-jerk guys around too, who didn’t want to become fathers, but tried to do what was then the responsible thing—gave up their own opportunities, married the girl, tried to make a go of it.

Other guys sold everything they had to pay for women they cared about to have surgical procedures that scared the crap out of both of them (and with good reason; there’s no reason to think women who died from septic abortions had been abandoned by their men, and most men in that position must have been devastated themselves).

Access to abortion made everyone’s lives easier, not just women.

Just as a lot of women don’t know what it was like in the coat-hanger days, so have a lot of men.

to paint every single guy who feels pain over a partner’s abortion as an abuser/misogynist

It doesn’t make him an abuser/misogynist to be disappointed that his partner had an abortion, or even to grieve over the baby that didn’t happen, but he needs to accept that the decision was ultimately not his to make. If he thinks men should have veto power over women’s reproductive decisions, or if he acts like he was robbed of something that was his, that is abusive and misogynistic.

I had a go.

Too reminiscent of the idea that anything not a man is worthless?

A *lot* of men have a fantasy about an unintended pregnancy fixing their lives for them.

Some of them write blockbuster Hollywood movies about that fantasy!

These guys in the article really seem to want kids, and yet….I have a sneaking suspicion that had their partners actually given birth, these selfsame dudes would be bitching and moaning about having to PAY child support.

*headdesk*

For every man that would feel poorly about their partner terminating a pregnancy, there are probably two men that are relieved that they don’t have a little mouth to feed, bathe, clothe, school, and eventually get orthodonture for.

Honestly, I understand that a man might be disappointed that their partner chose a different outcome for the unintended pregnancy, but it is still the woman who must bear the burden of carrying the child to term and then caring for the child after birth. It isn’t like putting a loaf of dough in an oven, setting a timer and “ding” the bread is ready after the appointed time.

There are so many things that can happen during a pregnancy and during the birth process that can affect the health and well being of the developing fetus. And what then if a child is born that has special needs that needs to be tended?

The falacy of the argument that these men are sad about a missing child in their life supposes that the fetus that was terminated would be born without physical, mental, or other limitations… in other words, these ghost children are always “perfect” in every way. They run faster, jump higher than any other fetus—with or without Keds.

I’m sure not a single potential father is lamenting the fact that his embryo might be born with cerebral palsy or spina bifida or Hydrocephalus or a heart murmur or kidney disease or trisomy 18 or on and on and on..

“real-life stories of men who have survived abortion”? how precious; I wasn’t aware someone else’s abortion was potentially lethal.

jadehawk @ 54: It can get pretty brutal.  It’s like, at 2:45 on a Tuesday, a woman is getting an abortion…meanwhile, at 2:45 on the same day, on the other side of the country, the father of the fetus being aborted is picking up the new [cite]Madden[/cite] at GameStop, when one of his balls falls off.

Have you seen [cite]I Know Who Killed Me[/cite]?  It’s a lot like that.  (Not so much the Art Bell bit; the whole movie.)

grr weak htmlfu grr

@Femnast #96:

The falacy of the argument that these men are sad about a missing child in their life supposes that the fetus that was terminated would be born without physical, mental, or other limitations…

It also supposes that the men associated with these pregnancies actually wanted to be fathers, at that time, as opposed to just threatened by the idea that the women could do whatever, without the men’s permission.

And I’m all in favor of men’s reproductive rights, but by that I mean contraception in the range between condoms and vasectomy. That would allow for a lot more healthy families, as opposed to giving men legal power to force women to carry big bellies.  Something tells me the FFF’s target audience isn’t so concerned about making sure they don’t impregnate unwilling women in the first place.