Remembering a Debate with a Guy on the Topic of Children

Tweet

I once got into a debate with a guy online who felt that men should be allowed an “opt out” choice should a woman they’ve slept with become pregnant. As he put it, he didn’t want something like that ruining his life when she could have prevented it. I found this profoundly crass on a number of levels, but I tried to convince him what he wanted to “opt out” on was a human being, certainly one of the inherent risks of sex. Like handling explosives or wild animals, sex has some inherent risks to it, and creating another human being—often quaintly called having children—is one of those risks. If he were going to have sex, and didn’t want children, he needed to do so in a way that minimized his risk of conceiving children. That is, he needed to use a condom every time he had sex, regardless of whether or not his partner was using birth control pills. If he were adverse to children altogether, he needed to have a vasectomy. I was surprised by his response, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. He didn’t want to use condoms because he didn’t like them. He didn’t want to have a vasectomy because that was permanent. I told him he was taking a greater risk and then asking his partner to bear all the burden. If he didn’t want to take responsibility for his actions, someone would have to because of the enormous responsibility of pregnancy. He didn’t see it that way. He saw an unintended pregnancy as his partner’s problem. It was something she would have to deal with. She would have to get an abortion, if that was what she chose, or put the baby up for adoption, but he would in no way take part in raising the child because he hadn’t consented to conceiving it. (Like she did?) When I mentioned the he “consented” by not taking responsibility in taking steps he could have to preventing its conception, well, his response was, shall we say, not repeatable. I’m surprised there are still people who think like this. No, he himself cannot get pregnant, but there once was a woman who was pregnant with him. I’d love to hear what she has to say. image: pixabay