Yes, I am seriously asking this question.
One of my favorite websites is Salon and, specifically, their Broadsheet writers. Salon has an awesome host of smart, passionate, and assertive women who post copy about chicks and their many struggles.
I check them out daily. And one of Salon's best writers, Mary Elizabeth Williams, today questioned whether men have the right to choose if their girlfriends/wives/fuck buddies/whatever have an abortion.
In some cases, the answer here is, invariably, a solid yes.
It's truly sad that it has to come to this, though.
I've never had an abortion; I've never been forced with that choice before, fortunately. But I do know that, if I did, I would consult the dude I was seeing/married to/having sex with/whatever before making any firm decisions.
Unfortunately, not all women are like me. Not to say that I'm all that and a bag 'o chips, but I do not lie in order to get men to stay with me by getting pregnant with their child. That's kind of a crappy thing to do, in any relationship.
And women have been doing this sorta shit for centuries now, this manipulative bullshit, and it's not fair.
I mean, is it?
Take the case of Williams' subject, one Greg Bruell:
In a complicated, fascinating and refreshingly balanced story for the June issue of Elle called "The Parent Trap," writer Stephanie Fairyington explores the case of Greg Bruell, a divorced, stay-at-home father of two who, when confronted with an unwanted pregnancy, just said no. Bruell and his girlfriend had already gone through one abortion when, just months later, she found herself pregnant again. He says they'd agreed ahead of time that if she conceived again, "she'd abort without waffling." Instead, she not only had the baby, she sued him for child support.
Yeah. That's fucking uncool. If it's true.
Bruell could be lying, of course. He could have been so pissed off that his girlfriend had the baby that he may have, in fact, assumed the role of victim in order to garner support and some kind of strange validation.
But my question to y'all Kossacks, far and wide, is this: don't men have any say in matters of pregnancy? Don't men have any say in matters of abortion, or adoption? Don't men have any say in matters of keeping the baby?
In Greg Bruell's case, I'd say that they absolutely do. I don't diss his girlfriend for not being able to go through with said abortion (I honestly don't think that I could do that, either), but suing him for child support, after they'd already made the decision that she would abort in the future?
That's pretty low. That's not right.
Most of you know that I'm a fierce advocate for women's rights, so I hope you understand I'm not downplaying women who do want/need to get abortions. I absolutely, 100% support a woman's right to choose ...
... but only so far as it does not infringe upon a man's right to hold said woman to a previous agreement they've already made.
Chicks, we all know these type of women. We've all met them, conversed with them, and tried like hell not to punch them in the face at parties. They suck. They take men for everything they have, monetarily speaking, and don't even bat an eyelash. They measure their worth based on what men think of them. In high school, they were more than happy to steal your boyfriends. They generally do not get along with other women. They are caddy, vicious, and mostly uncaring.
Plus, they're probably Republicans.
So, I dunno. Sisters, gather up the one image of that chick you consider your nemesis, your enemy, your competitor. Could she do something as horrible as this? Promise a dude she'd have an abortion, but feel emotionally crippled enough to try to ensnare him with an unexpected pregnancy?
Everyone reading this diary knows someone exactly like that. It's pathetic, but it's true.
So. In summary, women have historically used sex to gain power over men. It's not pretty, but there it is. Is it right?
No.
And even though Western civilization is patriarchal in nature, that doesn't give women the right to make it matriarchal, either.
Neither rule, really.
But partnerships are totally wicked cool.