Foreword: When I started thinking about this post it was obvious the whole writing was going to be long and difficult not to sway from one aspect to another, also trying to avoid putting my male-assumption foot into it. So this will take two parts. First one. here now, a general overview as I see it about Abortion and Contraception. The next post, the likelihood of what will happen if there was a federal ban on abortion.

On with the first then, I will try and keep a straight line in the narrative, but since this is a very complex subject there might be some drift because we must consider a certain theme of subjugation of women (Oh yeah. Oh yeah – read on)

A couple in consensual intimacy. Conception of a new life, starting at the unimaginably small, in mammalian terms designed to grow inside of the mother until the time of birth. In the ideal world of How We Would Wish, a beautiful notion.

But Reality in its myriad forms does not subscribe to How We Would Wish. We can craft perfection in our imaginations and in our arts.  Or we can lament at the harshness of Reality until we are worn out, angry or despairing that even the most deserving of cases do not always have the ever elusive Happy Ending or Perfect Solution. Thus it should be evident that the acts of Conception, Pregnancy, Birth and Post-Natal, Child upbringing all have their own set of dangers and tragedies. Like everything else in Life – not simple – not unconditionally joyous – not carefree. And above all- not solvable by legislation based on one side of one theistic culture.

Personally I am unsettled by Abortion. Let the record show I am not unconditionally supportive of Abortion. Nor am I supportive of unconditional Free Speech or Liberty to Protest. There is a big difference though. In the former case it is an individual and personal matter, in the latter two cases I can think of several good reasons for legal restrictions. (I don’t mess around with my idea of Socialism! ) But let us return to the issue of Abortion and pick apart my Male Ideal World notions.
In my M.I.W, women who find themselves pregnant not by design would be giving full and compassionate support through the pregnancy and after the birth work with trained and fully staffed professional agencies and couples seeking to adopt all to find the baby a lovely home. Great, Yeah?. Except in Reality not all pregnancies go smoothly, some families have an inherited genetic problem, some women have underlying conditions which make full term pregnancies a risk. And we have the issue of a woman going full term, bonding with that child and the possible unforeseen psychologically painful aftermath of parting with the child. AND of course since men don’t have to go through the labour process with its inherent risks….easy for me, a man, to come up with a Sunshine and Lollipops solution. Yes, there are women who have made this choice and there are surrogate mothers. However to restrict a woman’s right to abortion just because this suggestion seems a ‘nicer, happier, Hallmark Film ending’ does not mean every pregnancy and birth will seamlessly navigate thus. File this solution away in the very Grey Area of Personal Ideal Ideas.

Now with a slight deviation off of the subject of Abortion I am going to sound off and if male readers don’t like what I am about to write…gee …too bad guys, think of this world from the women’s side.

Why is it that women are expected to jump through hoops when it comes to Contraception  and Birth Control (I can recall a time when Abortion was filed under BC as an option)? Mess with a woman’s hormonal cycle (Pill), shove bits of plastic or ‘stuff’ up their delicate parts (Barrier Methods), induce early miscarriage (Morning After Pills)…Then back to Abortion (in this case the male ‘Get Rid of It’ response). No trouble, all quick and clean guys. Not your problems. Not your problems?? We got condoms (if we remembered where they were, had time to fit them, had a good brand) – what more should we do? ‘Oh not that Vasectomy…Too permanent, and anyway I’ve heard…blah-blah…..Natural methods? Wassat? That’s a Catholic Thing isn’t it? They have big families, so it don’t work anyhow.’ No leave it all up to the woman to bear all the heavy loads, all the messing about with their bodies. Heavens forefend that our most precious parts should be meddled with.
So basically women have to go through all the invasive issues, because they have been told that there are no other options, and gosh, it doesn’t seem there is a truly marketable male contraceptive, although I believe the polite excuse is workable. Now call me a grumpy old geezer who doesn’t know anything about this scientific implications or processes; not that I’ll listen. The reason being, all the aforementioned efforts have been gone into being invasive with women’s bodies but not much on men’s. In these days of ‘advances’ in medical science? Seriously? Do I just detect an underlying sub-text of reluctance to put more effort into the subject.

Respect women guys. Their lives are filled with issues which would put you off your mid-day snack? (Don’t worry I’m not going to mention ‘that’ subject) . And I’m just dealing with ‘The Western World’.

Western World? Of course one of the problems in the USA would be a most singular alliance. Aside from The Catholic Church’s teaching on the basis of the most tenuous of thin alleged biblical instruction opposition and cruel refusal to administer Communion to those not in step, (Catholic writing here by the way) we have some loud and agressive Funde-mental-ist Right section of conservative thought and goodness knows what they’ve selected out of context from Genesis, Leviticus and St Paul to suit their patrimonial fantasies. Never mind male contraception… NO contraception.

But back to the ‘A’ word. Aside from some casual commentaries back in the 1970s, do the prohibitionists to Abortion think for one moment that your average woman is going to approach an abortion with the casual approach of some minor cosmetic surgery to say a earlobe? Do they honestly think…. well I doubt if the male section do anyway….that a woman who has an abortion just walks away from that, without any memories, any wonderings, any ‘IF’s. Look ladies I am a mere male, I know, but being married to the same gal for fifty years and having two daughters and thus learning a few things, it seems that Abortion is to be a heavy decision to take and that the whole process from thinking about, deciding, going through and aftermath are heavy loads. And yet there are a whole bunch of folk out there witlessly, hysterically, cruelly, screaming about murder, BUT yet dare we suggest those of them who support laxer gun control are complicit in the mass killing of school children? The liberty to carry guns that KILL and not the liberty to make a painful decision to have terminate a pregnancy. How do you interface those beliefs ….Excuse me while I step outside into the night’s cold autumn rain and clear my head of the stink of hypocrisy, and ease down the urge not to use ‘certain’ words in this post.

To conclude by a repeat. Life is not simple. We do not get an easy road. What works for one person is not going to work exactly the same way for another. Forget perfection. Accept there will be Hard Choices. Just a final note that ‘my personal choice’ I keep that under lock and key, my personal opinions should not be part of the narrative, mistaken by a reader as some sort of judgement, some sort of ‘what is right’. Oh no. It’s possible to have one private opinion and one public judgement. I think it comes under the wider part of ‘Compassion’.

In Part Two I put my administrative glasses on and look at what will go wrong in under what will be hypocritically termed nation-wide pro-Life legislation….

No, I an’t done yet…..Not by a long stretch.