Men Should Not Hold Opinions About Abortion

By David Hernandez Rios

The simple fact of the matter is that men should not have any opinion or stance on abortion.

There are many common arguments for men who want to have a say in the matter.  All of the arguments I have heard throughout my life are either exclusionary, selfish, hypocritical, or all three.

The following are real arguments I’ve heard firsthand or secondhand, being said in public.

“It's my sperm!” But no one cares about her eggs.

“It’s my baby!” And not hers? Not the person literally incubating and keeping this fetus alive?

Men chanting, “If you don’t want a child, then just stop getting pregnant!” Over and over, ad nauseam. Maybe you should stop getting women pregnant if you don’t want them to abort.

Another argument I can see being used for men trying to wedge their spoons where they don’t belong is the belief that it is murder. This transforms the argument from opinion-based to having a foundation of ethics; after all, if it is murder, shouldn’t a man be allowed to disapprove?

This argument is not based on fact.

Because it is not based on fact, under my “men shouldn’t speak on abortion” philosophy, I believe men shouldn’t be able to speak on this, regardless of how many women agree with their respective beliefs.

There is a reason we have a cutoff for abortions. According to the article “Know Your Rights: Abortion Access in California” by the ACLU of Northern California, until a medical professional has determined that it can reasonably survive outside of the uterus without excessive life support, it is viable for abortion.

The excerpt from Focus on the Family's article “When Does a Fetus Become a Baby?” states, “During weeks 9-12, the embryo has all the major organ systems and is a distinctly recognizable human being. It is now called a fetus.”

Again, a woman’s opinion on whether or not abortion is murder is something I don’t believe I have the right to touch, but the keyword here is opinion. Because this is an opinion-based argument that cannot be considered factual, it is not an appropriate place for men to have their voices heard.

All the decision-making and opinions should be left up to the person it affects. 

Yes, I’m sure under some circumstances, a man who’s always wanted a child wouldn’t be happy about it, or a man who’s not ready for a child may want it gone, but why should anyone care about how unhappy the man in question is about it?

It's not his body, not his nine months, not his pain and migraines and terrible fits of illness, not his sacrifice, it's not his. Why should anyone care how a man feels about this when none of it affects him?

I’m not going to speak on women’s stances on abortion at all, because my voice shouldn’t matter to their opinions, regardless of what side they’re on. This is because I am a man, and as previously stated, I believe both I and other men should not have opinions on abortion.

One exception I can think of is transgender men. Unfortunately, even if testosterone is taken regularly, a transgender man can fall victim to an unintended pregnancy. 

This means that this is still a topic that concerns the demographic of transgender men, and they’d be the only men who have any reason to hold opinions about abortion. I didn’t bring this up until now because I’d have had to type “people with a uterus” for the entire article, and I can’t have more than eight hundred words.

Another “exception” could be speaking on the matter of maternal death, as this is backed up by statistical evidence. The National Institutes of Health stated in their article “Maternal Morbidity & Mortality” that approximately 700 women die each year because of pregnancy or delivery complications.

I say “exception” in quotations because the argument does have sustainable evidence backing it up, thus it is not really opinion-based. It is also less of an issue about abortion and is more of an issue related to saving the lives of hundreds of women; saving a life is not an opinion I think should be exclusionary.

Unfortunately, I also don’t think it’s possible to have a world where no man says anything about abortion, so I can only hope that at the very least we can have a world where women are free to act based upon their own opinion and are not forced to live under someone else’s beliefs.

Please remember that I’m not telling you what to think; rather, I’m telling you what I think in a way that I hope will convince you to think the same. Thank you for reading.