Why Are Women So Angry About Abortion Laws?
By: Paula Rinehart (The Federalist)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The fight over so-called abortion rights continues as pro-abortion advocates in Ohio gathered enough signatures last week to put the question on the ballot in November's election. Since the Dobbsv. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision last June, women around the country have filled the streets in protest, angry over restrictions that limit the innately barbaric act of emptying the womb of unborn life. But what accounts for the level of panic and rage we see in the faces of women protesting limits on abortion?
The explanation for such unbridled anger is usually cast in terms of rights. The right to do with my body as I choose. But this line of reasoning does not go far enough. Contraception and its necessary bail-out plan — abortion — have turned relationships between men and women upside down. Women have been the losers in this trade. Nothing brings that anger to the surface like abortion, which is seen as a miserable necessity in a world where men call the sexual shots in romantic relationships.
A Terrible Social Contract
Contraception and abortion were supposed to be tickets to a liberated life. Women could pursue their own career goals and sleep with the guy they choose. But smart, talented women who are handed the reins to the firm in their 20s often wake up in their 30s tired, spent, and alone. Men have come and gone. Sex without consequences has ironically made it harder for many women to have what they say they want: marriage and family.
The sexual revolution left women without grounds to expect much from men. Girls admit they feel forced to put out sexually in order to have any congress with a male. Imagine what you would feel if your first sexual experiences included painful or kinky sex with a guy whose imagination had been shaped by increasingly violent pornography. (More than 10 percent of sexually active girls between 14 and 17 have experienced choking as a way to heighten some guys' pleasure).
It's a terrible social contract. In order to be with a man you must conform to his sexual desires and pretend to like it. If you complain, there are plenty of other women who will take your place. Sex doesn't have to lead to marriage or even an exclusive relationship. A woman can fritter away her best years of fertility waiting for a guy to man up to a real commitment. If she gets pregnant, that's her problem. Who wouldn't be angry?
The dirty little secret behind abortion is that the breakdown in sexual norms has served primarily the interests of men. In her book, Adam and Eve after the Pill Revisited, Mary Eberstadt establishes the links between the sexual revolution and the sorry state of affairs between men and women. Women long for a responsible man. Instead, Eberstadt explains they are faced with "chronically stupefied young men for whom love and romance have become unachievable, thanks to pornography."
Eberstadt says that "the revolution effectively democratized sexual predation. No longer did one have to be a king, or master of the universe, to abuse or harass women in unrelenting, serial fashion. One only needed a world in which women would be assumed to use contraception, with abortion as a backup plan."
The anger behind limiting abortion reflects something much deeper than personal "rights." It's the mirror of a woman's fear of ending up alone. Not just by herself on too many Friday nights. No, alone, as in without the hope of a lasting, give-and-take relationship with a man who cares what happens to her after her body sags. Abortion is what she sees as a necessity in order to have a man in her life on any terms.
This Is Not Progress
The sexual revolution upended the way men and women relate to each other by placing desire — not responsibility — at the center of our interactions. We were told this was progress. In reality, we have moved backward. We are reverting to the old power dynamics of paganism.
In the pre-Christian Roman world, the body was merely a means to an end. A slave had no rights. A master could have sex with any slave he owned. Prostitution — the flesh trade — was a dominant institution. Pederasty was common. The familiar expression was that a Roman man had a woman to bear children, and a man for pleasure. As we see now, in pagan Rome the body was a commodity to trade on, a means of pleasure, or a way to produce offspring.
Over the course of 400 years, the body-and-soul theology of applied Christianity slowly dug us out of that pagan swamp. If every person, slave or free, male or female, is created in the image of God and of infinite value, then the integrity of his or her body matters. Men and women are meant for each other and their union bears children. We have a responsibility to each other that curtails our own individual desires. The sexual relationship of a husband and wife reflects the beauty of the love of God. We owe each other protection and devotion.
"Christian sexual morality marked a quantum leap in the foundational logic of sexual ethics," explains classicist historian Kyle Harper in his book From Shame to Sin.
Christianity created a new social contract between men and women. We are not free to do as we please. We are held responsible for each other's well-being. Beyond these merciful borders on relationships between men and women, various degrees of chaos ensue. Like desperate pagans, we wind up again sacrificing our children to the gods.
Hopeful Signs Emerging
Even in secular circles, women are starting to name the raw deal they've been handed in the name of freedom. Christine Emba's book, Rethinking Sex, made its debut a year ago to much acclaim — no less than a Washington Post journalist was willing to say our vulnerability is being used against us. We need to rethink sex.
Emba's basic plea is for men and women to acknowledge that people are getting hurt in the current arrangement. She calls for thinking about the welfare of the other person, what she calls "radical empathy."
Women are admitting that this grand social experiment has turned out poorly, and abortion is its progeny. But unlike any civilization before us, we presume to educate male sexual drive into better behavior with pleas to will the good of others and play fairer.
History disputes this naive thesis. Sexuality is a powerful force in men's lives because the God who made men meant to bless the whole of His creation through the way men and women come together, and new life unfolds. God calls that good. He asks a man to sacrifice immediate pleasure for the larger prospect of knowing and loving a woman and the children they create together.
That's strong stuff. A guy who takes responsibility for his sexuality before God will grow from a boy into a man who can carry the weight of others' lives. At 60, grandchildren wrap themselves around his knees. Male sexual energy moves whole cultures forward. Skylines are built, poetry written, diseases cured. Much of what we know as the best of Western civilization has come not from pleas for men to be better, but rather from a whole epistemological framework for what goodness is, where it comes from, and how it plays out between a man and a woman as they pledge themselves to each other and to those who come after them.
The anniversary season of the historic reversal of Roe v. Wade lets us take a clearer assessment of the relational wasteland that abortion represents. It's time to reflect on how we came to this place. The rage in women's faces makes its own kind of sense. We are meant to love and be loved. Men and women deserve better from each other than the ease of destroying lives they create.
Paula Rinehart, LCSW, is a therapist in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the author of the book "Sex and the Soul of a Woman." She writes about family and culture.
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"Contraception and abortion were supposed to be tickets to a liberated life . Women could pursue their own career goals and sleep with the guy they choose. But smart, talented women who are handed the reins to the firm in their 20s often wake up in their 30s tired, spent, and alone. Men have come and gone. Sex without consequences has ironically made it harder for many women to have what they say they want: marriage and family. "
Sad, isn't it?
To be forever filed under: Careful what you wish for
Really!!! You think it is sad how woman feel/act, making generalizations, making projections, making assumptions? Just stop.
Referring to you, not the author.
Those who wanted to have it all ended up alone and angry.
Childless people lead fulfilling lives and are just as likely as parents to end up happy and contented at the end of their lives...
Nursing homes are full of parents and grandparents who never get visitors...
None of which is any comfort to women who have had their freedoms curtailed!
Impotent old men and dried up old hags may celebrate the demise of Roe V Wade but by a two to one margin voters don't!
Not true. The data doesn't lie.
What data? Do produce it! Your MO lately has been to deny anything you don't like.
[deleted]
Please show the data to support that
The proof that single people are happier?
Look it up. You don't believe me anway...
You must be ecstatic.
Yes, the peace that comes from saying what I mean and meaning what I say and owning it without indulging in coy obtuse insincere immature lamesass games...
Good for you, JBB,
The proof that single people are happier?
No, your comment "Childless people lead fulfilling lives and are just as likely as parents to end up happy and contented at the end of their lives..."
Childless adults, not single people. Of course I would believe it if your source was somewhat reliable and not a silly meme. I would have hoped you already had the data before you posted.
You can't be serious
You certainly do not seem to be happy...
You should give it a try sometime, soon...
You really could do better...
Quite the diversion to completely ignore my statement. And a totaly incorrect statement at that.
Oh but I do.
I don’t think that I would enjoy celibacy.
See there? That is the fake coy toxic bullshit we spoke of! It is so cringe worthy...
Not as bad as many of the memes I see
I hear you. My memes make you unhappy.
I make it a habit to avoid all toxicity...
Cheer Up!
Does this apply to men as well as women? Nonsense!
I put myself through college, had a successful career, married in my 30s. Husband and I decided not to have children, retired at 60 with a good financial portfolio. We traveled a lot over the years, volunteered a lot, were able to assist family when they experienced some tough times. All in all, we've been very happy.
Your generalization is nonsense.
Uh huh. Sure
Huh?
Interesting
unlike your copy n’ pasted memes?
As you remind me multiple times daily...
I’m surprised that you need multiple reminders, how old are you now?
And your data is where? Do produce it. From a non biased reliable source please.
And your MO has been to do the same or at best post a unrelated meme.
You got what you wanted so why are you so angry? Shouldn't you be happy? After all, why should a woman have the right to not have a child or better still---have the right to tell a man to, "Take his seed and shove it?"
I find all of you copy n’ paste memes funny.
[✘]
Killer stuff, LoL.
What was that?
To each their own.
She still has that right. She can refuse to get into the sack and have sex with him. She can use contraceptives. She can insist he use a condom.
I wonder if that is really what you meant...
Condoms and contraceptives can and do fail.
You got that right but swallowing never does.
Not very often generally less than about 5% of the time and the use of oral contraceptives is about 0.1%.. abstaining has a 0.1% failure rate. Abstaining has a100% success rate in preventing pregnancy
"Abstaining has a100% success rate in preventing pregnancy "
Yeah, but that ain't much fun
So. It is the only option men have if they don't want to be fathers or have the financial responsibilities of fatherhood. Why should women have more options then men?
Because women have all the uteruses...
Men don't get pregnant, a women should also have that right
So?
Not according to liberals. Actionshave consequences. One of the possible consequences of a woman having unprotected sexx is that she might get pregnant.
It is not a right it is a fact of nature and biology.
And she should be able to fix that problem
What problem would that be?
The problem of being pregnant and not wanting to be pregnant, a problem that should be easy to solve,
They think women shouldn't be allowed to enjoy sex because they're not getting any.
[deleted]
Any data to back that claim?
Yep, abortion is an excellent and generally easier/cheaper solution.
Not to mention, safer than pregnancy and birth.
What a crock of shit.
I'm sorry Vic, but this is not how things are. I know dozens of women who had careers, had families, and still want the rights over their own bodies when it comes to reproduction. To read this article is to make us all sound like bitter unhappy shrews, when I don't know a single woman who is like this.
Furthermore, it is reproductive rights/ pro-choice, not pro-abortion. Please don't point to the minority of women who call it that.
I'm sorry too.
Except that males are not granted any reproductive rights in any way shape or form.
They say one picture is worth a thousand words:
You make your choices and you live with them!
You do that for you, and everybody else will do the same for themselves.
They should in a marriage (or long-term relationship), if one has a healthy marriage.
As a single person, not so much. There are deadbeat dads who were married and have no problem leaving their kids, so excuse me if my heart does not go out to them.
At the end of the day, if a woman is a decent person, she is left raising those kids and most women do.
Vic,
Those days are long gone. You might wish for them still, but the reality is I know too many women who had bitter divorces and never received a dime from their ex, while he went on with some other woman, while he dragged child support out in the courts.
So that little photo, even without the choice issue on the table, is just not the reality we live in.
Sadly so.
No, democrats starting with Bill Clinton sacrificed our middle class to create China's middle class.
It's time to own it.
Males are not stuck with being pregnant for 9 months.
That is biology. Glad you understood that much.
[✘]
and if a woman does not want to be stuck being pregnant the right to abortion makes things as equal as biology allows
Nope just as the left keeps telling me that if a man doesn't want to be a father he should abstain from having sex, if a woman wants to be 100% certain that doesn't want to be a mother or get pregnant she should abstain from having sex also.
"just as the left keeps telling me that if a man doesn't want to be a father he should abstain from having sex,"
Maybe I missed it but I do not recall hearing that from the left
You didn't.
It's the guys who aren't getting any who want the women to abstain.
Any data to back that claim?
Racketeering, organized crime, rampant corruption uncovered by Bobby Kennedy…
Labor unions shot themselves in the foot with their corruption.
Then you haven't been paying attention. Especially in other articles and seeds. I didn't say it was necessarily in this one.
Your kidding by asking for that right?
What rights are they being denied?
Note no answer. Since it's not true.
Exactly.
Their reproductive rights. If a man does not wish to be a father and have the financial responsibilities for that child for the next 20 years. On the other hand he has no right for hanging the child born and raising it by himself.
Really? Are we under some sort of time limit to answer? If that is the case there are several instances where you have grossly violated that rule. In fact I believe you would be the lead violator.
" Then you haven't been paying attention. Especially in other articles and seeds. I didn't say it was necessarily in this one."
I do not remember seeing that but in the future if I see that (and remember) I will comment on that point
Then he better use protection and support abortion rights.
That makes no sense.
Well I guess the same goes for the woman. If she doesn't want to be a mother then she better use protection.
Oops my bad! I forgot [deleted] typos do confuse you. A man(father) does not have the right to keep the baby and raise it himself.
Yes, or have an abortion.
Not at all. Your post is unclear.
Sure he does, if the mother is not in the picture.
Women tend to get angry when their rights are removed. Today's gop/gqp/CONServatives are turning a lot of folks into Democrats.
What a bunch of ridiculous nonsense. One woman's opinion on sex and relationships and abortion. What a bunch of made up nonsense.
About half way through we get to the point of the article - everyone needs to be Christian.
There are inadvertent humorous touches though.
The writer unwittingly portrays the 1840's American south as the descendant of the "pre-Christian Roman world". But how could that be, since most of these slave raping monsters were bible thumpers?
Why would it take 400 years for Christianity to have a positive effect? Who knows? The writer surely doesnt. And if we take the mid 19th century as the end of slavery in the western world, Christianity was around for a lot longer than 400 years at that point. If we take the fall of Rome in 476 as the beginning of the ascendency of Christianity and the Church as the dominant former of societal standards, by the mid 19th century Christian ethics had dominated the west for almost 1400 years, not 400.
So, what's the alternative? Don't use christianophobia as a charlatan's ruse to avoid the confronting the need for morality. Bad mouthing Christianity won't address the underlying problem of immoral behavior.
Since you desire to introduce race into the discussion, let's go there. (Old article but the statistics have not changed much.) The high incidence of unwed Black births ain't because Black women are being raped by white slave masters.
There's plenty of statistics available that show children born to unwed mothers (single parent households) experience more adverse outcomes healthwise, in educational attainment, and economically. And bashing Christianity won't address the obvious moral issues at the core of what is happening. Abortion doesn't fix the moral problems.
What has been the positive effect of undermining the moral foundation of society over the last 65 years?
Killing God won't eliminate the need for morality.
The writer pretty openly suggests that Christianity ended the practice of slave owners having sex with slaves. There is no evidence of that.
But there is evidence that such practices in the Roman Empire fell out of favor by 400CE. Christianity really did have a significant influence in changing Roman morality. That's why the Roman Empire became the Roman Catholic Church.
I mean, you skip about 1600 years to the 20th century, sure.
And by slight of writ, slaves became serfs ... yay!
And, in fact, there is substantial evidence for the contrary.
And here I thought it was the Goths and Visigoths and other outside forces attacking the Roman Empire while it was on it's knees from all the internal strife caused by conflicts within the failing Empire... It's really good to know that it was just the Christians
Once Roman Senators began throwing bread to "the mob" for votes, the Republic was doomed.
Oh wait....we have one political party doing that now!
We have both parties doing that.
Another ridiculous “things were better/perfect”in the old days” fantasy. In the old days, good Christian men always protected women. They never raped. They never abandoned women. They were never violent. Didn’t drink. Only beat their women when they really deserved it.
They just sat around all day praying and thinking up new ways to be perfect men.
What a steaming load of horseshit.
Ah yes! Christian slavery was so benevolent! That was a golden age!
Unless a woman wants to hold you responsible for raping her. Then, that slut is just out to get you for no good reason. Why can’t women just shut their mouths and make babies like they’re supposed to?
Lol, no notes.
It's cute that the author seems to think that unwed (or even married) mothers were never abandoned before the sexual revolution.
Wait, what? You mean the fathers ALWAYS stuck around prior to Roe?
What is even cuter is that some people think the sexual revolution was anything other than a young boy's idea.
Yes, I'm sure some folks think that women either do not experience sexual desire or were happy to keep living under the double standard that said that women who have sex outside of marriage are sluts, but "boys will be boys".
Those folks would be wrong, of course. They likely believe whatever supports a double standard that benefits themselves by allowing them to engage in behavior for which they'd shame others. A double standard that expects better behavior from women is misogynistic, and of course women object to it.
I thought it was a great game. Women would act like sex was never on their minds and we had to figure out how to get there. The good part is that women knew how to signal the OK. (please proceed)
Those folks would be wrong, of course. They likely believe whatever supports a double standard that benefits themselves by allowing them to engage in behavior for which they'd shame others. A double standard that expects better behavior from women is misogynistic, and of course women object to it.
You kind of lost [deleted]
Enjoying a misogynistic game is mysogynistic.
I'm confident that our readers are keeping up, and doubt that they care whether I'm posting via phone, which is irrelevant to the content of my post. I have faith that our readers are not petty, but are intelligent.
It wasn't a misogynistic game, nor am I mysogynistic. I consider that comment ignorant and hateful.
I have faith that our readers are not petty, but are intelligent.
I'm sure of it. They got the message of the article. You don't get to have it all.
Have a good day.
Of course it's a misogynistic game. To state that
is
is ignorant, hateful, and misogynistic.
Not your place to decide.
Have a good day.
You would not know it but at my university we learned that the sexual revolution began with the privacy and freedom young people got from automobiles which was further fueled by the advent of the birth control pill. Fantasies of young men did not cause it...
Interesting that some 'men' see sex as a game and that 'women would act like sex was never on their minds and we had to figure out how to get 'there'' like they're some manipulative sluts who obviously always have sex on their minds and made the 'men' figure out how to get 'there'
I wonder if they ever got 'there'
So, men get to 'have it all' but not women, we get it!
We get the message loud and clear.
You just don't like those women who have it all, we get that too!
What a terrible thing to say!
Do you?
That's essentially what you said
Yes, I do.
I do get it. Sad that you don't.
Where are the tougher sentences for rape? Where is the Republican push for funding the police and process the backlog of rape kits? So Republicans accept the idea of Mexican caravans and Mexican rapists but want to force women to carry those rapists babies? Republicans won't fully get behind VAW so women who suffer a greater likelihood of rape and violence also face being forced to carry rapists babies. If you can't understand that fear you really don't care about the issue.
Ohio is using tactics against Ohio's own state Constitution to avoid letting voters put the issue on the ballot. Ohio repeatedly in every court has been ruled against for their extreme gerrymandering trying to thwart the freedom of voters to vote and make choices on the issues.
Surprisingly even a large number of Ohio Republicans recognize the tactics used to thwart getting the issue in front of the voters by way of destroying the Ohio state Constitution are also supporting Vote No on Issue 1 so that voters can actually decide the issue once and for all in Ohio.
Republicans want what democrats once claimed they wanted.."Safe, legal and rare."
The best part is that the people get to vote on exactly what they want.
If 60% vote for it.
In state elections?
When you’re banning abortions at 6 weeks, that claim is a lie. Most women don’t even know they’re pregnant by 6 weeks. Calling it “legal” is BS when you regulate it so tightly that it’s near impossible to do.
Try Ohio:
From the linked article
They try to make that sound like a bad thing
"Why Are Women So Angry About Abortion Laws?"
Who wouldn't be angry if some busybody who did not not have to deal with personal results made it so a woman could not fix a problem?
Considering laws for abortion restrictions also means women have less opportunity or time to electively utilize safer abortion procedures or have the option to do so, effectively forcing them to remain pregnant against their will, their anger is understandable and justified. Especially since there is no rational reason to restrict abortion to begin with, especially before viability.