no-one should be forced to have a child. not even a man.

This title sounds a bit clickbaity, but that isn’t my intention. I’m a million percent pro-choice - anyone pregnant deserves one-hundred percent of the choice when it comes to sacrificing their body for a child for the next nine months of their life. However, personally, I’m unsatisfied with the state we leave men.

Let me start off by saying that this opinion becomes irrelevant if a woman is forced to follow through a pregnancy against her will. If one out of the two who created the issue is forced to endure the situation, the other should too.

Now, onto the comments on situations where abortion is freely accessible.

Women get the say as to whether they let a fetus develop into a baby or whether they want to prevent that. So, we get the choice as to whether we wish to become mothers or not; it’s our right and it’s one we deserve to have. If a woman decides, however, that she wants to become a mother, it shouldn’t be looked down upon if the father doesn’t share the same sentiment.

We hold men to suffocating standards in unwanted fatherhood - mothers berate and shame their counterparts for their lack of interest in or ‘abandonment’ of their child. This is warranted in many scenarios, but in a situation where the father has said straight up, consistently, that he doesn’t want to be a father? That should be respected as much as the decision for a woman to abort the child. Men shouldn’t be lawfully tied to a child that they didn’t choose to bring into this world - it’s unfair to push fatherhood onto an unwilling participant.

As there are consequences when it comes to pregnancy regardless, I think it’s only right to expect a fee, but only the fee regarding what decision the father wants, to even out the disadvantage women would have medically regardless. For example, paying for the cost of an abortion or any loss of income that having/recovering from an abortion would have. But child support, forever, just because the woman he accidentally impregnated decided to keep the child? That’s unfair. And when expressing this opinion in the past, I’ve heard a very similar phrase repeated over and over: ‘he should take responsibility for his actions.’ Though less severe, the same sentiment rings eerily similar to the reasoning people use to shame a woman for having an abortion. Because she shouldn’t have an ‘easy way out’?

I am a supporter of women and their right to choose. But, I also believe that men should have an equitable right to choose the destination of their future, and being forced into fatherhood sounds just as terrifying as being forced into motherhood. We can’t expect any form of actual equality if we’re wilfully unaware of issues on the other side, too. I’ve, admittedly, been criticised for pointing out this issue before, because women are suffering so much around the world. And I believe there are bigger issues, sure. The war against women is more generally life-changing and difficult for the gender as a whole than this. But, this isn’t a battle over who has it worse, it’s just striving to fix whatever issue you can, because everything contributes to eventual equality. Believing that men have the advantage in every situation is the same ignorance that brought us all the ignorant men who believe women have life on ‘easy mode’. It’s toxic regardless of what gender you target.

To summarise my thoughts, I think this is something that needs eventual addressing - we should fix issues where we see them without igniting a battle of who has it worse. Issues are issues, so let’s do our best to make the world a better place to live.

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