Do You Love Someone Who Was From an Unwanted Pregnancy? A Pro-Choicer’s Views on This and Other Matters

It fills me with grief to see Roe vs Wade overturned. This will threaten the health and safety of anyone who can get pregnant, whether they are cis women, trans men, non-binary, or gender-fluid people.

Maybe I’m too much of an optimist because I had believed a while ago that an overturn would be absurd: How could America make abortion illegal again?

But it still happened.

I don’t think those who voted against Roe in the Supreme Court truly care about babies in the womb, though. They only care about control and making people who can get pregnant feel helpless.

In fact, it’s downright manipulative of politicians to paint pro-choicers as villains, as if we’re selfish, heartless, and don’t care about innocent children.

The opposite is true.

It’s time to debunk those unfair myths about pro-choicers. Let me unpack this point by point. I will also show you some of my unconventional views on abortion.

Do you love someone who was from an unwanted pregnancy? Many of us do, too.

In fact, I have a good friend whose mom was sexually assaulted as a teenager.

Clearly, I would never be okay with pressuring a mom to have a child conceived from rape because that is vile and inhumane.

But of course, I would want my friend to be alive…

You could argue that I wouldn’t feel affection towards my friend anyway if she was never born. Yet, I still feel shocked and horrified at the thought of her being dead.

That said, I don’t know if her mother actually wanted an abortion or not, since we’re just assuming she did.

I’ve never asked my friend about this, as that would be an insensitive question. And it’s possible she wouldn’t know anyway. If I had a child, I wouldn’t tell them that I had wanted to abort them.

So yes, I am still 100% pro-choice, but it’s very hard for someone to say that they wish their friend was never born…

Robert Ralph also wrote a touching story where he had an unexpected child from a one-night stand. He loves his son deeply and has a great relationship with him. Robert frankly said in his interview that his baby son had made him a much better person.

It is unimaginable what it would be like if his son had been aborted.

It is true, of course, that not all men would be willing to raise a child who was born from a casual encounter.

Still, I really feel for these stories. Just because we are pro-choice doesn’t mean we can’t sympathize with those who love their children, friends, relatives, or partners who were from an unwanted pregnancy.

Frankly speaking, I don’t think anyone enjoys abortion. It is more a procedure that the person sees as the best option for their situation.

It is entirely possible that the child could grow up to be an amazing person you love, admire, and respect, I can’t refute that.

But it sounds like a risk either way.

The pregnant person can decide which choice would be more acceptable to them personally.

Do Single Fathers Get a Say?

In another article, I suggested that we should at least hear out a partner’s point of view, as long as the partner is sincere and supportive. After all, a partner’s opinion will likely impact the couple’s relationship later.

I also talked about how trans wives and trans husbands, where the husband is pregnant and the wife is the partner, may help us question our gender biases. But I ultimately see the pregnant partner, regardless of gender, as the final decision-maker, because it is they who must bear the child for 9+ months.

But after hearing Robert Ralph’s and some other stories about single dads and dads who co-parent, I discovered something that I didn’t know before.

All along, I’ve assumed that the pregnant person always does the most work, so they should have the final say. But what about cases where the pregnant person abandons the kid and leaves their partner to be a single parent? Whether they be a single cis husband, single trans wife, or single nonbinary parent.

What if the single partner raises the kid to adulthood by themselves, or is the primary caregiver? The assumption is that the pregnant person is the primary caregiver but this is not always the case.

Even when two parents care for the kid, the pregnant person could be the breadwinner and their partner could be the house spouse and main caregiver. Or the two parents could be separated but take turns caring for the kid through co-parenting.

It is the pregnant person’s body and labor, so I still prioritize their decision as the ultimate one.

But if the other partner will take the bulk of the caregiving or at least an equal amount of caregiving, I would certainly like to at least hear what the partner has to say: whether they want to keep the child or not, how sincere they are, how emotionally and physically capable they are to be a great caregiver and related concerns.

My surprisingly agnostic view of when life begins

It is debatable whether life begins at conception, during the third trimester, after birth, or another answer, since different folks define “life” differently.

In biology, I recall the idea that a cell is the most basic unit of life. But I don’t know if a single cell counts as a “life,” because if so, every time I cut my hair, trim my nails, or puncture my skin when taking testosterone injections, I would be “killing life,” which doesn’t make much sense to me.

As for whether a ball of cells (a zygote), embryo, or fetus counts as being alive, that, in my opinion, is a matter of philosophical belief, not some provable biological or psychological fact.

But even if life does begin at conception, to me, aborting a zygote, embryo, or fetus, is not the same as killing a person who is already born, whether they are a child or an adult.

So I don’t think it’s fair to call abortion “murder” or “manslaughter.”

I’m sure many others would disagree with me, but one thing I’m very aware of as a psychology major is that word choices can make us feel so differently towards the same thing. “Murder” and “manslaughter” sound cruel, while “abortion” or “ending a pregnancy” sounds more neutral.

Okay, now I’m going to say something that may make people from both sides of the argument hate me: Even though I’m pro-choice, I’m personally not offended if someone believes that life begins at conception, or if they see abortion as “murder” or “manslaughter.”

As I said, I don’t believe that abortion is the same as killing someone who is already born, so I don’t view abortion as manslaughter or murder. But I don’t blame people for having that view, since I think this is a matter of personal, philosophical belief.

As for when life begins, I am not sure, so I don’t feel offended either if someone believes that life starts at conception.

However, what would upset me, is if someone thinks that pregnant people don’t deserve to get safe, affordable healthcare to help them, whether it’s to get an abortion or to keep the child, depending on what the person feels is best for their situation.

In fact, I have a feeling that, for many (but not all) pro-lifers, they are so fixated on their belief that life begins at conception, that they lose sight of how dangerous it would be for people to have to resort to illegal abortions in unsafe settings, possibly by unqualified doctors.

Making abortion illegal will endanger the health and safety of so many people, regardless of their political leanings.

Folks who argue “just use contraception!” don’t know that no contraceptive is 100% foolproof, except vasectomy or hysterectomy, and I imagine most people don’t want such a permanent solution. Also, it would be naive to think that rape doesn’t happen.

Those who argue, “Just don’t have sex with (cis) men!” again forget about how common sexual assault is.

Even outside of assault, there are many cases where a partner pressures the other to have sex. They may ridicule their partner, accuse their partner of not loving them anymore, say the partner was “being a tease,” threaten to dump their partner if they don’t give them sex, or any other form of guilt-tripping and emotional manipulation.

Some would argue that such emotional coercion into sex, is no different from sexual assault, it’s just less obvious.

Shouldn’t pro-lifers care about the child’s quality of life, too?

It amazes me how some (but not all) people who claim to be pro-life, don’t actually care about the child’s happiness after they are born to parents who don’t want them.

Yes, the child may be fortunate that an initially reluctant parent may grow to love them, but there are no guarantees.

Some parents may give up their child for adoption, and the child could be unfortunate as to be raised by abusive adoptive families, or be shuffled from foster home to foster home…

And just imagine how it would feel if your parents didn’t want you, and maybe even dumped you at the foster or adoption agency! Such an experience can be immensely scarring and traumatizing to the children.

Shouldn’t pro-lifers care about the pregnant person’s quality of life too?

To me, it’s strange that someone could care about the life of a fetus, but not about the life of someone who used to be a fetus. Are we less valuable when we become adults?

Someone may want an abortion to protect their own safety and wellbeing, too. If they keep the child, they may have to drop out of high school, become a single parent, suffer in poverty, be tied to a casual friend they slept with, have a rapist’s child, and other reasons that many of us would sympathize with.

In another article, I wrote that single folks and poor people should not be barred from having kids. I still abide by this. But someone else may feel that they can’t handle raising a child as a single parent or a poor parent (or both), and that is a decision we should respect.

On the flip side of the coin, should pro-choicers respect the choice of the fetus?

A Facebook friend commented on my post, where I shared a petition to protest the overturning of Roe vs Wade. He asked, “But Sieran, shouldn’t ‘Not Your Body, Not Your Choice’ apply to the baby too?”

As much as I was mad at him for derailing the purpose of my post, I can see his line of reasoning — at least on the surface.

In healthcare settings, for someone to give or withhold consent to a procedure, they need to have the mental capacity to understand the risks and benefits and make an informed decision.

If a person is incapable of understanding the risks, e.g. if they are only a young child, then you would need a substitute decision-maker, who is usually a parent.

Surely, you wouldn’t expect a fetus to understand the risks and benefits of abortion, including the risks to the quality of life, safety, and well-being that I mentioned earlier.

A fetus certainly wouldn’t know its parents’ situation, or whether the pregnant person is even safe to give birth. Some people may fear exile from their family for giving birth to a child out of wedlock, as some families are very conservative. Some other folks may fear being ostracized if they kept a child from their extramarital affair.

The possibilities are endless.

If I got pregnant, what would I do? My surprising answers:

Most people look at me and see a man now, but I still have the ability to get pregnant.

The puzzling thing is, while I am fully supportive of anyone who decides that an abortion is best for their situation, I don’t know if I myself would be able to do it if I became pregnant unexpectedly.

To be clear, this has nothing to do with moral beliefs, as I do not believe abortion is wrong. It’s just that on an emotional level, I might feel ambivalent about getting an abortion myself. I may choose to give the child up for adoption, or even keep and raise the kid myself.

Once again, pro-choice includes supporting people who choose to keep their child, even if their decision seems foolhardy.

Assuming that the other father is a guy I love and this was a consensual act, it is possible that I’d want to keep the child even if my partner is unwilling to raise the child with me.

If the child was conceived from a less fortunate situation, however, such as through coerced relations, or a consensual act with someone I don’t want to be with (e.g. a casual friend with benefits), I am uncertain how I might decide. But I may not necessarily opt for abortion.

Some people state that you shouldn’t be a parent if you don’t have the personality or the interest to be one. True, but some friends have told me that I could be a great parent, especially as I could learn from my parents’ mistakes.

And while I’m leaning towards not having children right now, I also see that my resistance to kids is lower than before. So I can’t tell how my feelings towards parenthood may or may not change.

Regardless, I hope that whatever I choose, my decision will be supported and respected.

I know I brought up many contentious points, but I tried my best to write this in a sensitive but honest way. Even if you disagree with anything I said above, please be kind and give me the benefit of the doubt!

Originally published in QuickTalk on July 15, 2022