I've talked so much about abortion laws, touched on how those laws potentially impact other laws and rights, birth control access, safety from rape or other physical violence, autonomy and agency, self determination, and more. I've talked about how overturning Roe left women vulnerable to future denial of basic personhood. Some state and federal legislators have mentioned a desire to reinstiutue Comstock laws (https://www.britannica.com/event/Comstock-Act), others have discussed making contraceptives more difficult to obtain, one state representative even voted "no" on closing a marital rape loophole (https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/local-rep-only-no-vote-on-eliminating-spousal-exception-for-rape/JOWQJBAXFFGDJJB5B57CF5M3GY/).
We were told upholding Dobbs and overturning Roe was to protect babies. Tell that to Katie Cox and her husband. They wanted a baby. They discovered the 20 week old fetus was non-viable due to a severe genetic disorder. Carrying the fetus to term could potentially result in Mrs. Cox's death, at the very least to a hysterectomy that would render her unable to have more children. Katie Cox is a mother and wanted her children to have another sibling. Texas courts granted her leave to have an abortion to save her life and future fertility. The Texas Supreme Court overturned that ruling. She had the financial ability to leave Texas and get a medically necessary abortion. The Texas Supreme Court did not care about the Cox family. They did not care about Mr. Cox or the Cox children. They did especially did not care about Mrs. Cox. They cared about a fetus that was destined to die either in utero or soon after delivery.
Women need men. We have spent so long working towards independence and equality. We fought so hard for so long to achieve independence and equality under the law. We've fought for equal treatment in public life, at work, in school, at home. Men have helped on that journey. Every step, every advancement, every achievement, men and women worked together to achieve. How could we shut them out of our current fight for maintaining that level self-determination? Why would we shut them out of the fight that so intimately affects them? Women literally bear the brunt of pregnancy, childbirth, often of child-rearing, but we do not become pregnant alone. We ususally don't carry a pregnancy without some kind of support. We don't raise children in isolation.
Men, we want partners in our lives. We want helpmates. We want support and to give support. We want providers and protectors, even as we provide and protect ourselves, our families, and you. These anti-choice laws affect men. They affect a man's ability to control his reproductive plans. They affect a husband or partner's life.
Women need men to have conversations about these laws with each other. Women need men to talk to other men about "women's issues" because they are not just women's issues, they are human issues. We need men to talk about how many children they want, how to prevent unwanted pregancies, how to prevent tragic outcomes if the pregnancies don't go well. We need men to have honest converations about birth control access and how implementing the Comstock Laws from 1873 could prevent even the use of condoms. We need men to start calling each other out if they believe women should be treated as humans or as chattle. We need men to talk about marital rape and how one known elected state representative beleives a marriage license is explicit consent to sex whenever he wishes, whether his wife wants sex or not. We need men to talk with each other about what happened to Katie Cox and if they could afford to send his wife 500+ miles away to get life saving care in that same circumstance. Maternal mortality rates are rising. In 2021, before abortion bans went into affect, the mortality rate was 32.9/100000. In 2019 it was 20.1. (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021/maternal-mortality-rates-2021.htm#:~:text=The%20maternal%20mortality%20rate%20for,20.1%20in%202019%20(Table).) What will it be in another few years? Some of those deaths are homicides, either during pregnancy or post-partum. Men, these are your spouses, partners, sisters, and daughters. Should you wife be required to carry a pregnancy as a result of being raped on her way home from work? Should your daughter?
