This commentary is by Vicki Harrison, MSN, of Barnard, retired from 45 years in social work and community health nursing, with a subspecialty in mental health and substance abuse.
Sadly, we forget history all too soon. And who has borne the brunt of human strategies, laws and demands. I have a friend whose sister died trying to kill a fetus inside her in the 1960s before U.S. abortions were legal. Metal coat hanger. You poke it into your vagina trying to reach the contents in your uterus.
Women have been using herbs, backrooms, rods, all kinds of mechanisms to keep from having an unwanted pregnancy. Currently, some U.S. states are prohibiting use of a safe pill that can prevent a pregnancy from continuing within a certain number of early days of conception.
Why is this a problem to anyone? Would you like me to put my hands in your crotch unwanted?
It is time to allow males to take responsibility for fertilization of an egg/abortions. Only recently, in some states, have men been required to take any responsibility for their half of this experience. Abortion is needed only after a sperm meets an egg and is unwanted. For all of history, it has taken two to tango, even if by a turkey baster. Without men’s sperm, there is no baby, no need for abortion. It is long past time to allow the other half of humanity the chance to experience this humiliating, but clearly needed by some, control.
It is time to tie the tubes of adolescent boys.
When they are old enough to have a healthy human relationship and provide for the mother and children they desire together, only then their tubes can be untied.
Though this is not a reliable procedure now, I am certain doctors will rush to perfect this reversal, as they will not want their male children to lose this option. Men and some women have sought to prevent other humans from having control over their own reproductive lives for all of humanity (or inhumanity — recall we have killed half of life on earth in 50 years with our extractive, aggressive wants/desires and disregard for anyone in our way). The U.S. has been unable to even pass a Women’s Equality Bill.
And we do know that, if men had abortions, we would not even be discussing this as a problem. Men would have free, private and freely reimbursed health care.
Did you know U.S. abortion clinics that have suffered for years aggressive and violent protesters saw many familiar faces at the Jan. 6 insurrection at our Capitol? Disgustingly, these clinics have faced this exuberant aggression in many parts of the U.S with little to no support from police or peers. Even the Supremes have a safe region around their courthouse, legally designated, but these 18th-century relics will not allow that safety for the women seeking their very own legal, personal health care.
Watch a few episodes of the BBC, “Call the Midwife” series on PBS or Netflix to witness women’s lives before birth control. Crochet hooks were used for abortions, not only by women themselves, but by their pimps. Women had few options to support themselves. Again, control over a woman and her body at all costs. Some women had as many as 25 children. Continuous pregnancy.
One also sees how the expanded and professional development of the role of nursing in England and nurses providing home care led to improved health for many in the lower and middle economic groups.
The 18th-century Supremes — who should return to work at Sturbridge Village, which seems a better match — just upheld a ruling that women had to receive the very safe early abortion pill in person, during a pandemic, and cannot receive this through a telephonic office visit. Can men receive Viagra telephonically? Of course they can! And, they will overnight the package!
Even with U.S. Obamacare requiring birth control coverage for women freely, women have met multiple obstacles to getting birth control that works for them. Outright denials, prior authorizations, copays, bizarre insurance strategies to prevent access.
For those who want to prevent the need for abortion, why would this occur? Because it is not really abortion we dislike; it is a woman’s control over her own life and fertility, isn’t it?
The U.S. so-called ‘Fathers” did some things well. Others horrifically. Slavery, termination/murder of native populations to steal the country, women and children as chattel — and inaccurately, these “fathers” are held up as “all-knowing.” They were not. I wonder, if we could get a group of their women together in private, what they might add to the story.
Covenant House has an effective TV advertisement showing a homeless baby as the origin of a homeless young adult, demonstrating the U.S. priorities clearly. The U.S. politicans, corporations, wealthy 10% and their 20% benefactors have chosen to deconstruct the safety net of the middle class over the past 45 years. The Golden Goose, the middle class, also shielded us from looking straight at the profound injustices endured by many.
So, here we are. And a young Vermont male cannot understand why women get excited and worked up about control over their bodies, their spawn.
