Anna N of Jezebel, in a post on the general state of “men’s reproductive rights” activism, raises a persistent point that… I wonder… well, let’s go with the quote first

But sometimes it’s men who shut women out. In her thorough article for The Nation on reproductive coercion (which we’ve also discussed), Lynn Harris writes of “the striking frequency with which it is in fact young men who try to force their partners to get pregnant. Their goal: not to settle down as family men but rather to exert what is perhaps the most intimate, and lasting, form of control.” She cites one study finding that 15% of sexually active young women who visited reproductive health clinics had suffered birth control sabotage by a partner, and another in which 26% of a sample of teens in abusive, sexually active relationships said their partners were “actively trying to get them pregnant.”

She said it here.

So…

I’m wondering…

Y’know how all those “pro-life” types will do just about anything to stop women from getting an abortion… or even avoiding pregnancy in the first place… except, y’know, make it actually safe, easy, inexpensive, and socially acceptable for women to, y’know, actually stay preganant, have, and raise their unplanned, unwanted pregnancies?

And how instead they try and make it, and keep it, as close to social, economic, moral, even corporal punishment as possible? How they present it as the ultimate in dependency? In sacrifice? In pain, and exhaustion, and tedium, and frustration, and helplessnes? In stigma? In shame?

So…

I’m wondering…

How much do you think all that plays into this notion of coerced pregnancy as intimate control (a.k.a. as a form of partner abuse?)

I mean…

Not to put too fine a point on it but it’s well within society’s capacity to make unplanned, unwanted children (if not pregnancy itself) not just not just not punishment, and not just easy, but downright enjoyable. In the grand scheme of things it involves beginning social investment in children’s lives just a few years earlier than we do now — call it 3-6 months before birth instead of 3-4 years after.

And it’s not like the returns on that social investment wouldn’t be appropriate — I mean, even after 18 years of exacting all those “wages of sin” from the mother on behalf of traditionalist/conservatives, those same children will spend somewhere between four and seven decades as real adults — equal with all other adults for responsibility for the world. To invest in children as future fellow citizens instead of present punishments for parents would be to reap fantastic benefits in the future.

And…

Finally…

Not to put too fine a point on it but just how enthused might callow youths be to sabotage their partners pills or to pinhole their condoms if the outcome was not lasting “who’ll love you now, bebbeh?” control but a little more respectability, more rather than less independence, and a whole lot more support?

I’m not saying let’s all go out and encourage teen pregnancy. I am, however, saying that to the extent society would like to avoid teen pregnancy and, especially to also avoid pregnancy terminations, the incentives are currently… perverse.