Another Christian male has revealed his intellectual superiority in the abortion debate. On Sept. 15, Michael Kahn wrote this piece in the Georgetown Hoya, detailing how much oppression he has suffered at the hands of pro-choice advocates and how women are actually pro-life.
Khan starts by crying over how men are not seen as proper authorities on women’s reproductive rights. Apparently it’s not “misogynistic and cruel” or anti-democratic when “male legislators” vote to repress women’s control over their own bodies. And women are apparently leading the charge to abolish abortion rights. “The polls” say more than half of American women are pro-life.
I’m interested to see which polls he’s referring to, because a quick Google search shows that 54 percent of women are pro-choice. This is hardly an overwhelming majority, but it shows that the opposite of Kahn’s unsourced conclusion is true.
Kahn also makes a lot of baseless assertions about how the majority of pro-life organizations are run by women and something about how his pro-life club is mostly women. Yes, your club may have mostly women, but you can hardly project that trend onto women in general.
But his worst claim is “that men are as much involved in sex and a child’s life as women.” I’m not sure if he even thought about what he was saying before spewing that remark onto the page. I do not have to push a baby out and endure nine months of mood swings and morning sickness beforehand.
If I ever bled out of my genitals, I’d rush to the hospital and probably cry, and I suspect I’m not alone. For women it’s a monthly ordeal coupled with cramps and all kinds of other horrors. Men are not as involved in sex or childbearing as women. Women bear all the costs of sex and childbearing, so they make the choices.
If you try to speak for women on abortion issues, of course they’re going to call you out. It’s not them being “intolerant” or “hateful.” Intolerance and hatred come from pro-life activists who have killed abortion doctors or bombed abortion clinics. Are women supposed to love someone who belittles the ordeals they bear and calls them murderers? Universal love is for those who don’t have to deal with hatred and oppression.
Adoption isn’t always an option, either. Unless you have lots of money, you can’t afford to take the days off from work when you have horrible morning sickness. Pregnancy isn’t exactly easy, and saying women should just grin and bear it until they have to hand over the child they created and say goodbye is condescending.
Oh, and Planned Parenthood doesn’t sell body parts for profit. Just because you don’t choose to acknowledge that information doesn’t make it any less true.
Please, Mr. Kahn and all the other arrogant men who think they’re fit to tell women what to do with their bodies, do better.
Chase Cabot is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences.
