In various topics here relating to abortion rights and the new S.D. legislation, the topic has come up that perhaps "women should just keep their legs closed." While I find the phrasing crude, it brings up an interesting point--if we as women want the ultimate say over what happens to our body, should we not also bear more responsibility to ensure that we don't get pregnant in the first place?

In a perfect world, men and women would be equally responsible for their actions. Alas, this is not a perfect world.

Questions for debate:

As the stewards and hosts of any human life that is created, should women bear a larger share of the burden of birth control?

If this becomes the norm (i.e. women, by and large, are meticulously responsible for birth control), will that change your stance on when/why abortions should be allowed?

Will placing an unequal burden on women re: birth control change the sexual mores in our country?

As you note, the world is not perfect. In a theoretical sense, both male and female partners should be equally responsible for birth control. However, since women are the ones who get pregnant, carry the baby, and must take primary responsibility for caring for the child, it behooves them to be extra cautious.

Frankly, the first rule SHOULD be never to sleep with anybody you wouldn't want to share parenting duty with, since only abstinence is foolproof. However, that's not too workable, I guess.

And since only abstinence is foolproof, abortion should be allowed.

In my mind, birth control DID used to be the responsibility of women alone. In response to that, men developed birth control pills which would allow them greater access to sex. Along with greater access came increased rates of 'accidents,' resulting in the legalization of abortion and the rise in its use as a form of birth control.

In the 'old days' of woman-controlled contraception, an 'accident' could ruin a woman's life. Marriage was not merely an option to pick for parenting a child -- it was the ONLY option. So if you got pregnant out of wedlock, you either went into 'seclusion' at a maternity home and turned your baby over for adoption, or you had a shotgun wedding. If you chose to keep the baby, you were on your own -- practically AND socially. And you were in for some pretty harsh criticism and ostracism. Not surprisingly, most women relinquished or married.

I'm not sure the 'good new days' are better than the old ones. In the old days, the mother's life was ruined. Today the child's life is, assuming it isn't aborted. Growing up in a single-parent family comes in a distant second in desirability to growing up with two parents.

As the stewards and hosts of any human life that is created, should women bear a larger share of the burden of birth control?
It depends on whether you adhere to a “it takes two to tango” philosophy. In relation to abortion, the fact that any man could advise women simply to keep their legs closed if they don’t want to get pregnant is proof of the huge pass society gives men where responsible birth control is concerned.

As new birth control methods void male cries of “She duped me into getting her pregnant!” I don’t hold out hope that men will make up a third of the total population on the pill:


If this becomes the norm (i.e. women, by and large, are meticulously responsible for birth control), will that change your stance on when/why abortions should be allowed?
Women already accept a greater burden. It has never and will never make a difference to anti-choice men. To be crude, I think the reasoning among some anti-choice men is a basic biological drive to multiply and begrudge female tampering in the early stages of life. Questions of raising, nurturing, and caring for children are peripheral concerns. I don’t know how else to rationally explain a pro-lifer supporting anti-abortion laws and state life-support laws allowing doctors to pull the plug on patients that can’t afford to pay because that law is “economically sound.”

Women, on the other hand (I think), are more concerned with making sure their biologically limited pool of children, and/or existing children have the best available resources to succeed. They are less forgiving about entrusting their offspring’s care to a third party, or allowing new children to diminish the quality and resources of their existing children’s upbringing.

Will placing an unequal burden on women re: birth control change the sexual mores in our country?
Like I said, women already bear a greater responsibility for birth control and we had the sexual revolution. The male pill may whittle away with the argument that males should have the option to “abort” their economic responsibility to unwanted children but that argument is a sideline to the real debate.

I am reminded of a strange phrase which I have seen people use many, many times.



This weird statement reflects the way that most people seem to think about contraception; that it is almost entirely the responsibility of the woman.

To some extent, this is inevitable. Every unwanted pregnancy is a tragedy, but it is much more of a tragedy for the woman than for the man, simply because of basic human biology. Out of pure self-interest, therefore, it is only logical that women will be more concerned with birth control than men.

This makes it hard for me to answer the questions for debate. Women do bear a larger share of the burden of birth control; this is not hypothetical at all.

In any case, my opinion about the ethics of abortion is based on the ability of the developing embryo to experience suffering, and not at all on why the egg was fertilized.

The third question for debate makes no sense to me; as I have pointed out, women already have an unequal burden. The question to ask would be what might happen if men had an equal share of the burden of birth control. In a perfect world, conception would take place only when the woman and the man both wished it to take place.

Absolutely yes without a doubt of course! There is no other way. Here's why. Only women are able to birth babies. They are able to do so because a penis entered her vagina and ejaculated inside of it. The whole key to the entire (natural) act of conception is the entry and penetration of a penis into the vagina. And here's where it makes sense. If the whole process depends on the penetration of the vagina, and only women have vaginas, then women clearly need to be the one to (dominantly) deal with the situation. Unless the man is given full access and clearance to her vagina as she herself has, the man is not able to be in control; ergo: in the end it's up to the woman. The woman decides what enters her vagina. No one else is or can be responsible.
One thing about this topic: It's odd how women will sometimes go on about how they are in control. About how they can do what they want. How they can make their own choices and be in full control of their own lives (which is great by the way). The whole idea of women's lib. But then, being given the most absolute process of control, namely the birthing process, many weaken and claim dual-responsibility and demand a shared effort.
There is nothing more beautiful than the process of birth, and there is nothing that can take away the feeling of a natural loving birth. A woman who focuses on what her male companion will do for her during her pregnancy or what responsibilities he will be made to have is a woman who is bypassing her own sensuality and is setting herself up for a lacklustre birthing experience.
My wife is a birthing doula and we have three children of our own, with three entirely different birthing experiences, so we have some knowledge about this subject.
The graphics at the beginning of this response was an unavoidable thing not meant to be sick in any way.

So, since since abstinence is foolproof, abortion should be allowed as a method of birth control?




That is assuming that a child born from an unwanted pregnancy is raised by the birth mother. People seem to forget about adoption... Couples that can't have children wait years to adopt a baby... too bad there aren't more of these more unwanted children to adopt...

Actually at the moment there are about 140,000 children up for adoption in the US, and the vast majority of them will never be adopted. Demand for adoptive parents in the US VASTLY outstrips supply.

Part of that is because sadly, most adopting couples in the US dont want to adopt some child, they tend to want to adopt a white, blonde haired child between the ages of 2 months and 18 months. When they do not find a child in the agency that does not meet their profile, they tend to try and go abroad.

Thus, leaving 140,000 children up for adoption unadopted and left to be raised in foster homes or orphanages.

People who oppose gay adoption and things like that should keep these statistics in mind.

As the stewards and hosts of any human life that is created, should women bear a larger share of the burden of birth control?

Well not legally. But if I was a woman I would hold myself responsible for birth control if I was sexually active. I would make sure that issue was taken care of because I would certainly be one of the people around when as a child came to term and came into this world.

If this becomes the norm (i.e. women, by and large, are meticulously responsible for birth control), will that change your stance on when/why abortions should be allowed?

No because I believe this is the way things are today. I don't think anyone should legally be responsible for birth control. Unprotected sex should not be criminalized.

Will placing an unequal burden on women re: birth control change the sexual mores in our country?

Again no. They are the mores I believe are in place today.

Before I start I have to wonder how women as a group could possibly be more responsible for birth control, since it seems to me that they already carry most of "the burden" anyway.

There are only two forms of reliable contraception for which men can really be responsible - condoms (which can and do break, even if correctly used) and vasectomy (which is pretty well permanent). I exclude the rhythm and withdrawal "methods", which , while they are under male control to some degree, I don't see as particularly reliable.

Match this against the various pills, injections, inserted devices or varying durations, as well as the female condom and tubal ligation which are directly analogous to male contraceptive options, that women are pretty much expected by Western society to diligently and consistently apply. Then consider that all contraceptive methods have defined failure rates running variously from fractions of a percentage point (even abstinence is no defence against rape) to 5% or more.

As the stewards and hosts of any human life that is created, should women bear a larger share of the burden of birth control?

Larger than they already do? No - they already take most of the burden on themselves. Larger than men? Yes, they already do, by far, mainly because of the obvious biological imbalance in the gender roles of mammalian procreation you've mentioned.

If this becomes the norm (i.e. women, by and large, are meticulously responsible for birth control), will that change your stance on when/why abortions should be allowed?

No. As a man, I consider my opinion on abortion to be of no real value in the debate. For the same reasons women bear the bulk of the burden of contraception, if it fails, they bear the burden of the decision making process on abortion. My stance on abortion falls into the same category as my stance on baseball, actuarial science or the internal relationships of a random family in a random city over 1000 miles away. I might be passionate and rational, but it's not something I can pretend to really understand and ultimately it's not really any of my business.

Will placing an unequal burden on women re: birth control change the sexual mores in our country?

It has already happened - the burden of contraception has always been on women (for any number of reasons, ranging from simple mathematics to societal sexism) and, since the popularisation of oral contraception in the 1960s, sexual mores have changed radically, and (mostly) for the better.

Birth control is indeed mainly the responsibility of women. To prevent pregnancy, they must rely on themselves for men cannot be trusted in a night of passion to actually use contraceptives. I know that sucks for women, but in this imperfect world, they are the ones stuck with the concequences.
However, it goes both ways. For men, the only somewhat reliable insurance against impreganting his fellow mate, he has to wear protection unless he is 100% sure his other half has "done her job". Simply asking if she took the pill might be sufficient for some to forget anything else. However, he cannot be sure that she really did so, and has to trust her implicitly. Women know when a man wears latex, men can never be sure if a women took the pill.
Consequently, women may be socially responsible to prevent pregnancy, men must use condoms to be sure themselves.

A couple of friends of mine actually had exactely that problem: They either didn't ask or didn't care what their girlfriends used, or in one case asked and she lied to him. To accept fatherhood in such cases means to face it with some reluctance.

Nevertheless, in my opinion (and I am really old fashioned in that way), abortion is not an option in any case but rape [including rape of men by women]. Therefore don't sleep with people who you wouldn't want to raise kids with.
An intact family is a wonderful thing, but the absence of such does in no way justify the murder of a human being. Women should be allowed to do with their body whatever they please, until another life is created in them.

What you propose has already happened in the past. Women were the only ones who took responsibility for their actions. If a woman got pregnant she was to take responsibility. She shouldn't have had sex. She should of waited. If woman are given more responsibility in this matter women will be treated like possesions who bear children which is something femenists have been fighting against for years.