I spent Tuesday night at the High Noon Saloon with some friends to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Four Star Video Heaven, the best video rental store in the known universe. Along with Charles & the Chili Princess, my former co-workers from DHFS, and James, a friend of Charles' and a former co-worker of mine from the DOC back in the 20th century, I quaffed a few tasty Winter Skals and gabbered. All at once, it dawned on me that it was Tuesday and I petitioned my interlocutors for the use of a cell phone. James stepped up and I called home to have Stevie TiVo that night's Frontline. It was airing an episode called "The Last Abortion Clinic" which you can watch here. Charles commented that he had no idea I was interested in the issue. I replied, "Well, when you're girlfriend has one, you'll be interested too."
The title of the program refers to an abortion clinic in Jackson, Mississippi which is indeed the last such clinic in the whole state. In addition to profiling the clinic, the folks who work there, and those who use its services, the program also looks at the pro-life forces in the state. It also looks at an abortion clinic in neighboring Alabama which many people from Mississippi go to. Roe v. Wade is the jumping off point but it was the Supreme Court's decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that provides the proximate backdrop for the struggle over abortion rights today. While affirming Roe v. Wade, the decision created the "undue burden" test for abortion laws. Essentially – and I hope I'm not misstating the case here – the Court said that states can impose laws which restrict abortion as long as they do not impose an "undue burden" on women seeking them. The concept is quite nebulous and, as the program showed, pro-life forces have been imposing burdens on women seeking abortions since hoping to find friendly courts that have an exceeding liberal definition of "undue".
One of the most notable elements I saw was how the pro-life folks in Mississippi were very confident, indeed, almost boastful, and very pleased with the legislation that the state has enacted. Contrariwise, the women who actually staff the abortion clinics profiled seemed almost defeated. The show ends with the head of the Alabama clinic saying something to the effect that there was a war on and that the pro-choice side was losing.
The show caught my attention immediately because, as regular readers know, my girlfriend had an abortion recently. That abortion isn't just a woman's issue is highlighted by the controversy surrounding Bush's Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito. Alito was as a lower court judge who dissented in Planned Parenthood v. Casey as it made its way to the Supreme Court. In his dissenting opinion, he opined that women, in most circumstances, must notify the father of the pregnancy they plan to terminate. Many on the Left react to the notion of such laws with a resounding "Fuck that!". While I agree with the objection that such a law could bring undue harm upon women whose husbands are not amenable to her choice, the tone of the responses in the blogosphere is what concerns me. Of the blogs I've read, the tone is almost misandronous, if not truly so. The worst behavior of men is brought up to justify a position without regard to men whose behavior is, well, "normal", for lack of a better word.
My experience with abortion was probably the average experience for men. (At least those of us who stick by our women.) I spent most of the process in the waiting room while my girlfriend was with a nurse or doctor. We then watched a video with information about the procedure as per state law. In it, the doctor at the clinic, well, one of them, anyway, read through the checklist of bullet points which we had in our hands. It was funny how he mentioned several times that what we were doing was mandated by our anti-choice legislature. The final bit for me, as I recall, was to sit there while The Dulcinea laid on the table with her legs open and the doctor probing around inside terminating the pregnancy. From there, we went to another dimly lit room where The Dulcinea could recover for a spell before going home. In the room with us was another woman, probably around 40, who had just had an abortion. And she was alone. While she didn't seem distressed because of this, I did think to myself how awful it was that she was there by herself.
Over the course of the 3 visits to the clinic, I think I saw one other man. Several women were there alone while others had a friend or relative with them who was also a woman. While it is almost certain not the majority of women were not there for abortions, it did reinforce the notion in me that men generally are completely divorced from just about anything to do with the health of women's generative organs. I felt desperately out of place. It seems like, when women have a problem with an arm, their stomachs, or their eyes, men are helpful and involved, but, when it comes to their naughty bits, we shy away and want nothing to do with the matter. It's weird because one would think that a woman's health should be a concern to the husband or boyfriend – every aspect of her health including her naughty bits.
Sitting there in the operating theater – OK, it was just a small room – I didn't really feel like I was being unfathered. It felt like I was there while The Dulcinea was getting a broken limb splinted. The sense of fatherhood really didn't factor into the situation for me other than relief at not having to deal with it. Most assuredly this was due in some measure to me not being the one who was pregnant. Perhaps the knowledge that it was a blastocyst that was being removed, not anything resembling The Dulcinea or me, that contributed. It was just vaguely surreal to be in that situation. Prior to this, abortion was always something that happened to other people. It was other women who had unplanned pregnancies by other men. But, this time, it was me, your humble narrator, in that room at that clinic. Afterwards, when The Dulcinea and I were in the parking lot, she expressed her thanks to me for having been by her side and for having been so supportive of her.
As I sit here listening to the final movement of Beethoven's glorious 9th (one of the most beautiful and, well, joyous, pieces of music ever), I am glad that I did not become a father. I am glad that abortion is legal and safe. But, having watched "The Last Abortion Clinic" and knowing what kind of man is looking to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, I worry that abortion may become illegal and unsafe (for most women, at least – is there any doubt that rich women will be able to have abortions performed by doctors even if the procedure were to become outlawed?) soon. While the vast majority of the repercussions of abortion as a medical procedure belong to women alone, abortion as a general issue facing society very much involves men. Pro-choice men need to standup for themselves as fathers, potential fathers, and as men who don't want to be fathers. But more importantly, men need to stand up for their wives and girlfriends, for their friends, sisters, cousins, mothers, aunts – for women hundreds of miles away that they'll never meet. If abortion was to become illegal, it could be your sister that's found dead in a hotel room with a coat hanger next to her body. It could be your daughter becoming a mother when she is still but a girl. Part and parcel of being pro-choice, in my opinion, is rejecting abstinence only education in schools. It does not work! Birth control and knowledge of it does. More power to anyone who practices abstinence but there aren't 6 billion plus people on this earth because the drive to procreate is easily undermined. Pro-choice woman AND men should be concerned and should make their voices heard or else have their choices made for them.
National Abortion Rights Action League
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin
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