ABORTION AND BIRTH CONTROL USAGE?

Does the availability of abortion lessen the probability of birth control usage?

Does the availability of abortion lessen the probability of birth control usage?

President Obama has recently reiterated that we “need fathers to recognize that responsibility doesn't end at conception.”1 His and our problem is that in a very real sense male responsibility does in fact end at conception. Men can now choose only sex, not fatherhood. Mothers alone determine whether children shall be allowed to exist.

This transfer of causal responsibility from joint sex act to individual choice act does more than makes men less responsible sexual partners, though it does do that. It also adds loneliness and guilt to any woman's choice to give birth, and makes more likely her abandonment after birth, since women are now solely to blame for any burdens (to themselves or to others) that are incurred with the arrival of a child (Randy, 2000).

Some of these harms could be alleviated by greater empowerment for women, so that they can more easily resist male pressures for irresponsible sex (and then abortion), but other harms cannot be mitigated as long as birth-or-abortion remains solely her decision. For we think that the one who finally gets to choose bears both responsibility and blame for her choice.

If Sex Leads Only to Choice, Women Become More Vulnerable to Exploitation Elective abortion was legalized in 1973 in the United States, in the famous Roe v. Wade case, as a defense of “privacy (Randy, 2000).” One of the most critical voices responding to Roe came from the Left, that of radical feminist Catherine MacKinnon. In her essay “Privacy vs. Equality.”3 MacKinnon explains that “abortion's proponents and opponents share a tacit assumption that women do significantly control sex. Feminist investigations suggest otherwise. Sexual intercourse...cannot simply be presumed co-equally determined” (94-95). She adds that "men control sexuality… Roe does not contradict this” (97).

MacKinnon continues her argument: “So long as women do not control access to our sexuality, abortion facilitates women's heterosexual availability. In other words, under conditions of gender inequality, sexual liberation...does not liberate women; it frees male sexual aggression. The availability of abortion removes the one remaining legitimized reason that women have had for refusing sex besides the headache.... The Playboy Foundation has supported abortion rights from day one...” (99).

Referring specifically to the Roe court opinion, MacKinnon comes to the conclusion that “[Roe's] right to privacy looks like an injury got up as a gift.... Virtually every ounce of control that women won out of this legislation has gone directly into the hands of men...” (99-101).

Let us try to unpack the above claim that “male sexual aggression” has been released, in that “the availability of abortion removes the one remaining legitimized reason that women have had for refusing sex besides the headache.” In the days before elective abortion, intercourse might lead to birth. So a woman might well legitimately refuse a man's sexual advances where neither of them were using birth ...