QI recently discovered that my boyfriend of seven months and I have opposing viewpoints on the whole “life begins at conception” issue. He’s not a crazy zealot, but he is strongly against abortion. And while he won’t go so far as to say abortion should be banned, he does believe in the whole “personhood” concept, i.e., that a fetus—from the moment of conception—is a person with the same rights as any other person. This shocked me, and I almost broke up with him. He says that disagreeing on issues is fine in a relationship, but I am not so sure. I find his position abhorrent, one that ignores hundreds of real-life factors, and it opens the door for a litany of laws regulating my body. He’s a sweet, loving guy and progressive in every other way. But I’m suddenly unsure about a relationship I viewed as totally solid just a few days ago. I’m not sure if this should be a deal breaker or if this is just a disagreement. Please advise. —Love Is Finding Errors
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Some men blithely assume antichoice positions because “personhood” and other antichoice arguments appeal to them in the abstract and, hey, it’s not like their bodies or their futures are on the line, right? Most antichoice-in-the-abstract men come to a very different conclusion about the importance of access to safe and legal abortion when an unplanned pregnancy impacts them directly.
So tell your boyfriend you’re pregnant. You can present it as a thought experiment if you prefer, LIFE, but I think you should flat-out lie to him. Then, once the news sinks in, ask him if he’s ready to provide financial support for a child and/or make regular, monthly child support payments directly to you. Ask him if he’s ready for the responsibilities (and the grind) of full- or even part-time parenting. Ask him if he knows you well enough—just seven short months into this relationship—to make the kind of lifetime commitment that scrambling your DNA together entails. Because even if you don’t get married, even if you don’t live together and raise this child together, you two will be stuck with each other for the rest of your lives if you have the baby.
And speaking of abortion . . .
It’s important for your friend to bear in mind that her son, if he is indeed kinky, sought out kinky porn. Kinky porn didn’t make him kinky. And being shamed by his mother for his porn preferences—or his kinks—isn’t going to unmake his kinks.
