QI’m pro-choice. The antichoice position—particularly the dumb contention that “personhood” begins when sperm hits egg—is illogical and unappealing. It’s not the most unappealing quality I can think of in a partner, though—that would probably be dishonesty. Your advice last week to the young woman who discovered that her boyfriend is antichoice was terrible. You advised LIFE to tell her boyfriend that she’s pregnant in order to see if that changes his position. If a woman told me she was against abortion in all circumstances, I would think twice about dating her. If she told me she was pregnant and asked me to support the child, and then told me that she was just seeing how I would react, I would dump her. —Vasectomy in Montana
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Basically this: Conservatives tend to change their positions on specific “controversial” social issues when “it” happens to them. Nancy Reagan came out for stem-cell research after her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Rush Limbaugh came out for treatment over incarceration for drug offenders after he got caught with his hand in the OxyContin jar, Dick Cheney came out for marriage equality after his daughter came out as a lesbian. Likewise, a lot of conservatives—male and female—are antichoice until an unplanned pregnancy happens to them. Access to safe and legal abortion services becomes important when “it” happens to them. (Sometimes the cure doesn’t stick. Scott DesJarlais, for example, is a rabidly pro-life member of Congress from Tennessee. But back in 2000, when he was a doctor, he pressured his mistress, who was also his patient, to get an abortion in an effort to save his failing marriage. As a member of Congress, DesJarlais opposes abortion in all cases, without exception . . . unless “it,” i.e., an unplanned pregnancy, happens to him.)
This inability to empathize—this refusal to imagine what it might be like to have an ill relative or a drug problem or a gay child or an unplanned pregnancy—is a defining characteristic of modern conservatism. But my plan to instill a little empathy in LIFE’s boyfriend was itself lacking in empathy. LIFE’s boyfriend might have been traumatized by the lie—not just by the lie itself, but by the violation of trust. So my advice wasn’t just bad, it was hypocritical. Mea culpa.
QYour response to LIFE was horrible. Flat-out lie and see what response you get? How about having a frank discussion to see how he really feels about abortion? I hope LIFE was smart enough to disregard your idiotic “advice.” —Offended
Finally, a word to all the antichoice men out there who were so hurt that I told their girlfriends—imaginary in many instances—to dump them. If you oppose abortion because you believe that “sexual choices should have consequences,” as more than one of you stated (was there a form letter circulating?), then you should be able to wrap your heads around this: political choices have consequences, too. You can choose to be antichoice, and women can choose not to date you.
