Let’s Jail Men for Impregnating Women Instead
Come on, Georgia. It’s time for fair play
I have a proposition for lawmakers in Georgia — and Utah, Indiana, Louisiana, Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, and Washington DC. Instead of criminalizing women who don’t carry fertilized eggs to term, let’s criminalize the men who impregnate them. Any man who impregnates a woman who doesn’t want to be a mother goes to jail.
This would be fair play in those states, where women have been jailed for having abortions, miscarriages, or stillborn babies; for falling down the stairs while pregnant, and for attempting suicide, as Jessica Valenti details in this piece.
But if transfer of guilt isn’t possible, a simple expansion will do. Because it takes two people to make an unwanted baby. So why is only one of them going to jail?
The moral basis for expanding anti-choice laws is clear. If a woman faces legal jeopardy for not completing a pregnancy, the man who caused it must face the same. But we need to go further to protect the unborn.
The moral basis for expanding anti-choice laws is clear. If women face legal jeopardy for not completing a pregnancy, the men who caused it must face the same.
It’s also time to criminalize male masturbation. Like women who discard their zygotes, men must be punished for not allowing their sperm to grow into human beings.
Sperm swim, after all, and wiggle their little tails. Isn’t that proof that they’ve been imbued with the sacred breath of life? In fact, the case could be made that sperm are more alive than fertilized eggs, and therefore more sacred, since they move of their own accord.
I’d like to see some signs at the next March for Life: Spermatazoa Have a Right to Grow-a!
Besides the moral imperative, there are economic reasons that men with unbridled fertility must be imprisoned. One in five U.S. children live in poverty, and no wonder. It costs $233,610 to raise a child. But 21 percent of children live with a single mother, while only 4 percent live with a single dad. And 4 out of 10 absent fathers don’t pay child support.
According to the Internet, the chief traits of masculinity are aggression and strength. So our mostly-male lawmakers need to quit hiding and pretending that men have nothing to do with unwanted pregnancies. It’s time to man up and take responsibility for their responsibilities.
One in four American women will have an abortion in her lifetime. But they aren’t the only ones who must go to jail. It’s time for men to be held accountable for their business — or at least wrap it up before having sex.
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