The Royal "We"

I know this isn't new, but it's still really disturbing.

An LA Times article reports on male anti-abortion activists.

Their new tactic is apparently using the pronoun "we." We had an abortion. I hate it when "we're pregnant" I hate it when "we have abortions." It's got nothing to do with "we."

Sure, "we're having a baby" works. We're in debt. We're having sex. Because those all involve both people. In a perfect world, men and women would be involved in what happens to their progeny, but it's not a perfect world. Bottom line: women will be more affected by a baby. No matter how you slice it. It's a woman's body, she gets final say.

But the reason to read the article is the men they found to interview:

Morrow, the counselor, described his regret as sneaking up on him in midlife -- more than a decade after he impregnated three girlfriends (one of them twice) in quick succession in the late 1980s. All four pregnancies ended in abortion.

Years later, when his wife told him she was pregnant, "I suddenly realized that I had four dead children," said Morrow, 47, who lives near Erie, Pa. "I hadn't given it a thought. Now it all came crashing down on me -- look what you've done."

Does this guy not believe in condoms? What's the deal? "Hadn't given it a thought"?

But here's the really funny/sad one:

Chris Aubert, a Houston lawyer, felt only indifference in 1985 when a girlfriend told him she was pregnant and planned on an abortion. When she asked if he wanted to come to the clinic, he said he couldn't; he played softball on Saturdays. He stuck a check for $200 in her door and never talked to her again.

Aubert, 50, was equally untroubled when another girlfriend had an abortion in 1991. "It was a complete irrelevancy," he said. But years later, Aubert felt a rising sense of unease. He and his wife were cooing at an ultrasound of their first baby when it struck him -- "from the depths of my belly," he said -- that abortion was wrong...

Aubert wonders: What if his first girlfriend had not aborted? How would his life look different?

He might have endured a loveless marriage and, perhaps, a sad divorce. He might have been saddled with child support as he tried to build his legal practice. He might never have met his wife. Their children -- Christine, Kyle, Roch, Paul, Vance -- might not exist.

"I wouldn't have the blessings I have now," Aubert said. So in a way, he said, the two abortions may have cleared his path to future happiness.

"That's an intellectual debate I have with myself," he said. "I struggle with it."

In the end, Aubert says his moral objection to abortion always wins. If he could go back in time, he would try to save the babies.

But would his long-ago girlfriends agree? Or might they also consider the abortions a choice that set them on a better path?

Aubert looks startled. "I never really thought about it for the woman," he says slowly.

Jesus! He didn't even go with that girl to get "their" abortion? And he's never CONSIDERED what her life is like?

No one wants to get an abortion. It's a hard decision that can haunt you, but it's also a hard decision that could be the best decision you make. Yes, it sucks that guys don't get the final say. But it also sucks that guys can't get pregnant.

Huckabee can blame/jail doctors all he wants (we have to protect women from the big scary MALE doctors who just want to abort their precious babies! - another tactic from the "pro-life" crowd), these guys can cry and become alcoholics, but the choice always lies with the woman who has to squirt out the kid. I know it's not fair, but neither is pregnancy.