A few weeks ago, a friend from another state dropped by for a visit. When she was sated with the pleasures of life on the farm, we drove to town and, strolling into the farmers’ market, were immediately approached by fellows with petitions. One guy wanted to fund early childhood education with proceeds from sports betting. Another wanted to get RFK Jr. on the ballot. Another wanted to support abortion rights with a constitutional amendment.
I was accustomed to these initiative petition drives but my friend is from one of the 24 states that don’t have the right for citizens to gather signatures and vote for change in the state constitution. Missourians are lucky to have this right and every year it is under attack by lawmakers in Jeff City. If abortion gets on the ballot, men as well as women need to step up and vote for the right.
Right to abortion means that doctors and patients are free to make decisions that can alter health outcomes for women. In Missouri, the right to abortion has been abridged to the point that it is never performed legally, so it’s not tracked here.
In 2023, according to Guttmacher Institute, tracking abortion numbers since 1973, there was a 10% increase in the number of abortions in the United States with a national total of at least 1,026,690. This means that health services in states without bans were overwhelmed with women from states that needed care but couldn’t get it at home.
Guttmacher reported that Missouri’s neighboring state of Illinois hosted 72% more women seeking abortions in 2023 than in 2020 and that 68% of those women were from out-of-state. Virginia had an increase of 76%, North Carolina had an increase of 41% and New Mexico had an increase of 253%.
These numbers show that choice continues despite the extra expense. For those who don’t believe that women should have rights, we have to wonder how they’d treat the more than million unwanted citizens that might have been born and grow up in their midst. Abortion is a poor plan for birth control but last year there were more than a million reasons for someone to need one.
Some reasons for abortion have been with us since the dawn of time: Rape, incest, mental illness, addiction or other inability of a woman (or pregnant girl) to care for a child. When Guttmacher asked women to explain changes in childbearing desires during the pandemic, those wanting fewer babies cited financial concerns, fear of the pandemic, work and career, being overwhelmed with care for others. These are perennial concerns but some women reported worries more related to COVID-19: “It didn’t seem like a good time to bring kids into the world” and “It made me re-evaluate my priorities.”
The concerns have been seen as female but these reasons should be male concerns as well as women’s.
The media has carried a lot of stories about women seeking help, but as I looked for information regarding men’s opinions, there was nothing. Even though men are at least half the problem, they’ve rarely been asked their opinions on the dangerous solution. This is at a time when paternity is ridiculously easy to discover—a baby’s spit and a few dollars to Ancestry.com can reveal the truth. Once discovered, Dad’s in a bind for child support.
According to Google and US Health and Human Services, there were no US studies, except one privately-funded study of 75 men in 1999. “The male partner involved in legal abortion” is included on a US HHS website with nothing about its funding or origins. It found that “More than half clearly stated that they wanted the woman to have an abortion while 20 stressed that they submitted themselves to their partner’s decision. Only one man wanted the woman to complete the pregnancy ...”
I suspect this study was funded by a pro-life group as one conclusion was, “Obviously, men must constitute a target group in efforts to prevent abortions.”
Targeting men with arguments worked to overturn Roe v. Wade. Four male and one female justice voted to overturn and three female and one male justice voted for women’s rights.
One sweeping study—a “scoping review”—of other studies revealed that most research on men’s opinions has been done in the global south, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. “Men’s involvement in abortion is significant, intersecting across the individual, community and macro factors that shape abortion-related care pathways” intone the authors. Men deny or affirm paternity and men control the resources to obtain an abortion. The study goes on to reveal that men are sometimes left out because of women’s fears of repercussions. “This scoping review demonstrates the need for better understanding ...”
Indeed. And to get the right back, men need to speak up and support Choice.
Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2024
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