I've found a very good suggestion in some of the comments on my blog entry "I Had an Abortion" (July 30, 2004) at Portland IMC: "Wearing a tee-shirt would be a coragous [sic] act to break that stigma. I would wear one, altough [sic] I am male, because I have confronted that decision and it was a very difficult choice. When shame is a tool to suppress discussion of very important matters then it must be confronted directly. Declaring it boldly might open the conversation" ("Personal Choice," July 30, 2004, 22:18); and "I wouldn't mind seeing guys wearing t-shirts at all (although it might also be good to have 'my partner had an abortion' shirts)" ("I Wouldn't Mind Seeing Guys Wearing the T-shirts," July 30, 2004, 23:26).
If "at least 30 million American women have had abortions since the procedure was legalized" (Barbara Ehrenreich, "Owning Up to Abortion," New York Times, July 22, 2004), there must have been roughly 30 million American men whose errant sperms led to unwanted pregnancies. Yes -- men, too, ought to own up to abortions.
Enterprising feminist men -- and lesbians who have not had abortions themselves but whose partners have -- may employ CafePress.com to make their very own "My Partner Had an Abortion" T-shirts. That will open up a new political conversation.
BTW, CafePress.com has several related products on sale for feminist men. Here is one example:
No Sperm Zone White T-Shirt Product Number: 8435140 $17.99
[A Picture of a No Sperm Zone White T-Shirt]
The merchant Addicted To Beads says that the shirt is a "[g]reat gift for the guy who just had a vasectomy."
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/07/my-partner-had-abortion.html>
Gary? sladeg at verizon.net, Fri Jul 30 22:08:54 PDT 2004:
>wants to feel that ejaculation, exalt in that orgasm
Male ejaculation has little to do with female orgasm, but men who are ignorant about abortion are also ignorant about what gratifies women.
Gary? sladeg at verizon.net, Fri Jul 30 22:08:54 PDT 2004:
>just doesn't give a shit about contraception.
A devotee to safe sex, I've always had men use condoms, but condoms can break, nor does any other sort of contraception work 100%.
suzume at mx82.tiki.ne.jp suzume at mx82.tiki.ne.jp, Fri Jul 30
18:00:02 PDT 2004:
>As for Yoshie's mail and the situation in Japan: even though
>abortion is legal, the pill has not been until very recently (99)
>after decades of debate and after viagra was approved (it took only
>a few months for viagra to be approved).
I've had my abortion in the States, not in Japan.
One major difference between Japanese and American abortions is that almost all of the former are performed in Ob-Gyn clinics whereas the majority of the latter are done in clinics that specialize in abortions.
As for the birth control pill, though it should be available for free to all women who want it (its risks and side effects are minuscule for most women, with one exception: "[w]omen over 35 years old who smoke and take the Pill are about 40 times more likely to have a heart attack than women who don't smoke or take the Pill," <http://www.plannedparenthoodlouisiana.org/pp/teens/truth_pill.html>), personally I'm not in favor of chronic use of it for myself (in part because I'm a smoker).
The safest method of birth control, in my view, would be the combination of the following three:
Use a condom (a male or female condom) for Plan A. Use the morning-after pill for Plan B. Use abortion for Plan C.
Joanna wrote:
>I am fifty, menopausal, and have never had an abortion. I completely
>support a woman's right to have an abortion if she feels it is
>necessary, but I could not wear a t-shirt saying "I had an
>abortion." I couldn't do it because it is counter factual. I
>couldn't do it because I think it's a piece of tactical idiocy.
>Making such a t-shirt (or other artifact) the latest pro-choice
>mobilization tactic divides women for no sensible gain.
A woman who has not had an abortion doesn't need to wear an "I Had an Abortion" T-shirt, but she might wear one that says, "My Mother Had an Abortion," "My Sister Had an Abortion," "My Girlfriend Had an Abortion," or something like that.
In any case, not everyone is queer, but that's no reason for straights to try to stop gay men from wearing a T-shirt that says "Big Fag," lesbians from wearing a T-shirt that says "Nobody Knows I'm a Lesbian," etc. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>