If you've ever argued
with a significant other over whether toilet seat lids belong up or down, or
whether toilet paper should be mounted to deliver the sheets "over"
or "under" — if you've ever gotten into a nasty little spat over
bathroom trivia, then you have the concept, "What you're arguing about?
That's not what you're arguing about." More exactly, what you're arguing
about is only one of the things you're arguing about.
When Americans argue
about abortion, we're also arguing about, among other issues, the oppression of
women and young people, the difficulty of seeing special value in human life
absent a God to assign that value, the place of religion in politics, the meaningless
futility of life in a universe purged of the Sacred, the value of play and
pleasure, and population issues centering on the policy of
"pronatalism": encouraging the birth and rearing of children.
But if the crucial point is to reduce the number of abortions in the US
to as close to zero as possible, then we need to reduce the number of unwanted
pregnancies, which means, as a practical matter, that we in America have to get
serious about birth control.
If we are to reduce unwanted pregnancies, fertile girls
and women must have easy access to birth control — and ditto for boys and men.
Fertile humans must be encouraged to use birth control and insist that their
partners use birth control and, while both are at it, take reasonable
precautions to reduce the risk of venereal disease (VD, a k a STDs [Sexually
Transmitted Diseases]).
Reduce the risk to zero? That's impossible. But anything
worth doing is worth taking a risk to do, and most post-pubescent people find
sex eminently worth doing. Sex is less risky than SCUBA diving and requires
less training. But even as one needs to trust a dive partner, one needs to trust
— and protect — a sexual partner; and even as only the profoundly stupid dive
drunk or take other dumb risks, even so Americans need to be indoctrinated that
only the profoundly stupid take unnecessary risks with sex.
When I reached puberty back in the 1950s, my father gave
me a box of condoms and the fatherly advice, "Until you know what to do
with it, keep it in your pants." The advice was good since my parents and
their friends had made sure my friends and I would "know what to do with
it": no sex education in school, but we got a short-course at home and
from medical folks the parents pooled their money to bring in for a lecture and
discussion.
Sex education in schools can spend a day or two making
sure boys and girls know that conception is probable when sperm meets egg, and
learn the various ways to prevent that meeting. And they can take a couple
weeks on STDs and preventing catching VD or spreading it.
More important, though, is getting people to actually use
birth control and "safe-enough" sex. We're getting down to the
nitty-gritty here: making contraception and disease prevention materials
readily available, and indoctrinating Americans — starting with adolescents —
to use them.
Feminist women should continue pressing the argument for
contraception (and "contragestion") for girls. I'm male, so I'll argue for indoctrinating American
males to use condoms any time we engage in copulation and aren't actively
trying to make a baby. (Gays included: unprotected anal intercourse can spread
HIV and syphilis.)
Part of the indoctrination can be religious, and I have
no objection to condom packages coming with large cautionary labels such as
"WARNING: SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE MAY LEAD TO DAMNATION." Other parts
of the indoctrination, though, must include the macho and arguably sexist
appeal that real men don't allow women to control men's reproduction and, until
they want children, real men "Wrap that Willy!" The indoctrination
should include the definitely "age-ist" idea that virile young men —
as opposed to weakening old men — can use condoms without losing their
erections.
If the overriding issue is minimizing abortion, and
reducing VD an important goal for public health, then — given that couples will
couple — then development of a "male pill" would be good, and there's
much to be said for encouraging vasectomies,
but, for the foreseeable future, condom-use will be crucial. So, for the
foreseeable future, condoms should be as available for purchase as candy bars,
and maybe more so: fornication may damn you to hell, but it doesn't encourage obesity
or tooth decay. If reducing unwanted pregnancies is crucial, and reducing VD
very important, we should use advertising, marketing, and carefully-crafted propaganda
to push contraception.
Let's get serious: a large-scale public campaign
encouraging guys to "Wrap That Willy!" would violate taboos, but it
would be deeply moral.
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