There are two facts about me that are quite evident to anyone who knows me: First, I am a man. Second, I am a man who has developed an opinion about abortion.

I am a man with an opinion about abortion. Even more shocking, I did not consult with the Feminist High Council before formulating my opinions. I did not check the rule book to make sure my man-opinions are within the spectrum of approved perspectives for someone of my anatomical persuasion. I did not fill out the forms requesting permission to publicly voice my unsanctioned beliefs, nor did I review the guidelines to determine the manner and extent to which they can be voiced.

Lord forgive me, I went off on my own and generated a point of view that, it turns out, directly defies the established orthodoxy. And, not satisfied to keep my rogue man-opinions to my man-self, I've gotten into the nasty habit of telling people about them. I might have gotten away with my man-thought crimes had I just kept my man-mouth shut, but it's too late at this point.

Now, every time I mention abortion, I'm reminded by pro-abortion women that I have no right to contribute to the discussion due to my shameful lack of a vagina. "You're a man," they observe as they pat themselves on the back for so effectively disproving everything I just said. This is an "argument" I hear probably 97,000 times a year, and one I heard another 1,000 times last week when I gave my thoughts on the historic abortion case now being considered by the Supreme Court.

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Per tradition, I immediately heard from many feminists who were incensed that I dare say anything on the subject. As one feminist on Twitter put it, my opinion doesn't matter because I'm a male and this is "an issue solely of reproductive rights."

It feels a bit like nabbing low hanging fruit to actually offer a counterargument to the proposition that only (liberal) women should have an opinion on abortion, but I hear this so often that I'm beginning to think these people are sincere. They actually think abortion is a "women's issue" -- and one which men are somehow disqualified from discussing.

So for the benefit of those confused on this point, here's why abortion is more than just a women's issue:

1. The truth is not subject to your genitals.

File this in the "things that shouldn't need to be said out loud" folder. Abortion is a moral question, a legal question, a scientific question, a question of truth and reality and reason. I'm not a doctor, but I'm fairly sure your genitalia will not whisper the answers to these questions to you. The answers can be ascertained by listening not to your reproductive organs, but to your conscience, and by researching the facts. These activities are generally open to members of both genders, although few from either camp choose to participate in them.

Here's what it comes down to: abortion is murder or it is not. Unborn children are people or they are not. It is morally acceptable to kill an innocent human being or it is not. A woman cannot change the objective answers to these questions, and neither can a man. I'm sure it is true that women have a greater emotional insight into this issue -- many of them having carried and birthed children themselves -- but an insight into the truth is not the same as an ability to alter it.

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Indeed, it's precisely this emotional insight that leads most women to oppose abortion. The ones who support it do so by ignoring their particular womanly insight. You'll notice that pro-life women sound passionate and eloquent and feminine when they defend their position, whereas pro-abortion women sound like men. That's because the pro-abortion movement pretends to defend women but actually encourages women to reject that which makes them women.

Pro-abortion progressivism tells us that reproduction is an activity unique to females -- a scientific theory that a third grade biology education reveals as false, but we'll get to that in a moment -- and then tells us that men can't have anything relevant to say about it. But the trouble is that progressivism seeks to brutalize and ultimately eliminate that which is unique to women. It is the pro-lifers, both men and women, who love and respect the unique characteristics of womanhood. It is the pro-life movement that displays a real knowledge of, and appreciation for, the female experience and the female body. Pro-aborts, on the other hand, are experts in womanhood the same way an arsonist is an expert in architecture. He knows how to burn it down, and that's all he's interested in doing.

2. No woman has ever reproduced without the indispensable assistance of a man.

I say that men "assist" in reproduction, but that is a considerable understatement. The reproductive act is one that requires 100 percent from each of the participants. That's the wonder of human sexuality: it's complementary and co-creative. If done in the right context, for the right reasons, it's a mutual expression of love and devotion, and from that expression there is the possibility of an entirely new life forming.

Our culture has long wanted to strip the love, beauty, fidelity, and creative potential from sex and turn it instead into an ugly, selfish, fleeting, individualistic, self-focused activity. In our society, we pursue our selves when we have sex, just as, according to progressive doctrine, the entire point of life and every moment and action contained within it is to pursue our selves. It's therefore no surprise when we hear so many people insist that men have nothing to do with the human lives they create.

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We can't even have an opinion as to whether the babies we helped bring into existence are savagely murdered and sold for parts at a Planned Parenthood clinic. As a man, according to progressives, my child is not my child so long as he is dependent on his mother's body for survival. This is a bit like saying my wife's children were not her children when I watched them by myself for three days while she visited her sister. Parenthood does not work that way, or at least it shouldn't. Progressives know this, which is why, once the baby is born, they are quick to call a man a deadbeat if he doesn't stick around to raise the child they just spent nine months describing as a non-human blob that's none of his business or concern.

Talk about mixed messages.

Now, I make no excuses for men who abandon their families, but I do think progressives have put themselves in a position where they cannot condemn such men without being spectacular hypocrites (not that they ever let a little hypocrisy slow them down). It's certainly detestable for a man to reject his children, because they are his children. They were his children from the beginning, and will remain so until the end. And they are her children, too. And that is the whole beauty of it. They are totally hers and totally his.

I spend my life obsessing over what is mine, what I can possess and own and claim to myself, but when I form a family and have children, finally for the first time "me" becomes "we." In my children and my marriage I find something that is greater than myself. Something that transcends myself. I have something that is absolutely mine and absolutely not mine, all at once. I am sharing something. I am a part of something.

Progressives refuse to grow past this attitude of ownership and possession, especially when it comes to procreation. They treat children as objects to be owned and controlled. A human who depends on another becomes the property of the person entrusted to care for them. The child is a product, a belonging, chattel. It's possessed by it's mother like a person possesses a plot of land or a house or a car or a cell phone. Or, perhaps most accurately, a slave.

But a child is not a possession. And he does not belong only to his mother.

3. Men are duty-bound to oppose abortion.

There are only two types of pro-abortion men: those who are deeply confused about the issue, and those who are selfish, cowardly creeps.

It's no surprise that men of the second type also quite magnanimously support a woman's right to go out half naked, get drunk, and sleep with strangers. These are the men who rise up like white knights to defend Kim Kardashian when she releases one of her bi-weekly nude selfies. "Don't body shame her," they proclaim courageously. "Let women diminish themselves and desperately flaunt their bodies for attention! We have no right to criticize them!"

True heroes, these men. Or it could be that they rather enjoy watching women debase themselves, just as they enjoy encountering drunk women with low standards and no self-respect. And because they enjoy these things so much, they certainly will be very supportive when the women they take advantage of choose to "terminate" the consequences, thereby relieving the generous men of all responsibility.

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They say they support abortion because they respect women, but the reality is exactly the opposite. They support abortion because they take so much pleasure in not respecting women.

The men who conceive children and act so "supportive" when the woman considers abortion are not actually supportive at all. Supporting is precisely the thing they wish to avoid doing. A man has a duty to his child, and when you "support" a woman's decision to kill your own son or daughter, you have shirked that duty in the worst possible way.

And men have a duty not just to their own children, but to society generally. Men should be protectors of the innocent and warriors for truth and dignity. Men are called to show strength, leadership, and moral clarity in the face of atrocities like abortion. Men are commanded to "stand in the gap," as it says in Scripture. Men who fail in this regard do so out of fear, or perhaps out of ignorance, but never out of tolerance or respect.

I find myself even more disappointed in pro-abortion men than I am in pro-abortion women. Some of the women who get abortions are coerced and intimidated into the decision. Often they are young, scared, brainwashed, and ignorant. This doesn't mitigate the evil of abortion, but it shows how the abortion industry victimizes more than just the child it kills. But men who stand off on the sidelines and say, "sure, yeah, kill your kid -- it's none of my business"? What excuse do they have? They aren't the ones the abortion industry specifically tries to prey upon and deceive. It is, in some sense, "easier" for a man to be pro-life, which is why it's such a disgrace when he is not.

The pro-abortion movement is just another sinister force in America convincing men to be weak, selfish, and submissive. Indeed, cowardly, emasculated men are the primary beneficiaries -- really, the only beneficiaries -- of feminism. Thanks to feminism, they are excused from the duties of fatherhood, and they are excused from the duty or taking principled and virtuous stands in defense of the innocent, and for their troubles they get to watch a bunch of "empowered" women post naked selfies all over the internet. Feminism kills babies and destroys womanhood, but spineless, effeminate men make out like bandits.

As for those of us who wish not to accept the "gifts" feminism wants to give us, we must continue to barge into the discussion and rudely involve ourselves in issues like abortion, because that is our responsibility. Notice I am not saying men should speak out against abortion even though they are men; I'm saying they ought to speak out because they are men. We're already in bad shape when men in our culture simply fail to be moral leaders. We're basically doomed when they decide they have no right to be leaders, or that stepping aside and failing to lead is somehow a virtuous act.

My opinion on abortion matters because I'm a human being with a conscience and a basic understanding of science. And it matters because I'm a former unborn child who benefited tremendously from not being aborted. And it matters especially because I'm a man, just as a woman's opinion on the subject matters especially because she's a woman. Both camps have an important and unique voice on this issue, and there is no excuse for either group to remain silent.

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