Top Quotes: “Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion” — Gabrielle Stanley Blair

Introduction

“My key claim is that 99 percent of abortions are the result of unwanted pregnancies, and men cause all unwanted pregnancies. Currently, conversations about abortion are entirely centered on women — on women’s bodies, and whether women have a right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. For those who want to effectively reduce abortion (or outlaw it altogether, as many states have done), this focus on women is a fundamental mistake for two reasons: 1) because there is clear data that abortion bans are ineffective and 2) because, again, men cause all unwanted pregnancies. If you’re focused on women, you’re wasting your time.

Don’t believe me that men cause all unwanted pregnancies? Let me walk you through it. I’ve got twenty-eight simple arguments in this book explaining how and why this is true.

An unwanted pregnancy doesn’t happen because people have sex. An unwanted pregnancy only happens if a man ejaculates irresponsibly — if he deposits his sperm in a vagina when he and his partner are not trying to conceive. It’s not asking a lot for men to avoid this.

We’ve put the burden of pregnancy prevention on the person who is fertile for 24 hours a month, instead of the person who is fertile 24 hours a day, every day of their life.”

“A man’s sperm is fertile every single second of every single day. And though we know his sperm gets crappier as he ages, a man can produce sperm until the day he dies.

At eighty years old, a woman who menstruated for forty years will have experienced 480 days of fertility.

At eighty years old, a man who hit puberty at age twelve will have experienced 24,208 days of fertility.

So let’s do the math. 24,208 divided by 480 … carry the 4 … and it turns out that compared to women, men have a little more than fifty times the number of fertile days.

Most times when a woman has sex, she cannot be impregnated because her egg is not fertile. Every time a man has sex, he can potentially impregnate someone, because he is always fertile. In theory, in any given year, a fertile man could impregnate a different fertile woman (or more than one!) every single day and cause 365 (or more!) pregnancies. During that same year, a woman can only experience a full pregnancy once.”

“For one, sperm live longer than an egg. Once deposited in a woman’s body, sperm have a “fertile window” that is up to five days long.

Let’s say a man and woman have sex on a Monday. He puts his sperm in her vagina, and then some of the sperm end up sticking around. The man and woman then travel for work in different cities and don’t see each other again for a week.

On Monday, the woman’s egg isn’t fertile and the sperm, which are still hanging out, can’t fertilize it.

On Tuesday, her egg isn’t fertile, and the sperm can’t fertilize it.

On Wednesday, her egg isn’t fertile, and the sperm can’t fertilize it.

On Thursday, something changes. The woman’s egg reaches the fertile point, and the sperm that are still hanging around her vagina suddenly find that they can breach the egg wall, which was impregnable just hours before.

On Thursday, the woman is impregnated via sex that she had on Monday.

So, it’s accurate to say that a woman’s egg is only fertile for 24 hours every month. But in reality, to avoid a pregnancy, sperm needs to be kept away from an egg for the woman’s 24-hour fertility window, plus five days beforehand. To be extra safe, doctors recommend keeping sperm away from eggs for seven days before the 24-hour fertility window.”

“The study also spoke directly about what this means when women use apps to try and track fertility:

Apps to track fertility are increasingly being used among women who are seeking to conceive, and many purport to predict ovulation based on cycle length characteristics alone, which can have extremely low predictive accuracy. These apps also assume each woman’s fertile window is the same length, disregarding evidence that the length of the fertile window differs among women.

Ultimately, trying to track a woman’s fertility by watching the calendar or watching for physical signs, or using an app, is not a tenable form of birth control. It’s a risky endeavor, fraught with the biggest possible consequences.”

“We ignore the fact of men’s fertility. We don’t track men’s fertility at all. There are no apps for that. No over-the-counter tests at the pharmacy. Because there’s no need; we already know when men are fertile. Men are fertile all day, every day. We have an entire pregnancy prevention industry built around the brief, elusive period of monthly female fertility, and nothing, absolutely nothing even close to equivalent, that addresses the always persistent male fertility. We are laser-focused on the wrong thing.”

“We treat ejaculation as something that happens at random, that is unintentional, that is impossible to anticipate or predict. And we treat ovulation like it can be pinpointed well in advance and easily predicted. Somehow, we’ve confused the two.”

“Women cannot control when they are fertile. Women cannot choose when ovulation begins or ends. Women cannot control the movement of their egg. During sex, women cannot remove their egg from their body and place it in someone else’s body. If sperm are nearby and the egg is fertile, the egg will activate and interact with the sperm, helping them penetrate the egg surface, but until then, the egg stays where it is and waits. It does not leave the body in search of a substance that can impregnate it.

Men can control when they ejaculate. Men can control how often they ejaculate. Men can actively choose to remove sperm from their own body and place it into someone else’s body. And men’s sperm are active. Upon ejaculation, sperm immediately seek out an egg to fertilize.”

Birth Control

“In the United States, 90 percent of married women have used birth control. 93 percent of single women with long-term partners have used birth control. 99 percent of women who identify as religious – mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, and Catholics – have used birth control. 88 percent of all women have used contraception.”

“Consider the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, which was paused for ten days when a risk of blood clots was discovered. Six people out of the seven million who had received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine developed serious blood clots. One of them died. At the time, it was scary to read the headlines, though the risk of blood clot from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is less than one in a million.

In contrast, the common forms of women’s birth control come with a much higher risk of blood clots – oral contraceptives triple the risk of blood clots. According to the FDA, the risk of birth control users developing a serious blood clot is three to nine out of 10,000 each year (and 327 million people are taking hormonal birth control worldwide).

Based on what we know right now, birth control is riskier than any of the COVID-19 vaccines. And yet, it is prescribed daily without hesitation, often beginning at age thirteen or fourteen (sometimes younger).”

“Men consider what your girlfriend/wite/partner is doing for you. She’s fertile 3 percent of the time and addressing her fertility 100 percent of the time, whether she has sex or not.”

“Standard birth control pills are taken for twenty-one days, followed by a seven-day break, during which the woman takes a sugar pill or placebo (seven of the placebo pills come in the standard Pill pack of twenty-eight) and experiences vaginal bleeding. So women who take the pill have what seems like a “period” each month. But this “period” is manufactured and isn’t even a little bit necessary. When a person stops taking the Pill for a week and takes the placebo instead, hormone levels drop, which causes the lining of the uterus to shed. But it’s not the same as menstrual bleeding – the body isn’t flushing out an egg-and technically, this “period” is called withdrawal bleeding.

Apparently, the seven-day break and its fake “period” was designed into the Pill as an “attempt to persuade the Pope to accept the new form of contraception as an extension of the natural menstrual cycle.”

This attempt did not succeed, and the current Pope continues to forbid contraception in most cases. But the seven-day “break” is still a part of the Pill, and this unnecessary complication increases the chances for mistakes – mistakes that increase the risk of unwanted pregnancy.”

Vasectomies

“Men have two options for birth control: condoms and vasectomies. Both are easier, cheaper, more convenient, and safer than birth control options for women.”

“Vasectomies are safe, effective, and highly reversible. A vasectomy is a quick outpatient procedure with local anesthetic that takes place at a doctor’s office and doesn’t require a hospital stay.

Recovery from a vasectomy is easy, and most men return to work two to three days later and can resume physical activity in three to seven days. Recovery essentially looks like sitting in front of the TV with a bag of frozen peas. (I don’t want to downplay soreness and pain, but if it makes you hesitant, I would like to take a moment to remind you that female contraception op-tions, used by millions of women in our country and across the world, have well-known side effects that can be brutal and severe – and yes, also include soreness.)

Again, vasectomies are very safe, often covered by insurance, and the most reliable birth control option for men available at 99.99 percent effective. In other good news: Doctors are clear that after a vasectomy you will not experience any differences in your sexual function or pleasure. You will still be able to get an erection and eiaculate. and everything will feel the same.”

“As mentioned, vasectomies are highly reversible. Successful reversal rates are known to hover around 75 percent for vasectomies reversed within three years, with less success as the time between vasectomy and reversal attempt increased, but happily, things are improving. The Stanford Medical Center reports that, depending on the type of technique used, their vasectomy reversal success rate is 95 percent and makes clear that the length of time between the vasectomy and the reversal doesn’t affect that success. The International Center for Vasectomy Reversal in Arizona, says, “Our experts can achieve a proven, published success as high as 99.5%.” As far as vasectomy reversals go, we’re clearly on a positive trajectory.”

“Further improving vasectomy and reversal techniques would mean men could get a vasectomy when they are ready to be sexually active and then reliably reverse it if they and their partner want to conceive.”

“Planned Parenthood website section on the Pull-Out Method says:

For every 100 people who use the pull-out method perfectly, 4 will get pregnant. But pulling out can be difficult to do perfectly. So in real life, about 22 out of 100 people who use withdrawal get pregnant every year – that’s about 1 in 5.

So, the Pull-Out Method is 96 percent effective when men do it perfectly. I realize that 96 percent is not as good as the effectiveness of the Pill (99 percent) or condoms (98 percent) or a vasectomy (99.99 percent), but it’s still pretty darn effective.

But as Planned Parenthood confirmed, pulling out can be difficult to do perfectly, so the Pull-Out Method is actually only 78 percent effective. That’s not nearly as comforting as 96 percent, but it’s still way, way better than doing nothing at all.

When learning that 78 percent statistic, a responsible man would not respond: Well, the Pull-Out Method isn’t effective enough, so I won’t bother. But rather: I’d better learn what mistakes to avoid with the Pull-Out Method. This is serious business. I can’t mess around with someone else’s life like that. Part of my becoming an adult means I need to know how to pull out effectively and to do everything I can, like using condoms or considering a vasectomy, to make sure it doesn’t come to that in the first place.

Is this asking too much? We expect women to use their birth control perfectly, to remember to take the Pill daily, to keep up with doctor’s appointments and prescriptions.

Why shouldn’t we expect men to use their birth control methods perfectly as well?”

“In the United States, only 9 percent of men who are sexually active get vasectomies (but 27 percent of women who are sexually active get tubal ligations).”

“Tubal ligations, aka tubals, aka “getting your tubes tied – where the woman’s fallopian tubes are tied off, cut, clamped, banded, sealed off with an electric current, or blocked – are often compared to men’s vasectomies. This is understandable, because they are both considered permanent forms of birth control. But in practice and lived experience, vasectomies are easier and less risky.

A tubal ligation is a minor surgery – usually only thirty minutes – which involves one to two cuts through the abdomen. It requires either general anesthesia or spinal anesthesia (a type of local anesthesia that leaves you awake) and is performed at a hospital or outpatient surgical clinic. Most patients are able to go home the day of surgery but are instructed to wait several hours after the surgery before they leave the hospital or surgical clinic; they are further instructed that they should not drive themselves home or do any heavy lifting for approximately three weeks.

Vasectomies are outpatient procedures – usually only fifteen minutes – that happen in a doctor’s office with a local anesthetic, and the patient can drive himself home immediately afterward.

Doctors and healthcare providers agree tubals are more invasive, riskier, and more complicated than vasectomies.”

“It’s not just that it’s riskier than a vasectomy. Tubal ligations are routinely denied to women who are under thirty-five or who don’t have kids. And not for the reasons outlined above, but because we have a paternalistic medical system that believes women aren’t capable of making decisions about their own bodies. In fact, though it’s not a legal requirement, it’s also not uncommon for a doctor to require a woman to get the signature of her husband before they are willing to perform a tubal ligation.”

“We don’t even notice that women pay the costs of birth control, even though it benefits both men and women. In fact, I’ve never met a woman who charges her boyfriend for half the costs of the doctor’s appointments, transportation, and prescription refills required of her to handle pregnancy prevention.

To be clear, men may not expect their girlfriend to help with the costs of condoms either, but the differences in cost between condoms and birth control (dollars, time, convenience, forethought, etc.) are significant, pennies to dollars. And as already mentioned, women also purchase more than 30 percent of condoms.”

Conclusion

“In 2016, the World Health Organization conducted a trial for male birth control — a hormonal injection that would lower sperm count. The results were very promising, showing a 96 percent effectiveness rate at preventing pregnancy. But even with the positive results, the trial was stopped. A committee determined the side effects of the drug were risking the safety of the study participants.

The most common side effects were acne and weight gain, which are also very common side effects for women’s birth control. The most serious side effects for the men was that one participant became depressed and another suicidal. Which I agree is very serious. But side effects for women’s birth control options are just as serious, if not more so — yet millions of women are still prescribed these drugs and ingest them daily.

That story perfectly captures an unspoken cultural maxim: We don’t mind if women suffer, as long as it makes things easier for men.

Another medical example is “The Husband Stitch.” Some doctors put in an extra stitch when repairing episiotomies or tearing from childbirth. The idea is that the stitch will tighten the vagina and provide increased pleasure for a male sexual partner. Unfortunately, the extra stitch can create painful consequences for women, including excruciating pain during sex.

Some women don’t find out they’ve been given a husband stitch until they have a gynecological appointment with a new provider, a postpartum checkup, or a subsequent pregnancy.”

“The thing is, the Husband Stitch doesn’t actually make a vagina tighter. The man who requests the stitch or is happy about the stitch may get satisfaction from the idea that his partner’s vagina is “tighter,” but he won’t actually feel a difference. His psychological satisfaction is prioritized over the women’s physical pain.”

“Here’s the thing, vasectomies are always performed with at least a local anesthetic, while pain meds are rarely if ever used for IUD insertions. Let me say that again: these two procedures — one for men, and one for women — are both invasive and both involve very sensitive body parts. It’s expected that the procedure will be painful for men, so pain relief is always administered. For women, it’s expected that if it is painful, the women will just endure it, and pain relief is almost never administered.

I was especially interested to learn that the administration of general anesthesia (which is a serious procedure in its own right) is the only thing that has been shown to consistently remove the pain of IUD insertion. Should women be allowed to choose between the risks of general anesthesia and the risk of pain during an unmedicated IUD insertion? Or should the medical field just keep choosing for women, by not offering pain medication at all and telling women “it will just be a pinch.””

“The panel of decision-makers who were funding the study decided they would pursue the research for erectile dysfunction. Eventually the drug came to market. It was called Viagra.

In subsequent tests for the same drug, sildenafil citrate, they discovered that it also offered significant and lasting relief for women suffering from serious period pain.

That same team of decision-makers, all of whom were men, decided against pursuing research on menstrual cramp relief. Why? They believed that cramps were not a public health priority.”

“A typical sex ed class in the United States will cover women’s internal reproductive organs — ovaries, fallopian tubes, etc. — but doesn’t explore the pleasure-related clitoris (how it works, how it’s stimulated, how it connects to a female orgasm). Many don’t even mention the clitoris. The same is not true for the pleasure-related penis.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that sex ed classes are focused on male pleasure, I’m just pointing out that the penis definitely comes up in sex ed (pun intended). Erections are explained. Ejaculations are explained. The pleasure men experience during sex — arousal and orgasm — are just presented as part of the basic mechanics of sex.

It’s taken for granted that men will experience pleasure during these sexual interactions. Will women experience pleasure in the same interactions? Who knows? It doesn’t come up, because a woman’s orgasm isn’t an essential part of learning about the birds and the bees.”

“When masturbating, 95 percent of women orgasm. In first-time hookups with other women, they orgasm 64 percent of the time. But in first-time hookups with men, they orgasm only 7 percent of the time. So we know that when we ignore the experience of women’s pleasure during sex, the problem isn’t women’s ability to orgasm. It’s our cultural approach toward heterosexual sex and our focus on men’s pleasure over everything else.”

“The science is also firmly established that eggs can easily be fertilized without any orgasm from the woman at all. So any theory painting the woman’s orgasm as an essential part of biological procreation just doesn’t hold up.

A woman experiencing pleasure and orgasm has never caused a pregnancy.

Of course, this flies in the face of people bent on “slut-shaming” women and blaming women’s libidos and “slutty” behaviors for unwanted pregnancies. Let’s address that view head on:

When I write that a woman experiencing pleasure and orgasm has never caused a pregnancy, what this means is a woman can be the sluttiest slut in the entire world— she could do nothing but have orgasms all day and all night during penetrative sex with multiple partners and no unwanted pregnancies will ever occur unless a man ejaculates irresponsibly in her body.

Why are we talking about unwanted pregnancies?

Because 99 percent of abortions are the direct result of unwanted pregnancy. And we need to understand very clearly that women enjoying sex does not cause unwanted pregnancies and abortion. What causes unwanted pregnancies and abortion? Men enjoying sex and having irresponsible ejaculations.”

“How often are sperm found in precum? Researchers don’t really know. A 2016 study found 17 percent of the men in the study had sperm in their precum. But a 2021 study was inconclusive. We know that Planned Parenthood reports that the Pull-Out Method, when used perfectly, is 96 percent effective. Since pulling out perfectly or imperfectly wouldn’t change the amount of sperm in precum, that 96 percent statistic suggests that sperm in precum is not especially common, or if they are common, it suggests that sperm found in precum aren’t particularly effective at fertilization.

How do sperm end up in the precum in the first place? Again, the research isn’t conclusive, but the most common theory is that earlier ejaculations can leave sperm in the pipes, and then the sperm leak out with the precum.

If you’re worried about sperm in precum, definitely use a condom. (And hey, condoms also protect both partners from STIs — using one is a good idea every time you have sex.) Convinced precum is a major cause of unwanted pregnancies? Well, I haven’t found any data that backs that up.”

“During sex a woman cannot keep her egg hidden away somewhere so that it’s not exposed to sperm. Women cannot remove their egg before sex and set it aside and them put it back in their uterus when sex is finished. Yes, the egg moves to diferent positions within the reproductive system, but the woman can’t control when those changes in posittom happen, and those changes in position are independent of a woman’s sexual behavior. If a woman has sex, it doesn’t mobilize or change the position of her egs. If a woman has an orgasm, it doesn’t mobilize or change the position of her egg. If a woman doesn’t have an orgasm, it still doesn’t mobilize or change the position of her egg.

Unlike women and their eggs, men can mobilize and direct sperm to leave their body. That is what an ejaculation is. It’s men choosing to direct sperm from their body and put it someplace else. During consensual sex, men get to choose if they will release sperm from their body, and men get to choose where they will put that sperm.

They may put the sperm in a condom. They may have a vasectomy, in which case they keep their sperm to themselves and only ejaculate sperm-free semen. They might put the sperm on their partner’s stomach. They might put the sperm in their hand. They might put the sperm in a tissue, a spare sock, a plant, or on a random spot on the floor or wall. Or they might put the sperm in a vagina and put their partner at severe risk for the complications of unwanted pregnancy.

You may be thinking: But if it’s consensual sex, then they both caused the unwanted pregnancy!

Well, not really. Even in the case of consensual sex, the man gets final say. This is how it works:

Step 1: Woman consents to sex.

Step 2: Man decides if he will ejaculate responsibly.”

“Ultimately only the man decides where his sperm ends up. Only he can choose what to do with his sperm and where it goes. A woman telling a man he doesn’t have to wear a condom doesn’t force that man to have sex with her without a condom. He has the right of refusal. If he chooses to have sex without a condom, then he is choosing to risk causing an unwanted pregnancy.

No matter what a woman “lets” a man do, she can’t (legally) make a man ejaculate inside of her. When he does, that’s 100 percent his doing. We know this is true because if she “let” him put his penis in a waffle iron, he wouldn’t. If someone tells you to do an irresponsible thing, and you choose to do that irresponsible thing, that’s on you.”

“Let’s try another scenario. A woman and a man agree to have sex without a condom (conveniently for this scenario, he’s among the majority of men who don’t have sperm in their precum). He puts his penis in her vagina, starts his best moves, and shortly after, she has an orgasm, but he hasn’t yet. As soon as her orgasm is finished, she stops and says “Thanks so much for the sex!” then gets dressed and leaves. Though they had sex, and though her egg was present, and though she had an orgasm, the women wasn’t impregnated and could not be impregnated. The women successfully had unprotected sex with no risk of pregnancy because her male partner didn’t ejaculate. Unprotected sex without sperm will not lead to pregnancy.”

“Why wouldn’t it be the default that men should provide their own condom and put it on without a request? Who benefits if the man doesn’t wear a condom?

If a woman doesn’t make the request — let’s pretend she’s preoccupied and forgets to ask — does that mean the man is off the hook? She didn’t bring it up so therefore he doesn’t need to wear a condom? He doesn’t need to be responsible for his own bodily fluids? Of course he does.

If Person One knows they have an STI and transmits it to their partner, Person Two, in many states that’s a crime, and Person One can be prosecuted by the state. Additionally, Person Two can bring a civil suit against Person One. If your bodily fluids have the potential to harm your partner, it’s your responsibility to ensure they don’t.”

“In my research for this book, I’ve heard from a lot of wives and girlfriends. Women who are with men they love and trust and are building a solid life with. But these women come with stories. One, a mother of three with an IUD, told me she has bled every day for a year, that she hates the side effects of the IUD and has tried everything else. She wonders: Why hasn’t her husband suggested a vasectomy? Another woman explained that she wanted lots of kids eventually, but that her husband “didn’t like using condoms,” and they ended up with four kids in five years — much faster than she had wanted and much faster than her body could handle without serious long-term damage. Again, these are women in stable, loving marriages, with men who try to be good husbands and fathers.

These stories show something clearly: We, men and women, have a huge blind spot when it comes to men and birth control. Men assume women will do all the work of pregnancy prevention, that a woman will take responsibility for her own body and for the man’s body, and women assume women will do it, too.”

“Murder is the leading cause of death for pregnant women, often committed by the man who impregnated them.”

“Anyone experiencing pregnancy and childbirth should expect permanent, negative changes to their body, including scarring, pain, and loss of function. That may sound like an extreme thing to say, but I would argue that it only sounds extreme because our culture consistently downplays what women experience during pregnancy and childbirth.”

“Pregnancy and childbirth can change the skeletal structure of a body. The vagina can literally fall out after having a baby — it’s called pelvic organ prolapse. It’s common for feet to grow a full size or more (say goodbye to every pair of shoes you own). The mother can experience serious bone loss as the fetus absorbs calcium from the mother’s body.

There can be shorter-term issues like hair loss, a broken coccyx, kidney stones, extreme nausea and vomiting that damages the esophagus, cracked ribs, massive blood loss, hemorrhoids, and healing from a third-degree genital tear with more than thirty stitches. There can be lifelong issues like chronic high blood pressure that can lead to stroke and a damaged pelvic floor that causes urine leaks every time you sneeze. Pregnancy and childbirth can bring on new allergies, depression, uterine infections, the need for gallbladder removal, rheumatoid arthritis, and infertility.

Pregnancy and childbirth can change how your body moves — when I ask women to tell me about what pregnancy and childbirth did to their bodies, I consistently get descriptions like: Pregnancy made it so I can’t reach up high or do sit-ups and I can no longer lie flat on my back on the floor. A pregnant body may experience symphysis pubis dysfunction (SPD), also called pelvic girdle pain (PGP). This is caused when the hormones that allow your pelvis to pull apart during birth are released too early, and it can make it very difficult to walk.

Pregnancy and childbirth can change the way a body looks — episiotomy scars, vaginal scars, C-section scars, peripherally inserted central catheter line scars, and widespread scarring on the midsection, thighs, bottom, and breasts from rapidly stretching skin. Diastasis (abdominal muscle separation) is common. So is weight gain. And don’t forget about saggy breasts.

Women are generally just expected to deal with these issues and body changes without complaint — to cheerfully accept that these changes are a part of motherhood.”

“Some of the issues brought on by pregnancy and childbirth can be solved or improved with medical intervention, but insurance may or may not cover the costs depending on whether or not the procedure is considered cosmetic.

And then there is the pain. Pregnancy and childbirth hurt. Backaches, headaches, pinched nerves, stretching skin, swollen breasts. Despite how uncomfortable it can be, pain relief isn’t typically offered during pregnancy, for fear of harming the developing fetus.

During labor and delivery, an epidural or spinal may be offered, but they aren’t always reliable and come with their own sets of negative side effects.”

“Going through pregnancy and childbirth in the United States is nearly 1.5 times as likely to kill you as traffic accidents (there are 17.4 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies each year, and 11.7 deaths per 100,000 people from driving each year).”

“Worldwide, maternal death rates are falling. At the same time, in the United States, maternal mortality rates are rising — they have more than doubled over the last three decades.”

“For each woman who dies, up to 70 suffer hemorrhages, organ failure, or other significant complications. That’s approximately 49,000 to 63,000 people each year.”

“The United States, one of the richest countries in the world, is ranked #56 in maternal mortality — that’s dead last among industrialized countries.”

“Giving birth is dangerous work. Arguably it’s the most dangerous work. We tend to think that the most dangerous work is done by men in predominantly masculine professions, like firefighters and police officers.

But our assumptions are wrong. As mentioned in the list above, in the United States, the mortality rate for pregnancy is 17.4 per 100,000 people. The on-duty murder rate for police officers is 13.5 per 100,000 people.

Which means a pregnant woman is more likely to die due to that pregnancy than a police officer is to be killed on the job.

And it’s not just that pregnancy and childbirth are more dangerous than other work, it’s that 86 percent of women do this dangerous work — and most do it more than once. The future of the human race depends on the assumption that the vast majority of women will be willing to do this incredibly hard and dangerous thing.

There is nothing similarly dangerous that we assume 86 percent of men will be willing to do. This fact should really make us rethink our societal perceptions of risk and danger. If asked to list the bravest among us who do dangerous work or risky activities, I would expect people to name first responders or firefighters, rock climbers or skydivers — I doubt anyone would mention pregnant women.”

“About 60 percent of women who have abortions are already parents.”

“Consider that women’s bodies spontaneously abort 40 to 60 percent of embryos between fertilization and birth — these are called miscarriages if they occur before twenty weeks of pregnancy, and they are called stillbirths if they happen after twenty weeks.”

“Though it’s not commonly talked about, one of the biggest reasons pregnant women aren’t interested in adoption is because relinquishing a baby can be a very traumatic experience. In Ann Fessler’s book The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade, women describe worrying every single day of their lives about the baby they were pressured/forced to relinquish and never feeling relief about the experience. One woman who had relinquished a child and then later had an abortion said that people who claim that abortion trauma is anywhere near as bad as the trauma of relinquishment have no idea what they are talking about.

Relinquishment is not just traumatic for the mother. There’s a growing body of research showing that it means lifelong trauma for the child as well. And this should be obvious to us when we consider that most adoptees in the United States don’t have their original birth certificates. It’s true. A legal adoption changes a baby’s birth certificate and legally severs the child from their birth family.”

“Men make up 85 percent of child support providers, and only 43.5 percent of parents report receiving the full amount of child support due. And an estimated $10 billion in child support payments go uncollected each year. In cases where men won’t pay to support a child, theoretically, women have legal recourse and can force a man to pay child support, but, again, the system makes it extremely hard. It is up to the mother to pay to prove paternity, pay a lawyer, and fight for child support in court.

Keep in mind these court battles are unreasonably hard to manage for someone who just had a baby — a baby whom they are trying to feed and care for. And ultimately, even if she puts in the time and pays the years of legal fees, most women never collect all the money anyway. If she does manage to collect, the average child support order is $400 a month, which is obviously not even close to what it takes to house and clothe and feed and educate a child — to say nothing about the temporal, emotional, and physical costs of raising a child.

Our society is set up to protect men from the consequences of their own actions. Our laws and policies could not be better designed to protect men who abandon the pregnancies they cause.

I had a conversation with a long-time social worker about this, and she listed eight ways that men face no consequences and are not held responsible for their ejaculatory actions.

1) There are no laws that require the father to pay child support without a court order. It’s not automatic.

2) In many states, credit scores are not affected by failure to pay child support.

3) Fathers aren’t fired from their jobs for impregnating a woman.

4) Fathers are not billed for any medical expenses for the pregnancy or the child. (In at least two states, fathers can be legally required to pay for at least 50 percent of pregnancy related medical costs. Should we assume the mother has to be willing to fight for those payments — via paperwork and dealing with state agencies — from unwilling fathers?)

5) Fathers don’t have to take unpaid weeks or months off work for pregnancy complications or childbirth.

6) Fathers don’t lose a cent in wages for impregnating a woman.

7) Fathers aren’t generally required to pay any funeral expenses for a deceased child. (At least two states consider it the responsibility of both parents to pay.)”

“Let’s imagine what it would be like to legislate men’s bodies instead of women’s bodies. Pretend that at the onset of puberty, all males in the United States are required by law to bank their sperm and then get a vasectomy. If/when the male becomes a responsible adult, and perhaps finds a mate, if they want to have a baby, they can use the banked sperm, or if necessary, the vasectomy can be reversed, and then redone once the childbearing stage is over. This would certainly eliminate essentially all unwanted pregnancies, so it seems like it would be welcome legislation for anyone who is serious about wanting to reduce abortion.”

“We’ve tried it here and we know it works. Colorado created a program that made birth control free and easily accessible. The result? Abortion rates fell by almost half. And not just Colorado — St. Louis had a similar program with great results. As a bonus, these programs can save millions of dollars. The health department in Colorado reported that every dollar spent on that birth control initiative saved $5.85 for Colorado’s Medicaid program.”

“The biggest reason for the low numbers in The Netherlands is that the country mandates comprehensive sex education for all students. Kids receive age-appropriate sex ed in every grade. The information they receive is medically accurate, and they can ask questions and get honest responses.

That’s not how sex education works in the United States, where every state can take a different approach. At the moment, some states allow sex education, but only with a focus on abstinence. Other states allow sex education, but only specific information is allowed to be shared, and teachers can only respond to questions that fall within the specific approved curriculum. And there are eleven states that don’t require any sex education at all.”

“In countries with full abortion bans, research shows that up to 68 percent of unwanted pregnancies are still aborted.”