Sex and Consequences

(Expand­ed from a com­ment I left in some­one else’s journal)

Any time there’s inter­course between two adults of the oppo­site sex and of the same species, there’s a chance of pregnancy.

Con­tra­cep­tives fail. Even tubal lig­a­tions and vasec­tomies have been known to fail (yes, it is very unlike­ly, but it has hap­pened). Hys­terec­tomies don’t fail. Those and total absti­nence are the only 100% effec­tive meth­ods of contraception.

When post-puber­ty male and female humans have con­sen­su­al inter­course, bar­ring the woman hav­ing had a hys­terec­to­my, both peo­ple are implic­it­ly agree­ing that they know that a preg­nan­cy could hap­pen, and they each bear full respon­si­bil­i­ty for any child con­ceived as a result of the intercourse.

Peo­ple who are not ready and will­ing to deal respon­si­bly with preg­nan­cy have no busi­ness hav­ing sex.

I am tru­ly pro-choice. I com­plete­ly sup­port wom­en’s right to choose to car­ry a preg­nan­cy to term or to ter­mi­nate a preg­nan­cy safely.

How­ev­er, I’ve known since I car­ried Katie that I absolute­ly could not sur­vive an abor­tion. I have attempt­ed to make that absolute­ly clear to every sex­u­al part­ner I’ve had since that time. 

After one long-time part­ner’s response to learn­ing that I might be preg­nant (“I don’t know why you’re wor­ried, I can afford to pay for the abor­tion”), I learned that hav­ing said so was­n’t enough—his selec­tive hearing/memory meant that it did­n’t “take.”

After that, I chose not to have sex with any male who does not active­ly demon­strate his under­stand­ing and accep­tance of the fact that I will not ever abort a healthy baby. Peri­od. And agree that he will not ever try to sug­gest, encour­age or oth­er­wise influ­ence me to do so, or attempt to shirk his respon­si­bil­i­ties should con­cep­tion occur.

This is a pub­lic post. I think there are a lot of peo­ple in this world who need to be beat­en about the head and shoul­ders with a clue-by-four on this issue.