Sperm criminals and abortion: lock them up!

I’m a newspaper article snapper.

I picked up the habit in the mid-1970s, when the Casper Star-Tribune paid me per column as a freelancer. I had to measure the articles I wrote and submit a monthly invoice. Later, as a full-time editor at the Star-Tribune, I wrote weekly columns, many of which were based on articles I had clipped and set aside as “column fodder.” I also truncated these columns, which numbered perhaps several hundred over time.

Recently I happened to find one I wrote about abortion in 1989. When I reread it, I was amazed at how little has changed in the past few years. And not just on this perennial topic: We also wrote about the storage of nuclear waste from outside Wyoming 35 years ago.

At least the science and technology involved has advanced on both fronts, and in the case of abortion, that casts some of my old ideas in a new light.

This is what I wrote on August 31, 1989:

The battle lines are being drawn.

Potential political candidates are sweating.

In 1990 the question will not be: Should Wyoming raise taxes, should we make the University of Wyoming a high-quality, unsurpassed educational institution, or what should we do about the out-of-state dumps?

No.

The question will be: Are you “pro-life” or “pro-choice”? “Anti-choice” or “pro-abortion?”

It’s a shame that it has come to this, especially since not almost everyone is in favor of abortion – it is simply a fact of historical human reality.

It’s a shame, because over 90% of all abortions are performed in the first three months of pregnancy – decisions made early on by women who are forced to deal with the long-term consequences, usually alone, without the men who were equally responsible. but often disappear when the question becomes too personal.

It’s a shame, because the last thing we need in this crowded world is more people. Not that abortion should be viewed as a means of contraception, but it certainly recognizes the reality of our finite resources and limited space—and the conflicts that arise from the lack of both.

The “Right to Life” faction tells us it’s murder. In the extreme case, where these people seem to be going, it could mean condom users, diaphragm wearers and pill users going to prison for not allowing every sperm to do its work.

If it is indeed murder – for women who choose to have an abortion within one day, six days, two weeks or three months – what should the penalty be? Death? Jail? High fines?

You may recall that George Bush was perplexed when asked this question during the 1988 campaign debates. A worried-looking Bush admitted that he really hadn’t made up the punishment thing.

Difficult and ugly decisions that politicians and all of us need to think about. But that’s where we’ve come, thanks to people who don’t accept reality.

Perhaps it is time for a different approach – a modest proposal, if you will, for those who tell us that saving lives is essential at all times and at all costs.

Let’s shift the burden of all these pregnancies from women to men!

After all, abortion isn’t really the problem. The real problem is the lack of responsibility for the unwanted offspring.

Currently, and as planned, anti-abortion laws focus on women – not the man who spreads the sperm.

If a woman is not granted the option of an abortion, then demand and ensure that men take their responsibility in the baby drama.

Before a newborn is allowed to leave the hospital, the mother and father must be clearly identified. Under this plan, the father would be required to support the new creature emotionally and financially until he turns 18. Otherwise, he would face criminal sanctions and/or the confiscation of his salary/assets.

We can fly to the moon. We can spend $8 billion on a drug war. Surely we can find a way to trace the source of sperm that makes the abortions women are forced to have necessary.

This is the future: prisons full of lazy fathers. This could provide a new perspective on the abortion debate, as it is primarily men who make, enforce and judge our laws.

Perhaps the specter of this kind of male discomfort will lead to a better understanding of why women must confront and society accept the historical reality of abortion.

(This column originally appeared in the Casper Star-Tribune, which granted permission to reprint.)

Thirty-five years later, we face another watershed election, and abortion is once again a key issue. Democrat Kamala Harris supports women’s right to choose. Republican Donald Trump promised to ban the procedure during his 2016 campaign and actually appointed Supreme Court justices who ended Roe vs. Wade. Since then, he has apparently become a bit squeamish about owning the resulting policy.

So what has changed? Now we have perfected DNA analysis to locate the male owner of this troublesome conception sperm, making it easier to determine responsibility for this unwanted child. My earlier “modest proposal” adds a completely different perspective to the abortion issue in Wyoming – one that shines a spotlight on male responsibility in the “Cowboy State.”

Unfortunately, even if pregnant men were to take full responsibility, a woman would still be forced to deal with the most dangerous disease she has likely experienced. And if the woman was raped or a victim of incest, she also has to deal with the emotional trauma of delivering the child. Furthermore, it is simply a matter of economics: a pregnant woman may not be able to return to work and therefore may not have access to adequate medical care. Identifying the man responsible is simply forward-looking and forces that man to share the woman’s burden equally.

And today, as then, the decision on the abortion question rests with the voters again.