Sperm criminals and abortion: Lock ‘em up!

I’m a newspaper-article-clipper. 

I picked up the habit in the mid-1970s when, as a freelancer, the Casper Star-Tribune paid me by the column-inch. I had to measure the articles I wrote and submit a monthly bill. Later, as a full-time editor at the Star-Tribune, I wrote weekly columns, many based on items I clipped and set aside as “column fodder.” I clipped those columns too, which over time totaled perhaps several hundred. 

Recently, by chance, I found one I wrote in 1989 about abortion. Re-reading it, I was amazed by how little has changed during the intervening years. And not just on that forever-fraught topic: We were writing about storing nuclear waste from outside Wyoming 35 years ago too.

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

Here’s what I wrote, on August 31, 1989:

The battle lines are being drawn.

Prospective political candidates are sweating.

In 1990, The Question won’t be: Will Wyoming need to raise taxes, should we make the University of Wyoming a high-quality, second-to-none educational institution, or what should we do about outside garbage dumps in the state?

Nope.

The Question will be, are you “for life,” or “pro-choice?” “Anti-choice,” or “for abortion?”

Too bad it’s gotten down to this, especially since almost everyone isn’t in favor of abortion — it’s simply a fact of historical human reality.

Too bad, because over 90% of all abortions are done in the first three months of pregnancy — decisions made early by women forced to deal with the long-term consequences, mostly alone, without the men who were equally responsible but who often disappear when The Question becomes too personal.

Too bad, because the last thing we need in this overcrowded world is more people. Not that abortion should be regarded as a birth control device, but it sure does acknowledge the reality of our finite resources and limited space — and the conflicts that result from the lack of both.

Murder, it is, we’re told by the “right-to-life” faction. To the extreme, which is where it appears these folks are headed, it could mean that condom-users, diaphragm-wearers and pill consumers are headed for jail for not letting every sperm do its thing.

If it is actually murder — for women who choose abortion in one day, six days, two weeks or three months — what should the penalty be? Death? Prison? Big fines?

George Bush, you may remember, was stumped when he was asked this question during the 1988 campaign debates. A troubled-looking Bush confessed that, gee, he really hadn’t thought this penalty thing out.

Tough — and ugly choices politicians and all of us are being forced to consider. But that’s where we’re at, thanks to folks who won’t accept reality.

Maybe it’s time for a different approach — a modest proposal, if you will, for those who tell us that saving lives at any point of conception, and at any cost, is essential.

Let’s shift the burden from the women to the men for all those pregnancies!

Abortion, after all, is not really the issue. The real issue is the lack of responsibility for the unwanted offspring.

At present, and as contemplated, anti-abortion laws focus on women — not on the male who spreads the sperm.

If a woman isn’t going to be allowed the option of abortion, then require and ensure that males assume their responsibility in the baby drama.

Before a newborn child is allowed to leave the hospital, both a mother and a father should be clearly identified. The father, under this plan, would be required to support, emotionally and financially, the new being till it’s age 18. If not, he should be made to face criminal penalties and/or seizure of his paycheck/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 which makes necessary the abortions women are forced to contemplate.

That’s the future: Jails, full of slacker fathers. That could put a new perspective on the abortion debate, since it’s mostly men who make, enforce and pass judgment on our laws.

Maybe the specter of that kind of male unpleasantness will prompt a better understanding of why women must face — and society must accept — the historical reality of abortion.

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

Thirty-five years later, we are facing another turning-point election, and abortion is again a key issue. Democrat Kamala Harris supports a woman’s right to choose. Republican Donald Trump pledged to ban the procedure during his 2016 campaign and indeed appointed Supreme Court justices who ended Roe v. Wade. He’s since, apparently, grown a little squeamish about owning the resulting policy.

So what has changed? Now, we have perfected DNA analysis to trace the male owner of that pesky conceiving sperm, making it easier to pin responsibility for that 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.”

Sadly, even if impregnating males are required to assume full responsibility, a woman would still be forced to face the most dangerous medical condition she’s probably encountered. And if the woman was raped or a victim of incest, she must also cope with the emotional trauma of bringing the baby to term. In addition, it’s simply a matter of economics: A pregnant woman might not be able to return to work, meaning she may not have access to adequate medical care. Identifying the responsible male is simply forward-looking, forcing that male to share equally the female’s burden.

And, now, as then, the abortion issue is again up to voters to decide.