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Abortions and Men's Rights Essay

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Abortions and Men's Rights

Are you a man? Have you ever dealt with the issue of losing or being in the process of losing a child in which you took part in making? It’s difficult to truthfully answer these questions if you’re not a man and if you haven’t experienced abortion first hand. January 22, 1973 marked the beginning of a moral and political revolution in this country that would forever change many lives 1. The landmark decision ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court to legalize abortion with unrestricted procedures would profoundly affect women and men’s lives. But the American society forgot half of the population that would be traumatized by this experience, just because they were men. Throughout the limited information …show more content…

When asked how many would have preferred to accompany their lovers through the procedure or into the recovery room an unpredictable 69% and 91% answered in affirmative; yet hardly any of the thousands of men sampled for a survey on abortion had this option 3. This was considered such a surprising statement because in accordance with the traditional views of masculinity, boys, from infancy, are generally socialized to avoid becoming or exhibiting roles or behaviors associated with femininity. Masculinity is traditionally defined in terms of instrumentality / activity, aggressivity, male-male competition, power-over, individuality and control of affect 4. Beyond being responsible for keeping an extraordinary confidence endorsing their lover’s resolution and bolstering her confidence in that choice, the men felt obligated to pretend they were someone else. That is, many men took full responsibility for their own doubts, hesitations, uncertainties and even painful opposing thoughts. They hid all this from everyone especially their partners 5. Sixty- eight percent of the thousand men sampled disagreed with the statement that males involved in an abortion generally have an easy time of it 6. So how do men feel, they are equally nervous as a women undergoing the procedure for the first time and they o have an honest reason for being in that waiting

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