Around the social network of tumblr, there have been discussions between the pro-choice and pro-life community regarding whether consent to sex means consent to pregnancy. It’s been a contentious topic, and the comments can get rather heated.
The classy tumblr name of f**kyeahchoice reblogged a post about consent to sex being consent to pregnancy in order to refute it. The blogger of the pro-choice outlet starts off by saying that “I tried so hard to take this seriously, but I’m having a hard time.” The blogger also calls a previous point about how “[t]here are absolutely zero actual reasons that you should wait until you’re married to have sex” and a previous comment that people should be married before having sex a “joke.” The post goes on:
You don’t need to have to be willing to have a child. That’s what abortion is FOR. Taking responsibility is not just having a baby, it’s just dealing with the situation in the way that is right for you. Abortion may be the most responsible choice you can make.
While such a point may sound selfish, the blogger goes on to also explain why abortion is not selfish.
Abortion is not selfish. What you are saying and advocating is selfish. You’re so into your own personal beliefs and so deep in your own privileged life you can’t even take a moment to empathize about what people are going through. Why these decisions are here in the first place and why we need them.
To me, that still sounds selfish, though – that part of “taking responsibility” involves killing another human being. This is especially the case when “taking responsibility” could mean abstaining from sexual intercourse or ensuring that proper protection be used, both of which prevent pregnancy. And abstinence does so at 100 percent.
Ongoing tumblr conversations offer different pro-choice opinions.
The blogger beautywithoutpain makes the point that:
… [p]regnancy is not the sole function of sex. No matter if you think its immoral or not, sex is also for pleasure. In today’s day and age, you can protect against pregnancy using birth control, etc. Even if no protection is used, the odds are not exceptionally high of getting pregnant. If pregnancy was the inevitable end to sex, as lighting a match is to starting a fire, then women would get pregnant every single time they have sex. Fortunately, they do not.
People have sex for multiple reasons and only one of them is procreation.
Another pro-choice blogger in another conversation simply makes the argument that her uterus is nobody else’s business.
So, to sum up these arguments, we have the reasoning that it doesn’t matter is pregnancy comes out of sex, because you have abortion. Sex is for pleasure now, and that one woman’s uterus is nobody else’s business.
There are perhaps other reasons why many pro-choicers fervently believe that consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy. But such claims, no matter how passionately defended they may be, are problematic. They are selfish and irresponsible. And they are wrong. Also, the claim that my uterus is nobody else’s business is nothing new from the pro-choice movement, but it still doesn’t have much to do with the question at hand. It doesn’t matter how you feel about sex or abortion; if you have sex, you can still get pregnant.
When one consents to having sex, he or she should be fully aware that sex can result in pregnancy. It is simple biology to acknowledge that sex can make babies, regardless of if that was the intent. To make the argument that that’s what abortion is for is an excuse to deny that consent to sex means consent to pregnancy – and it is a selfish and irresponsible excuse. Abortion may be legal in this country for any reason, even selfish and irresponsible reasons, but it does not justify the taking of an innocent life that has come out of sexual intercourse.
I am curious as to others’ thoughts on the matter. Do you think consent to sex is consent to pregnancy? And if you think you have better reasons than the aforementioned as to why it’s not, I’d love to hear them.
