Content note from 2021: Edited to remove transphobic, gender essentialist language.
I'm a frequent lurker on the
Fark forums, which provide some of the funniest, most hilarious, most irreverent-and-not-for-the-easily-offended comments on all the Internet tubes.
However, it also provides an outlet for some of the most mind-numbingly asinine asshats to spout their stupidity, an example of which I came across recently in response to an article about
anti-abortion groups buying out abortion clinics' leases to shut them down. A self-proclaimed atheist pro-lifer was arguing against abortion based on his own misguided version of property rights:
Pro choice = pro destruction of shared property. Its half the fathers DNA too, making it not "part of her body". It is "part of her body" in the sense that when you deposit money into the bank it is "part of the bank".
Sure, the bank is housing your money like the woman is housing your uterus. Sure the bank adds its own money onto yours as the woman adds her own DNA to the child. The fact that it happens to be temporarily residing in one place should not give the right to unilateral destruction.
Now there's a thoughtful, egalitarian and realistic view of reproduction: A uterus is like an like an ATM! You put in $100! A month later, you take out $100.05! And that's how babies are made! It's a fun update on the "Magic Sperm" view of gestation. If you've never heard of that one before, it's kind of like the belief that each sperm is a mini-baby, kind of like a pack of "magic grow" sponges. Stick one in a uterus/put them in a bowl of water, and poof! Dinosaurs! Er, or babies, depending on the package.
This view - that people with uteruses are passive baby containers - is at the heart of many anti-abortion arguments. And, like many other views at the heart of anti-abortion arguments, it is entirely false. The two genetic parents
do not contribute equally to the creation of a child. One party contributes 1 (one) (uno) (ein) sperm. That is it - one sex cell. That is it. That is all. The human body has anywhere from
10-100 TRILLION cells. At birth, you have anywhere between 5-10% of that (based on size), and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE CAME FROM THE PERSON WHO BIRTHED YOU. They came from the food they ate, what they drank, the contents of they blood, the air they breathed, the substances that permeated their skin.
Forget about that "magic sperm" of yours, buddy - you didn't make a deposit in a bank. Making a baby is like building a house. You dropped off half of the design plans, and your partner supplied the other half, as well as the concrete, the bricks, the mortar, the steel girders, the 2x4s, the nuts and bolts, the drywall, the shingles, the paint, the curtains, the major appliances, a couple of nice throw rugs, etc. Congratulations - you have viable gametes. But you didn't "make" a baby, any more than Trump made any of those buildings with his name on them.
And if you have a uterus - be wary of misogynists who hide behind atheism - anti-abortion arguments are anti-women, and religion (or lack thereof) is just a convenient smokescreen for people who really just want those sluts to get what they deserve.
