Perhaps the most frustrating part about the debate surrounding abortion is how often it gets bogged down in the argument of whether or not human life begins at conception or birth. Because the fact is, the people arguing the former don't actually care at all about the life of the unborn. That's just an indisputable certainty based on their behavior. Yes, there are some cis women out there who, after years of mental abuse at the hands of the patriarchy, are true-believers in the birth-versus-conception debate and legitimately believe that they are not enough of a person to decide what happens with their body.

But when it comes to cis men opposed to abortion, it's a completely different situation. You see, the aversion to abortion is overwhelmingly a conservative, rightwing stance. It's essentially a litmus test on if you're a true conservative. Virtually every elected conservative politician in America, with a few, mostly female exceptions, are opposed to abortion. And if you let them talk, they'll insist that it's the same reasoning as mentioned above, that life is sacred, begins at conception, and you're killing babies.

The problem: They don't actually care about killing children.

Source: Almost every other facet of their platform.

It's been said before but it's worth repeating - the same people who don't want poor children to have free lunch at school, don't want to increase gun control so children aren't murdered at school quite so much, oppose food stamps to feed children, oppose climate change legislation for the sake of future generations and ,want to eliminate social security, and even openly mock children online if they happen to disagree with their stances on guns, climate, or whatever else, cannot with a straight face claim that they care about the life of an unborn person when the rest of their entire ideology is built not only on callousness and cruelty but open, mocking pride in that cruelty. They don't care about you, and they want to point and laugh at you while they say it, and they're proud of it.

So then, why do the kinds of cis men who oppose abortion, in fact, oppose it? What do they have to gain from what they see as the termination of a life that they don't care about anyway?

Well it's actually pretty simple and characteristic: It's because for now, they can't legally rape you.

Now you might be saying hey, that's a pretty extreme take, right? How'd you jump to that conclusion? Well, I would love to break it down for you.

See, with a political ideology built around cruelty and humiliation of those they deem beneath them, access to abortion represents a way in which women are further distanced from the patriarchy to which they're currently still tethered, a phenomenon that's been continuing for centuries or at least decades with the criminalization of domestic abuse and marital rape, and just rape in general. The supposed absolutism around women being pregnant and subsequently having no choice but to give birth to a man's child represents the largest remaining sense of control men maintain over women.

To put this another way, anti-abortion men see an inherent humiliation and subjugation in the idea of a woman bearing their child. Don't believe me? Let me ask you this - how many of these same men are absolutely MORTIFIED at the concept of being responsible for a child they don't want? It's pretty much a cliche at this point, right? Men frequently shirking the responsibility of children they're unwilling to commit, and even generally refusing to help equally with the rearing of children they do claim. To them, children are an inherent burden, something which, if foisted upon you unwillingly would represent a loss of freedom and autonomy. It would be emasculating.

It would be humiliating.

Now consider the last several years of public discourse about sexual assault and harassment, a debate which, once again, is pretty much divided down political lines but which actually sees quite a few seemingly liberal men more on the side of the abusers because men, before they're else, Republican, Democrat, Christian, Muslim, Otaku, Nudist - are men, first. The ongoing theme among many men, particularly on the right, is the eulogizing of the days when they could more freely harass and assault women with little to no fear of repercussions, something they feel to be an undisputed right as men. Men are raised to take gratification not only in physical, sexual pleasure, but also in the humiliation of their prey. This also extends to the power they feel to impregnate somebody, whether or not they in fact wish to be impregnated. Whether or not an anti-choice male is interesting in conceiving a child, many of them are completely adverse to removing the ability to do so altogether hence their reluctance to receive a vasectomy. It's easy, reversible, and ensures you will never create an unwanted pregnancy which may result in an abortion which you supposedly would oppose.

(Hint - these men would absolutely want to get the abortion).

But don't take my word for it as an onlooker, instead, take my word for it as a long time porn artist, particularly of non-consensual themes. Many of my clients were very big into the pregnancy risk aspect, particularly for them it enhanced what was already a fetish of humiliation. They were REALLY into this! And all of them were men. And fascinatingly, even ones who specifically opposed the idea of a female victim getting pregnant as a result, they still often wanted the internal ejaculation because that in and of itself was seen as the ultimate act of humiliation. Yes, they didn't want to hear about the forthcoming baby but they definitely wanted every single act to create one to be present, for the best of both worlds, the knowledge that our victim would be subject so such a thing while our meatheaded male just skips away whistling to himself, non the wiser of what comes next.

It's really quite a trip into the male psyche.

So taken together, this leads me to rather confidently conclude that the kinds of men who oppose abortion do so because A) they hate women and B) they want to dominate them sexuality as a result, but because C) rape is illegal (for now) then they must settle for D) a woman being forced to germinate a man's seed against her will.

Simpy put, absolutely nothing else is consistent with the rest of their values. Anti-choice men are consistently dismissive of the needs or concerns of any actual living person or children other than themselves and take very unapologetic pride in this selfishness, and even when they do supposedly argue in favor of the life of a fetus, there's almost an underlying mocking tone to it, like they know it's bullshit, they know that YOU know it's bullshit, and that it's just their currently-winning strategy to fulfill their fantasy of forcing a man's will inside of you for an extended period of time, and letting it encumber the rest of your life. It's controlling. It's humiliating.

And they think that's hot as fuck. Why else would they allow for no exceptions in the case of rape and incest? Who does that benefit other than the rapist?

The rape part is what they wanted all along!

So I personally make no time to argue in the 'life begins at ___" debate because if you're debating with men, there is almost no chance at all that they even care about the unborn child, and they certainly won't care about it after it is born. And that's what makes the current events especially vile and infuriating, and it's not being won by a group of people with a legitimate concern about what they perceive to be a sacred life.

It's being won primarily by men who want to get as close to forcing a sex act onto you as they possibly can for however long as it remains unlawful to do so. And you can count on the patriarchy to do what they can to make it as legal as possible to force themselves onto a woman, but while they wait - forced birth is a pretty damn close approximation.