As SallyStrange has pointed out in the comments here, quite a few MRAs seem to have a bad case of “womb envy” – or, more specifically, “abortion envy.” That is, they envy the ability of women to abort fetuses that they – the guys, as sperm providers — have had a part in creating. And since they don’t get final say in whether or not the woman in the equation gets an abortion, many of these guys claim they should have the right to a “paper abortion” – that is, to wash their hands financially of the baby once it is born.
But for every MRA demanding their own right to an abortion, there’s another MRA who thinks abortion is an unmitigated evil, which in essence means that they think pregnant women should be forced to give birth to babies they don’t want. The guy behind The Life Zone evidently thinks this way. And so does one New Mexican pro-lifer named Greg Fultz, who has launched a bizarre campaign designed to shame the woman who aborted what he thinks of as “his” baby – the highlight of which is a giant billboard depicting him holding what looks like the blackened carcass of a baby under the headline “This Would Have Been a Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To NOT KILL Our Child!”
I’ve been meaning to write about the Fultz thing for some time, but haven’t, because frankly the whole thing makes me depressed. Over the past day or so three separate Man Boobz readers have brought the subject up, so I figure it’s time to deal with the subject. My solution? I’m going to punt, and rather than post about it specifically I’m just going to point you to an excellent, and nicely sarcastic, post on the subject from Jill on Feministe.
Since Jill wrote that post, Fultz has been ordered by a judge to take the billboard down or face jail; he says he won’t. Details here.
NOTE: I originally ended this post with a 1200 word dissertation spelling out my take on abortion. But reading it back over again I realized that many of the points I made in it had already been made, in many cases more deftly, by various commenters in yesterday’s 800-plus comment thread (which actually stayed on the topic for the first several hundred comments, until more or less everything that needed to be said on the subject had been said). The tl;dr summary: her body, her choice. “Paper abortions” only work if the government is willing to step in to make up for the loss of child support, and that isn’t going to happen in the US any time soon. (And I don’t see many MRAs calling for increased support for single moms.)
So instead of abortion, let’s talk about Fultz. What a dick.
Important note – It’s quite possible that Fultz’s ex didn’t actually have an abortion. She claims it was a miscarriage, and he just decided it had to be an abortion. He’s also apparently got a pattern of stalking and harassing her.
And not to bring another angry, angry dog into this fight, but he’s in his thirties and she was eighteen when she had the pregnancy scare, making it rather likely that he started seeing her before she was even a legal adult. Yechh.
I do hope Fultz gets to go to jail. For a looooooooooooooooong time.
In France women have the right to give birth anonymously. Instead of the name of the mother the doctor writes an “X” on the birth certificate. The law stems from the time when real abortions were illegal and punished with death. This is some kind of “paper abortion”. I’ve also heard that it’s possible for fathers to decline the paternity, but I’m not sure about that. Maybe someone from France reads this and can comment on the legal situation.
The argument for the law is that it prevents desperate mothers from abandoning or killing their unwanted children. The argument against it is that children have the right to know about their origin. It’s a tricky ethical question.
So instead of abortion, let’s talk about Fultz. What a dick.
As a long-time appreciator of dicks, I think you are being unfair. Fultz is more like a jar of mayonnaise left in the sun for several days than a dick. I hope karma ensures that every woman he would ever like to date again sees that billboard, and makes the only logical decision possible based on it.
Fultz is more like a jar of mayonnaise left in the sun for several days than a dick.
Or the cuecumber at the back of the veggie drawer that’s been in there for three months and is now liquid.
Cucumber, drat it.
From my pro-choice standpoint I don’t think it’s right, but unlike most of you, I have empathy. IF a pro-life person believes their baby has been killed, I can totally understand this.
These screencaps from Fultz’s twitter are pretty terrifying.
I bet the MRAs are going to hold him up as some kind of hero, though.
but unlike most of you, I have empathy.
Ludicrous.
From my pro-choice standpoint I don’t think it’s right, but unlike most of you, I have empathy.
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day!
IF a pro-life person believes their baby has been killed, I can totally understand this.
Yeah, but that doesn’t give them the right to erect a giant billboard and harass/stalk their ex, and encourage other people to do the same.
And it might not even have been an abortion – he might be making her miserable over a miscarriage.
Shorter Mr. Al IF a person has a penis, I have much more sympathy for them.
Yeah, he’s the dude I’m terrified of running into in the real world. Mostly because I *have* run into/dated/known Those Dudes. Why, you ask? Many of them are very, very good at hiding it. And until something like the above happens, you don’t know, or can write off, how they actually are.
I dated a dude for two years (we broke up almost a year ago). Two months into the relationship, he knocked me up, and I’d been writing off all the little weird idiosyncrasies I’d been noticing. I kept it quiet, and saved up my money. However, I was farther along than I thought (I was at 14 weeks- yikes), and needed to be sedated for the procedure. So I had to tell him, and I could not go alone. You can’t drive on twilight sedation. He was sort of supportive, but he kept telling me he wished we could keep it. And kept trying to convince me to keep it. He was 26, I was 22, all his friends were getting married, having kids, it was like a goal post for him ( he had had a child at a young age in the Army, and been briefly married, saw it as a failure). But after the procedure, we got home, and he kept saying all this stuff, I was like “Well geez, if this had happened how I wanted, you wouldn’t have known, and thus wouldn’t have had to deal with it, dude. I don’t want to marry or have kids, especially at my age”, and he fuh-lipped-out. That marked the beginning of the emotional abuse that lasted until I got out of that lease, just over a year later. The abortion and “his child” came up, a lot. Nearly every fight we had. People who feel entitled to use the wombs of others can be sneaky shits.
By the way, calling people “dicks” always made me a little uncomfortable. It’s not exactly equivalent to calling people terms for the female genitalia, but… it’s kinda got something in common, doesn’t it? And it can also come off as homophobic/sexphobic, in that it implies that a dick is something comically gross, when hey, I kinda like those.
…however, I have no problem calling people “asshole,” despite kinda liking those too. Perhaps I’m having an attack of literalism, or perhaps it’s just that assholes aren’t gendered.
I’ll go with my old standby: “poophead.” Fultz, for putting up billboards bitterly deriding his teenage ex for having an abortion she might not even have had, is a poophead.
Filet is one of those people who thinks men are abusers and creeps for wanting to even attempt to have a say in the abortion of a fetus that is half theirs.
You can understand their feelings, or you can understand the urge to post a billboard of your ex telling everyone who passes by on the highway that she’s a murderer when you’re not even sure she had an abortion?
Holly, I have always been kind of partial to “Turdwaffle”.
Although in recent days, I have been reserving that for Scott Walker.
a fetus that is half theirs.
possession is 9/10ths of the law.
I like the term ‘gutter slime’ myself. It’s probably unfair to gutter slime, but it works. Douche/douchebag also works, because douching is an unnecessary, vagina-phobic practice.
Filet, that’s awful! I had an ex who I suspect near the end of the relationship was trying to get me pregnant. It didn’t happen, thankfully, but he probably would have reacted the same way.
Also, I think it’s important to note that prior to creation of the billboard, he was Facebook-stalking her and all her friends. He named the organization he created “N.A.N.I” (National Association for Needed Information, how uncreative can you get?) which just happened to be his ex’s first name. A judge ordered him to change that, so he changed it to “C.A.N.I.” (Coalition About Needed Information.) The needed information in this case apparently being that no woman has a right to break up with Greg Fultz and NOT have a billboard about her reproductive choices that may-or-may-not-have-happened put up on the town’s main road.
Also, the local news story has been deleted, but the comments are still available ( http://www.topix.net/forum/source/alamogordo-daily-news/TNKT2P0L7TL6M52P9 ), and apparently this guy has had a long string of failed relationships with much younger women. He was more or less forced to leave Illinois as a result of one of these situations. He has a very disturbing blog about all his many misfortunes at the hands of the women in his life, but I think he’s deleted it now.
Well whatever. No one would deny, even here, that men can and should have some investment in a pregnancy.
Filet is one of those people who thinks men are abusers and creeps for wanting to even attempt to have a say in the abortion of a fetus that is half theirs.
no, you asshole, she said the guy was an abuser because of THE EMOTIONAL ABUSE THAT CONTINUED FOR NEARLY A YEAR.
The pregnancy and abortion apparently just set him into motion.
swedishfish, sorry you had to read this tudwaffle’s response. His version of “empathy”, I guess.
All this shit about abortions and women and men and inequlity and how I apparently have no right to feel anything about the fetus until it pops out of the vagina (a which point I am expected to be totally devoted) is the reason I will never have kids.
David,
Aren’t you always complaining that MRAs do nothing to promote their cause? Then, this guy does something (and I don’t know if he is an MRA but his point of view appears to align with theirs) to raise awareness about an issue and you call it a bizarre campaign.
I guess it is only fair: the suffragettes had their bizarre campaign, and let’s not forget about the freedom riders, or that whole kooky bunch of people and their stonewall riots. If only they realized how fruitless their silly attempts to gain attention would turn out.
-Jut
is the reason I will never have kids.
Vasectomy. Good for you.
No, MRAL, I thought that particular guy was an abusive creep because he used to pin me to the wall by my neck, while he shouted slurs and insults about me in my face. Or stand over me after knocking me to the floor to tell me I was a slob for leaving a jar of jelly on the counter. Or tell me I would never amount to anything in life because I wasn’t willing to marry him just so he could get more pay through the Army.
My current boyfriend, and the few dudes I went on dates with in the interim were lovely, intelligent, funny men. I can make the distinction, and tell the difference, between one dude being a terrible assbasket, and the others who are awesome people.