According to the feminist and civil rights activist Florynce Kennedy, “if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament”. I think that she is right. If men got pregnant – not in some wild revision of history, but right now, overnight – there’d be no fussing over “nuanced moral arguments” and “balancing the rights of the child against those of the father”. We’d simply think “his body, his choice” and get on our way.
But what if a pregnant man did not want an abortion? In that case we would be forced to see pregnancy in a completely different light. If pregnancy became something that happened to people who matter, we’d have to appreciate it as actual, meaningful work. We’d see pregnant men not as bloated leeches, screwing over employers and the welfare state, but as masterful creators of human life. We’d be in awe of them. We wouldn’t force a man to stay pregnant but we’d worship him if he did. Women, meanwhile, would be reminded of their inferior, non-gestator status every day of their lives.
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