I am a physician who witnessed the healthcare of women in my training both before and after the legalization of abortion in New York in the 1970s. When abortion was only available to women who could afford to travel to Canada, there was a six-bed unit on my medical school hospital’s obstetric floor, where women lay dying of infected "back-alley" abortions. Most of them were already mothers. All of them died.
I have devised a hypothetical for men, which may give them compassion or at least a perspective of what it means to be deprived of a reproductive medical treatment.
I argue that men be deprived of male sterilization, a process medically comparable to abortion for women. Prohibition of male sterilization provides the same benefit to Christian society as banning abortion. Men would bear responsibility for the results of sexual intercourse in addition to women. Sperm provide a critical one-half of what it takes to create a new human being. If men were forbidden to have sterilization and forced to be held responsible for creating new life, it would be costly (child care, health insurance, education). It might change a man’s life course, including opportunity for education and job security.
I challenge Christian scholars to find any support for male sterilization in the Holy Bible. In Biblical times it was imperative that population increase to support manual labor.
So the tables could be turned. Think about it.
Susan C. Ristow
Durango
