I'm Pro-Choice and Shit

[Content Note: Hostility to agency.]

Hey, ya bunch of radical feminist weirdos! Long time no talk about LOVING AMERICA.

Man, all this abortion talk lately has really been getting under my skin. Along with three ticks I acquired while fishing with my best friend Dick Balzac last weekend, but I guess that ain't relevant right now.

I know what you're thinking: Ol' Butch is about to go off on one about how abortion is just a radical feminist scam to let women control their reproduction and do offensive shit like "be financially stable" and "enter the workplace" or whatever, and I understand why you'd be thinking that, because that's definitely what I used to think! I mean, come on, if there's any more obvious feminist conspiracy than legal abortion, I can't think of it. Except maybe giving women the vote?

Anyways, the truth is, I used to be a pretty hardcore anti-abortion dude, which is an opinion I kept to myself, since I figured anyone with any sense agreed with me. But one day I accidentally said something about how women who want abortions are sluts who should suffer the consequences of their slutty actions, or something else relatively innocuous like that, and, boy oh boy, let me tell you that my stepmom Cheryl and my ex-wife/fiancée Tammy were so pissed! They both started screaming at me at once, and I couldn't even make out anything they were saying, because they were so mad and screeching at me at such high frequencies. It was like being descended upon by a swarm of feminist bats! Also, I was trying to watch Fat Cops, and I wanted to hear what Big Sexy was saying, so I turned the TV up real loud. The point is, I wasn't really listening.

But eventually Tammy wrestled the remote control away from me, and turned off the television, and they took turns yelling at me, and at first I was just pretenting to listen cuz I thought looking like I was listening would shut them up faster, which usually works. But they were saying stuff about sex, which is a subject in which I am very interested LADIES, so I started listening for real, and, you know, I actually learned something.

Like, Tammy was all, "You are slut-shaming," and pointed out that it was pretty hypocritical to shame sluts when I totally love having sex with sluts. I mean, I've had sex with her like a million times, and she is a total slut, which is, as Tammy pointed out to me really loudly, just a shitty name for a woman who is "sexually empowered," which I think means "owns a dildo." And Cheryl was all, "You think you're a stud, which is just a male slut, and that's a double standard," or some crap like that, which I have to admit was a pretty good point that I'd never considered probably because I don't talk to women or seek their perspectives very often.

They talked at my face for a really long time, and eventually convinced me that OKAY ABORTION SHOULD BE LEGAL, but I was like I still think it should have some restrictions, though. And then the feminist bats attacked me again.

Cheryl told me that abortion restrictions were horseshit, and I was like, "Nuh uh, they sound totally reasonable to me!" And then Cheryl was like, "They only sound reasonable in a contextless void that ignores reality," and I was like OH MAN SHE FOUND THE LINK TO SHAKESVILLE, because that sounds like some major Shakesville shit, right there. So my hackles were up, but Tammy still had the remote, and I broke my iPod last week when I threw it at my dad, so I didn't have anything else to listen to except Cheryl.

So she was all, "Parental notification laws only sound reasonable because we never talk about girls who are raped by their fathers. And mandatory ultrasound laws only sound reasonable because we never talk about people who are pregnant via rape, or survivors, or unable to afford the additional cost of the ultrasound which is sometimes passed on by the state, or anyone else who might consider a transvaginal ultrasound, or any ultrasound, an unnavigable barrier to accessing abortion." Or something like that. Which I also have to admit was a pretty good point.

And, honestly, I was getting kind of pissed at this point that I'd never even heard this stuff. It's like the dudes who make the laws deliberately avoid talking about real life in order to make people like me support stupid positions, cuz they know I probably won't have any cause to think about it unless my stepmom is yelling about it three inches from my head.

But I was still kinda dubious, so I was all, well, that sucks for those people, but maybe the laws should be passed anyway, and Tammy and Cheryl both asked me, in that voice like it's not really a question and they have a really good idea of what my answer should be, if I thought it was good public policy to write laws that fail to protect the people most in need of protection, and, man, I started thinking about my niece Sierra and how her dad, my stupid-ass brother, would never let her get an abortion no matter what, and I was pretty not in favor of consent restrictions any more.

And I don't know why I said it, I guess because I just wanted to win ONE THING during this epic battle of being forced to listen, but I said there was still no way I could ever support NO restrictions on abortion, because I don't like the idea of some lady who's twenty-three months pregnant (I think that's right; I remember reading elephants are pregnant for two years, so I am assuming humans are about the same) just willy-nilly changing her mind and aborting a perfectly good baby right before it comes out.

And Cheryl and Tammy just shook their heads, and Cheryl was like, "Do you want this one?" and Tammy gestured that Cheryl should take it, because Tammy looked tired and maybe kind of regretful, probably cuz of this grody hotdog she ate for lunch, and Cheryl explained to me that she doesn't support any restrictions because the only women who get abortions late in their pregnancies are women whose own health or life are in danger, or are carrying fetuses that are gonna die anyway if they're born, or tried to get an abortion when they first got pregnant, but couldn't, because of early pregnancy restrictions, or because they couldn't get off work, or because they couldn't afford the abortion cuz it turns out the government doesn't actually pay for them after all, or because, contrary to what I've heard from other patriots all my life, there isn't an abortion mill on every corner and, if you can believe this, some states only have one abortion clinic in the whole damn state! Abortion is really way different than I thought, you guys!

Anyways, Cheryl was like, imagine it takes you four months to save up $500, and I'm like HA HA IT'S TAKEN ME ALMOST FIFTY YEARS TO SAVE UP $500, which is mostly because I keep spending it on weed and RC boats but still, and Cheryl is like PAY ATTENTION, and then she's like, "And by the time you save up enough for the closest abortion clinic, and schedule time off work, which might have to be a couple days if there's a waiting period restriction, then you're suddenly past the point at which you can even get an abortion near you, so you have to find money and time to go to a clinic even further away, maybe out of state, and by the time you get all THAT sorted out, you've got to go even FURTHER, and suddenly you need $13,000 to go to a clinic five states away, and if you can get there at all, it might not be until your third trimester, and is that really your fault?"

I don't mind telling you all: THAT BLEW MY MIND. Facts are really brain-benders, amirite?

It's real fucked up how these early restrictions seem to be a way just to push poor pregnant women so far into their pregnancies that they CAN'T get an abortion. That just don't seem fair.

And, look, I do a lot of stuff, A LOT OF STUFF, that pisses off Tammy and/or Cheryl, so much in fact that they pretty much just ignore me when I piss them off now, WIN-WIN I SAY, but this abortion stuff was different. Their faces looked hurt and scared, not just angry, and, man, I'm a real dipshit sometimes, but I don't want to make anyone feel that way.

So, long story short, I am now totally pro-choice. And any dude who isn't should come see me about it, man.

Pornstache: Out.