I’ve oft apotheosized that old, conservative men are rabid about women they don’t even know having abortions because deep down they know that their parent(s) would have aborted him/her if it had been legal/possible at the time of his/her conception. In fact, said parent(s) would still probably get one, retroactively.
There needs to be a DSM diagnosis for “fear of having been aborted” – for men who get the existential heebee-jeebees when hearing that their moms had the choice to abort them. Because, this is actually the reason for a lot of Dem leaning men opposing abortion. They honestly believe that if abortion had been more available to their mothers, they would have not been born. Nominally liberal, less successful Piers Morgan Bill Maher made my point the other night on his own dumb show when he had Rep. Katie Porter as a guest and holy shit in a pantsuit I love her. The topic turned to Joe Biden’s late term abortion of his previous stance of the Hyde Amendment. And yes, she was the one lone woman booked for this discussion topic.
PORTER: I’m the only person sitting at this table who’s had to face these kinds of health care decisions. Joe Biden is simply trying to make a political decision here, and failing still to recognize that this is a personal decision.
Porter hilariously mocked Biden’s inability to even get the word “abortion” out when he talked about it. The audience laughed as the congresswoman imitated Biden fumbling his words while announcing his changed position on the matter. Contrast Biden’s response with Elizabeth Warren’s direct and compelling thoughts on the subject. Proving further that we need ONLY WOMEN leading this discussion.
Maher then predictably revealed that while he was “pro choice”, he was personally “squishy” on women’s bodily autonomy because a doctor had advised his mother after the “difficult birth” of his older sister that getting pregnant again could prove fatal for her.
This obligated Porter to explain the concept of “choice” to Maher like he was a small, dumb child. She took him to the woodshed:
MAHER: I could’ve been on the cutting room floor … but I get it. As long as it’s still in you …
PORTER: Your mom made her choice. We’re all here with the consequences of that choice. God bless her for having you. I’m sure it wasn’t easy. But the point is she … made her choice.
Thanks, Bill, for clarifying what the abortion “debate” is really about for white penis-havers; another opportunity to share with the rest of us how terrified they are of their own insignificance.
It sure was neat to see Porter unearth the sad, soggy snowflake that festers inside Bill Maher. You see, Maher is the personification of the media game: alternately enrage and mollify both sides and exploit them to victory. Toss each side a bone once in a while and they’ll forgive all the times you kicked ’em in the teeth. ..But then comes the day your one of your guests disembowels you on camera. After that, the occasional bone doesn’t keep them at bay anymore. And you’re fucked. When the audience shrieked with delight at Porter’s torching, Maher, red faced, stood up and leaned over the desk, addressing the audience directly. “First of all, fuck you, you can go watch another show,” he told them, desperately trying to come across as joking which he definitely was not. “We got a lot of them here if I’m not doing it for you.” Maher whines on that he was basically agreeing with Rep Porter. But he wasn’t. He was just repeating stale old male anti-choice talking points that lament the “lost potential” from every abortion. We have potentially “deprived” the world of the next Bill Maher. A potential man trumps a living adult woman every time.
Let’s assume that, instead of having a choice in the matter, there is no abortion. That merely changes his mother’s choice to, is she going to have sex *ever again* under the possible resultant penalty of death. Maher was conceived prior to the development of the Pill. And in a time when it was unthinkable that a woman would ever refuse her husband. And when no self-respecting man would ever wear a rubber with his own WIFE, for God’s sake. So it was only a matter of time before his mother was pregnant again.
Is there something about how kids were taught in Bill Maher’s day that makes it impossible for them to comprehend how others circumstances might not be like their own? Sure, Bill Maher can be grateful for his mother’s choice but how does that equate to the government forcing every woman to make the same one? It’s so dumb. Men are never faced with this kind of choice. Not ever. The idea that having sex might have life-ending consequences is utterly foreign to almost every man alive and most certainly Bill Maher. And how about the women told not to have another kid and she dies in childbirth. Do those kids say “thanks mom, it was totally worth it!” Somehow I doubt it. Also the moms can’t tell they they regret the decision after they are dead.
Further, it kind of infuriates me that assumed “liberal” men like Bill Maher just can’t be bothered to do anything about abortion accessibility, not even when they’ve very likely benefitted from the procedure in the past and will benefit again in the future. Men, like Maher, who can maintain they’re “pro-choice”, yet feel no urgency behind the position. When forced to clarify their position, they talk about feeling “squishy” and rage scream at their audience. Even though we are all pretty fucking sure they have benefitted from legal abortion, probably many times over, their “pro-choice” stance never seems to manifests into any form of political action.
Maybe Bill Maher exists so liberals can be afraid of Muslims and not feel bad about it and feel “squishy” abortion. Bill Maher may think he’s a “skeptic”, but is really just your run of the mill contrarian, your smug, slight pervy uncle who still wears the back of his hair just a little too long. And there’s nothing more boring, except that there are real human consequences to his bullshit. Maher is a net negative for all who truly hold progressive ideals. Truly courageous thinkers who are willing to punch through trendy rhetoric and get at the hard truths don’t always wind up with misogyny, racial and religious bigotry, and the rest of the ugly misanthropy Maher always seems to deliver.
Bill Maher, although a self proclaimed womanizer, doesn’t ever have to exist under the hazard of being forced into a dangerous, life-altering medical condition for nine months and then being forced to give birth. He doesn’t have the specter of this biological conscription hanging over him whenever he has sex with Anne Coulter.
In closing, if we treated men like Bill Maher more like the dull-witted, xenophobic old uncle we try to sit far away from at Thanksgiving, and less like a celebrity, entitlement wouldn’t flow to his giant head like sewage to a dump. Thank you.