The bro part is just half of it

(Photo: Laura Lewis, www.facebook.com/pages/Laura-Lewis-Photography/134378736611339)

There’s been some controversy about the name of this project. Controversy is a good thing if you are looking to grab people’s attention, but it doesn’t always arrive in the way you intended. The best part about this project will be the collection of different voices on abortion and reproductive rights, many from male-identified folks, bros or, if you’re an 80s child, dudes. Clearly the potential role of men in pro-choice work, or feminist struggles generally, is contentious and I expect this to be a productive place to have those debates. But it’s the second half of our wry little neologism that should take centre stage.

There’s already a Facebook group called bro-choice which I refuse to link to because their position is the exact inverse of ours. For them, bro-choice means expecting women they have sex with to have abortions if they get pregnant. There is also a nasty line of discussion among men’s rights advocates (MRAs, aka misogynist ‘victims’ of feminism) advocating ‘male abortions’. This is a response to the arguments for women’s control of their own bodies by men who feel robbed of agency in reproductive decisions. I’m being generous; they are really lamenting the loss of male privilege. It effectively means abdicating responsibility for unplanned children and looking for a way to avoid being called a deadbeat dad. These guys are our antithesis, the (blank) to our (Blank funny). But they are participating in the discussion about choice that we are trying to have a voice in.

Here’s the rub, the big choice in question isn’t a bro choice. Being pro-choice means believing in and struggling for women’s control over their own bodies. But there is also a collection of other choices through which men obviously contribute to unplanned pregnancies. The assumption that being pro-choice is being pro-abortion in all cases is one that anti-choicers would have us believe. Bro-choice recognizes that there are choices to be made. These choices involve contraception. They involve the possibility that your lady partner might not choose to have an abortion. Being a pro-choice bro doesn’t mean responsibility- and condom-free sex romps. That sexist frat-boy attitude exists regardless of women’s access to reproductive healthcare. Perhaps unexpectedly, being pro-choice might mean respecting the decision to end a pregnancy when you would rather it continue.

In short, there are lots of choices in bro-choice but the key one isn’t up to the bros, and we’ve got to talk about that. Like, all the time. We’ve got to talk about our expectations of relationships and those of our partners. We’ve got to be straight up about what we are getting into when we get down. And if we can’t handle our partner’s potential choices, we’ve got a choice to make about how we engage in relationships. That’s not to say that there are specific “men’s choices” but choices that involve individual men, and equally their partners. Bros have choices to make and choices they have to admit they can’t make. To quote some bumper sticker wisdom, “no one is free while others are oppressed.” Although women’s control over their own bodies, unfettered by restrictive laws and repressive social attitudes, should be assumed, it isn’t. And men’s choices are a small part of changing that.

~ posted by james