On a July morning in 2014, I haul a bag with me into my office; it weighs twenty-three pounds.  I participate in a long-standing tradition at Microsoft.  Upon your work anniversary, you bring in a pound of m&m’s for each year of tenure.  Today, I cross that threshold into 23 years.  Truthfully, I didn’t always participate, I started at 18 years (with 18 pounds) and have participated ever since.  I got the bulk of those at Costco; occasionally, I’d get custom printed m&m’s.

When I first floated the idea with my wife in the preceding months, she marveled, “How do you plan to dispense them?”  I simply responded with “a large bowl”.  This horrified her, and she insisted that I can’t do that.  Eventually, I landed on pouring them into a large plastic jug.  In order for you to get your candy fix, you’d need to pick it up and pour them into a cup.  How did I pour them into the jug?  I cut the bottom off a gallon jug, turned it upside down, and used it as a funnel.  It works well.

Though in this particular morning, one other thought crossed my mind.  Between my 22nd and 23rd anniversary, I lost 23 pounds.  As heavy as the candy felt in my hands as I carried them into the building, only a year before I carried that weight on my person.  That idea sobered me.

Access to reproductive care

I’ll take us on a big detour.  Don’t worry, I’ll circle back the point about m&m’s.  I’ve blogged many times about reproductive rights and especially maintaining access to abortion.  I land squarely in the Pro-Choice camp; that said, I’d like to think that I’ve reasoned through my position and allow you to follow along.  I present my positions about abortion access and generally those who are not unreasonably anchored, will listen and ponder about my counterpoints.

Many debates exist around abortion access.  Today, I’ll focus on just one issue.  Republicans claim that Democrats want abortion access after birth.  In other words, Republicans allege that Democrats want to be able to effectively kill that infant out of convenience.  Yes, Trump actually claimed this.  Suffice it to say, it doesn’t matter if it’s drivel, some will believe it.  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter when I produce a credible, fact-checked source that refutes that claim.

Tragically, when I talk about the merits of access to abortion with conservative friends, I notice the familiar trend.  They simply recite the same talking points.  They differ from a human parrot only in that the parrot does not understand the individual words.  Sadly, in this case, they understand the individual words, but do not understand their meaning.  Today, I’ll try a different approach.

If you’re among this group, I’ll simply repeat their same talking points for the sake of discussion.  I understand that these talking points are unlikely to persuade you.

“Women get pregnant because they’re promiscuous.”

The word that they utter most frequently about pregnant women seeking abortion is ‘accountability’.  They speak it with the tacit implication that women only become pregnant because they’re promiscuous and careless (they did not use birth control).  In fact, they’re pregnant because they’re immoral and giving birth is a form of divine accountability.  Naturally, they gloss over these details:

• “It takes two to tango” – First and most obvious, a woman cannot get pregnant by herself.  To have a discussion about accountability without any mention of the men is sexist.  To rationalize that women should be more accountable because they’re more severely impacted, means that pedestrians should be more accountable than the driver when a car strikes them.  Yeah, I didn’t think so.
• Condoms can fail – On average around 13% of the time, according to the CDC.  As it happens, those odds are similar to (13% versus 16.7%) playing Russian Roulette with a six-bullet chamber; think about that the next time you make assumptions.
• Hormonal birth control – Generally, the pill is more effective than condoms.  However, their effectiveness is diminished by some medication.  Furthermore, some drinks (like this “No.5 Elixir”) has activated charcoal, which can also affect birth control.
• Rape and incest – Tragically, hundreds of thousands of women are sexually assaulted every year.  If 1% of those resulted in pregnancy, there’d still be literally thousands of pregnancies due to rape alone.

Therefore, concluding that a woman would only seek an abortion because they’re promiscuous and lackadaisical is tragically flawed.

Circling back to the m&m’s

Remember the 23 pounds of m&m’s?  While they were a burden to carry, I always had the option to put down the bag.  I wasn’t hauling them with me to every meeting or to every trip to the bathroom (eww…).  I brought them into my office, poured them into the large jug, and that was basically it.  A bowling ball weighs around 8-16 pounds; two of them will weight 16-32 pounds.  As it happens, the average woman gains about 25-35 pounds during pregnancy.

Imagine carrying the weight of two bowling balls on you, literally everywhere you went.  That’s what pregnancy in the third trimester feels like.  This does not even account for other physiological changes (like needing to pee all the time); this only accounts for the weight.  Now, let’s go back to your mental stereotype of the woman who seeks an abortion.  You picture her as a godless, hedonistic woman who was too lazy to take reasonable precautions from getting pregnant.  While you understand that there are exceptions, this is generally what you believe.

There are literally no laws that make abortions less restrictive as the pregnancy progresses.  In other words, if an abortion is available during the second trimester, it was also available during the first trimester.  Riddle me this.  Even if this woman was godless, hedonistic, and lazy (none of which are crimes), why would she wait until the third trimester before she got the abortion?

When Republicans paint a picture of that woman who monstrously seeks to end her pregnancy during the 7th month or later, what do they think her story is?  Or more interestingly, if she could have more easily ended her pregnancy during the 3rd or 4th month, why not just do it then?  This doesn’t sound especially hedonistic to me.

Why carry the weight?

It’s a surprisingly simple question.  If the weight gain alone from a pregnancy is comparable to carrying a bowling ball (or two) on your person everywhere you went, why would a godless, hedonistic, lazy person do it at all?  It would seem that they’d want to rid themselves of this burden as soon as possible.  The ‘why’ is surprisingly though tragically simple, if they’re into the third trimester, they had every intention of carrying this pregnancy to delivery.  There is no other reasonable explanation.

By the time we reach the third trimester, we’re telling family, picking out names, and buying cribs and car seats.  If she’s now suddenly seeking to terminate her pregnancy, then the circumstances must’ve abruptly changed.  Something horrific occurred between point A and point B.  This may be news about the viability of her pregnancy, threat to her health, or any one of a number of terrible scenarios.  This is a decision she should make with the advice of her doctor and anyone else with whom she chooses to consult.

This woman will now face one of the most tragic and saddest moments in her life.  Do you believe that the state legislature should define the circumstances in which they’ll allow her abortion?  Should a handful of people in the state capitol be the purveyors of quantifying ‘enough suffering’ in order to allow this woman to end her pregnancy?

If your answer to that last question is ‘yes’, then I’d like you ponder this in complete and quiet honesty.  Who is the bigger ‘monster’ here?  Is it the woman who seeks an abortion in the third trimester, or is it those who would seek to make this woman’s horrific day orders of magnitude worse?