“Ejaculate Responsibly” by Gabrielle Blair provides a comprehensive overview of the issues with the lack of responsibility taken by men in unwanted pregnancies. Though the back says “why abortion is a men’s issues” this book acknowledges that some of the weight should fall on women’s shoulders. However right now 99.9% of the weight falls on women. Blair pushes for better levels of awareness. 

One of her main points is that men are always fertile and women can only get pregnant 24 hours in a 28 day cycle (if regular). Therefore ejaculating responsibly is the only guaranteed way to prevent pregnancy. 

She also breaks down stigmas, the weight of all birth control lies on the women, often even fighting for the use of a condom. She lays out facts and numbers but also uses well thought out and sometimes ridiculous fake scenarios that make you realize how much responsibility men should hold. 

One of my favorite scenarios is in relation to the number of days a women is fertile vs the number of days a man is fertile. 

“I’m trying to come up with an analogy for just how nonsensical this is: Imagine you have a couple of neighborhood vandals who are harassing your property. One of them leaves a bag of dog poop on your porch in the middle of the night, every night. So when you wake up and go outside, every single morning there’s always a bag of dog poop on your porch. It’s gross. It smells horrible. And it’s relentless. Sometimes you forget it’s there and you accidentally step on the bag and get dog poop on your shoe. And every day you have to pick up the bag and throw it away.

Now imagine there’s a second vandal who leaves a bag of rotten food on your porch once a month. It’s unpredictable-you never know exactly when they will show up, but it happens once every month. It’s also gross and smelly. And you have to dispose of it.

In this scenario, your biggest problem is the nightly poop guy. Sure, you’d like to stop the rotten food guy as well, but the poop guy is relentless. He comes every single night. Solving the poop guy problem would lead to the biggest relief.

In this analogy, what would we say about the property owner who responds to the vandals by all but ignoring the poop guy and instead fastidiously working to figure out exactly when the rotten food guy will show up each month?

(Last month he showed up at midnight on the 13th, and two months ago, he showed up at 6 a.m. on the 14th. So maybe this month, he’ll come on the 1sth? But then again, three months ago, he came on the sth. Hmmm. I’m not yet seeing a pattern, but I’m sure I can figure this out.) We would say that’s a ridiculous response.”

I recommend the book for any human who wants to make an educated argument towards either side. It is important to back opinions up with facts and acknowledge cracks in the system.