If we can tell women what to do with their bodies, let’s tell men, too

State Rep. Chris Rabb definitely got our attention. Is he serious about forcing men over 40 or with three kids to get vasectomies?

That’s a little unsettling. Many of us get really alarmed at talk about forcing a man to do anything with his own body – wear a mask or get a vaccination, let alone control his procreation. That’s why Rep. Rabb’s threat of a bill to force some men to get vasectomies is so over the top. The government telling a man what to do with his own body? Absurd.

Rep. Rabb said he introduced the legislation to make a point about the “egregiously gendered double standard” in society’s views on reproductive health care. Point well made. Rep. Rabb. Maybe too well made.

Our society can more easily accept controlling what goes on in a woman’s body than in that of a man.

Now, to be fair, the good legislator says he was just spoofing us. He thought it important that he speak up to show the inequality in attitudes toward reproductive responsibilities of men versus women. But his point is worth taking a few moments to ponder.

Science tells us men as well as women play a role in unwanted pregnancies. That means one sure way to prevent abortions is to stop men from making babies willy nilly.

Yet, most of us cringe at the thought of forcing a man to do something proactive about preventing abortion. We recoil at government trying to block a man’s right to cast his seed about, even if he repeatedly shows he has no respect for human life or his responsibilities to nurture it.

There’s something abhorrent about the government having the right to force a man to stop making babies neither he nor the woman can properly raise. There’s something repugnant about interfering with what a man does with such an intimate part of his body.

And there’s something utterly disdainful about telling a man he must play a role in preventing the situation where a woman finds herself seeking an abortion.

With satirical and dramatic flair, Rep. Rabb has struck a chord of truth we should not ignore.

Stopping men from impregnating women is the surest way to stop abortions. And those who truly abhor an act they consider murder should be eager to explore every way to stop it.

They should be as open to considering what men should do to prevent abortions as they are to blocking women from having them. And those who support government intervention to control the bodies of women also should support government intervention to control the bodies of men.

Thank you, Rep. Rabb. You have given us a lot to think about, however unsettling. And you have sent a warning shot to profligate men everywhere: If you don’t stop making babies you aren’t prepared to love, cherish and raise to full adulthood, the government may have to step in.

If states like Texas can tell women what to do with their own bodies, telling men what to do with theirs may not be far away.