Either you’re with us, or you’re the attempted baby-killer

Sympathy for ‘Sympathy for the devil’

Thomas Baker

In response to the Nov. 8 article “Misplaced Sympathy” by Jacinthe Blab, I say this: Read the article. In your comments regarding Stephen McCreary’s article, “Sympathy for the devil,” you managed to support the argument of the writer rather than disprove it. Your half-page reply provides just the types of defence of these women that McCreary is criticizing. I regret to inform you that you do not hold the franchise for feminist beliefs.

In this debate, I find it extremely hard to believe that you would defend the “mothers.” In these isolated cases, the mothers rightfully hold the vast majority of the blame. There is no male “loophole”; it’s simple biological facts. On one hand you blame McCreary for placing the blame for the pregnancy solely on the female, but on the other hand you assert that “feminist theories do advocate women’s rights over their own bodies.” So here is my question: say a couple were to get pregnant; the woman wanted to keep it and the male did not, should he have the right to tell the woman what to do in regards to the baby? All right then, same situation except the woman decided that she didn’t want to go through the pregnancy (due to family pressures, tragic circumstances, etc.). Does the man have the right to tell her to carry it to term and then give the baby to him? Either a man has a say over what a woman can do with regards to a pregnancy or he doesn’t.

The law states that a male does not have that capability, and rightfully so. So, since a man has no control over a woman’s body, the onus for the results of the pregnancy falls solely onto the woman’s shoulders. I do agree that hormones in the “act” of conception are the fault of both parties, but after that initial mistake, the male has to play second fiddle to the wishes of the female.

Secondly, I cannot comprehend your point about McCreary “demonizing sex”; his article was not directed to all women or all feminists, just those delusional enough to defend those who would choose to disregard a human life in this manner. As flawed as the other half of the species may seem to you, I am sure that if any of these women would have gone to the male party involved and stated their gruesome intentions, there would have been some sort of intervention. But, worst-case scenario, say he didn’t intervene, and that he actually agreed with her solution to the problem; I doubt very much that you would show the same sympathy for a new father that would put his newborn in a dumpster.

Finally, and most important of all, McCreary’s criticism of the “defenders of the attempted baby-killers” was meant to act as a deterrence of such behaviour. If you are not against these types of instances in our society, then you support them. The people that would contemplate mimicking the horrific acts touched upon in McCreary’s article could take your words as “encouragement” and potentially see these actions as solutions to their problems. The last thing these people need is for other people, under the banner of women’s rights, to make excuses for them and tell them that it’s not their fault. I doubt, regardless of what type of feminist you are, that you would like to be the one that discovers the next infant disregarded in this manner.

Thomas Baker is a third-year political studies student.