The Men Who Want a ‘Paper Abortion’

The Men Who Want A ‘Paper Abortion’

Discussions of so-called ‘financial abortions’ – to cut ties with unwanted children – are on the rise in men’s rights circles. But what is this weird trend and what does it tell us about misogyny? Sian Norris reports

As the second wave feminist trailblazer Gloria Steinem used to say: “if men could get pregnant, abortion would be sacrosant”. Well, according to a subset of men’s rights activists (MRA), there is one type of termination men believe they are entitled to: paper abortion.

Otherwise known as ‘financial abortion’, the desire to legally cut ties with an unwanted child is a hot topic of discussion on various men’s rights activist sub-Reddits – forums on the website Reddit. Men claim it will give them the same “reproductive rights” as women to end an unwanted pregnancy. 

According to analysis by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), discussions of paper abortion are on the rise – on Reddit alone mentions of the term have increased by 54% since last year.

The concept of paper abortion got a mainstream airing this summer, when the Republican Chris Pratt, who represents West Virginia, mooted getting rid of child support to reduce abortions. He described a father “who doesn’t really want to be involved in the life at all really, he knows that if she carries through the pregnancy, he’s going to have possibly some sort of child support obligation, and so what he wants to do is in a sense encourage her to have an abortion”. 

Chapman says his comments were misunderstood. But the argument that men should not have to pay child support if they did not want to become a father is one that is popular on MRA subreddits such as the Purple Pill and the now defunct Red Pill forums, where men argue that “if women get to change their minds and terminate, then so should men. If the man changes his mind first and opts out then the woman can decide to get an abortion or else give the baby up for adoption if she does not want to be a single parent”.

The paper abortion debate goes to the heart of the warped understanding of equality that often accompanies MRA arguments. One poster on the Men’s Rights reddit describes “legal parent surrender” as justified because “women have multiple ways they can opt out of financial responsibility, abortion being just one. Women can also give up a child [and] cease any legal and financial obligation. Equality demands men should have three option[s] to opt out of parental responsibilities as well”.

Similarly, a woman’s decision to continue with a pregnancy is portrayed as a “power imbalance” – one man writes how “when abortion is legal, it gives a woman absolute power over her reproduction. There is clearly an immense power imbalance in the relationship”. This year, a poster explained it as “something a lot of the guys here support as a way to make things as equal as possible, without denying women any rights”.

Some men on the forums experience some confusion about how to marry an anti-abortion stance with a pro-paper abortion ideology. One poster said how his conservative boss became pro-abortion after realising his tax dollars would pay for child support. Another said they only support abortion up to the first trimester but agreed that it was needed to protect men from having to pay unwanted child support. In contrast, one poster on the Men’s Rights subreddit was in favour of abortion bans in order to stop women being “careless” about pregnancy, thereby protecting men from having to pay child support.

The hypocrisy of being anti-abortion while in favour of financially, practically and emotionally abandoning a living child was illustrated in a post from April this year: “I don’t support abortion. I would get on board if at the same time the pro-choice side would advocate for men to have the right to a ‘paper abortion’, if a man doesn’t want to be a father, he should not have to pay”.

“The notion of a ‘paper abortion’ represents an attempt by misogynist men’s rights activists to co-opt the language of the pro-choice movement, making a false equivalence between a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and men who simply want to rid themselves of financial responsibility for children they have fathered,” said Callum Hood, Head of Research at CCDH. “Our research shows that far from declining, Reddit conversations about ‘paper abortions’ are increasing year-on-year, showing that the platform still has a significant problem with misogynist man-o-sphere communities”.

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Women-Hating

Perhaps unsurprisingly, discussions about paper abortion quickly descend into misogyny. 

Analysis completed by this reporter in 2020 into paper abortion conversations on the Red and Purple Pill subreddit forums found men referring to paying child support as “financial rape” and that unless the woman is raped, she “bares responsibility” [sic] for “choosing the men she f***s”. 

“Women are and always will be self-centred parasites,” one man wrote. “Why do women deserve reproductive rights if I can’t have any?” muses another. 

A more recent thread on the Men’s Rights subreddit uses misogynistic terms to shame women for having consensual sex. “So here’s the list of things a woman can do to avoid being responsible for her own child: Keep her legs shut,” writes one man. In response, another poster says paper abortions should be the default unless the couple is married. 

Back in our 2020 research, one post indulged in self-pity: “I don’t see a future where society stops wanting to unilaterally punish men for sex”. Another complained that “women can do as they please and men have no options. Women have all the rights while men have none”.

Opposition to paper abortion is framed as “rabid misandry”, before posters refer to women as being “hypocrites” who “don’t have brain power” and are only “pro-choice when convenient”. Paper abortions are needed, they argue, as women are “more promiscuous than they want to admit”.

Feminists are “bigots” who “don’t want equality, they want privilege and special treatment”. Women are portrayed as money-grabbing, and paper abortion would reduce the number of single mothers, as “the overwhelming motivation for becoming a single mother is to place some sort of financial burden on the father”.

The forums also discuss how paper abortion would reduce women “raping” men to get pregnant, or “spermjacking” – i.e. taking men’s sperm without consent for artificial insemination. 

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Who’s Rights? Men’s Rights

The discourse around paper abortion reflects wider debates in men’s rights activism, which argues that feminism is the enemy; that men have fewer rights and protections than women; and that institutionalised sexism may well exist – but only against men.

Concerningly, such views have reached the ear of the Government. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Issues Affecting Men and Boys has as its public enquiry point the organisation Equi-Law which claims numerous laws – including the Abortion Act – disadvantage men. In answer to the question “do any laws disadvantage women?” the website states “none that we are aware of”. 

The organisation also states that there’s an imbalance in the representation of men’s issues. It says, for example, that while women experience disadvantage when it comes to gender-based violence and workplace discrimination, men experience much more – including military and workplace deaths and injury, suicide, and unfair portrayals in advertising.

Such views on gender equality feed into a grievance culture common in men’s rights activism that sees laws which have advanced women’s equality – such as the right to safe and legal abortion without the father’s consent – as attacking men’s supremacy. 

This is also what’s behind the focus on paper abortion. Alongside the anger at having to pay child support – which, lest we forget, is not some kind of mum bonus but needed to feed and clothe a child – is the outrage that women have a right to bodily autonomy that men cannot control. Women’s rights to reproductive integrity, including the right to have a wanted child, is seen as undermining men’s “rights” to control women’s bodies.

That desire to control women’s bodies underpins all extreme misogynistic movements, including the Red Pill community that emerged in the 2010s, and the incel community. 

Male grievance culture as displayed on the paper abortion threads helps to fuel misogyny. And because it is based on the male entitlement to women’s bodies that is the foundation of male supremacy, it risks pushing men towards more extreme misogynistic ideologies. 

In the quarter ending June 2022, in England and Wales, 36% of non-resident parents paid no child support, while 64% paid some. Half of single parent households, the vast majority of which are headed by women, are in relative poverty.  

Byline Times approached Equi-Law for comment but received no response.