Last weekend, our very own Adam brought to our attention an article that was published in Australian’s Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday 5 May. The author, Ms Nina Funnell, lamented that she believes women still do not have total authority over their own bodies. There is the Pill (which, I might add, recently became 50 years old) but yet there is still no widespread abortion-on-demand in Australia. On the latter, she is of course right: in Australia, only the State of Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory have decriminalized abortion. In all other states and territories, abortion remains illegal in just about all circumstances. As Ms Funnell points out in her article, a 19 year old woman and her boyfriend face a possible jail term of up to seven years for procuring an abortion in the state of Queensland. She doesn’t, however, provide any reason as to why this couple sought an abortion but we are expected to feel sorry for them, regardless.

To be brief, the tone of Ms Funnell’s article is that women ought to have every right to be able to shack up with any Tom, Dick or Harry and not have to worry about those pesky things that promiscuous sexual activity has a history of causing. You know, things like unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, responsibility and accountability …?

To rid the world of this problem, and to allegedly give women total ownership over their own bodies, Ms Funnell promotes the widespread availability of:

  • contraception, such as the Pill and condoms
  • easy access to the morning-after pill
  • abortion on demand

Well, two of these three have no guarantee of preventing unwanted pregnancies and the third only proves my point. For more than 50 years women have had access to the Pill and couples have had access to other types of contraceptives and yet society is still educating its youth about STDs and unwanted pregnancies with no reduction of either. Something’s broken and it seems to me that throwing condoms and medication at the situation is doing precious little to resolve the issue. In fact, using condoms seems more like a band-aid solution to a much larger issue: an unrestrained sexual appetite.

But it is precisely an unrestrained sexual appetite that Ms Funnell believes ought to be made available to young women as an innate right. As she says, University life “is often a time of sexual experimentation” and then believes it is an unethical practice for campus pharmacists to deny young women access to emergency contraception.

Hold up, Ms Funnell. How’s about the young lasses keep their gear on? There’s nothing in the books that says every student must get their kit off when they’re at Uni. I know personal responsibility and accountability can be viewed as old fashioned, but, y’know, when employed it would preclude any notion of the desire for emergency contraception altogether.

This brings me to the title of my post as what Ms Funnell is really pleading for is the “right” for women – actually, even men – to have the freedom to get jiggy with the happy-lappy dance. In other words, she wants to have sex without consequences.

… Sex without consequences … I can’t even imagine what that would begin to look like and shudder at the thought. In fact, I don’t think it is actually possible. Even if all contraceptive forms had a 100% guarantee to prevent pregnancy and the spread of STDs, there is still the physiological, emotional and social aspects that stem out of the sexual union. When sex is enjoyed under “restraint” (ie. Lifelong, committed and monogamous union, to the exclusion of all others) the aspects of pregnancy, emotion, physiology and social impacts seem to be most favorable, in my opionion.

I’m not all to sure that Ms Funnell at all knows what it is that she is truly asking for: a strictly mechanical activity? Where’s the fun in that?

Women don’t need a right to abortion on demand. Women need the respect and courage to put men back in their boxes and not give into wanton sexual desire at their own expense. (After all, men are typically the ones who get off scott-free when sexual encounters “go-wrong”.)

And, frankly, I believe the only way that can happen is to teach men to keep their zippers up and focus instead on growing up to actually become, y’know, responsible men.

Counter-culture stuff? Sure. But deep down, I’m sure that’s what most women want of their men, anyway. Am I right, ladies?

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