Despite the tide of aquatic opinion flowing in favor of reproductive rights for all, marine society still gives male seahorses very little say over what happens to their own bodies. Instead, we are treated as passive baby-making machines. Meanwhile, if it were the female seahorses who could get pregnant, there’d probably be an abortion clinic on every coral.
I guarantee that if female members of our species were responsible for bringing new life into the world, they wouldn’t be forced to propel themselves across treacherous waters in search of a sketchy back-reef abortion. Nor would they be expected to pay out of pocket to have the morning-after pill shipped to them from the Gulf of Mexico.
Instead, they would be free to terminate the pregnancy without a 24-second waiting period or a water burial for the microscopic detritus. Safe and effective abortion would be available in every mangrove and estuary on earth to any female who swam on by. Why are we males not afforded the same agency over our reproductive organs?
Females, until you can become pregnant yourselves, kindly keep your opinions out of my brood pouch.
