22 Comments
Jun 26, 2022Liked by Robin Thinks

It's a bit more complicated than mere fertilizer. The offspring will cary genetic traits from both parents, if allowed to mature. Maybe look into the genetics a bit? Men are also important and irreplaceable to the process of perpetuating life. Not necessarily bearing equal risks or rights, but important.

Expand full comment
author

A *sperm* contributes something, but a man literally contributes nothing. He has a moment of "happy" and goes on with his life. From a Biblical perspective, I think men are intended to play a much bigger role, but the problem is they are not obligated to and therefore are not.

Religious men LOVE to talk about "complementarianism" and how men & woman are created to fill a specific role and to a limited extent (meaning in the process of procreation) I fully agree with that. Meaning, women create the baby, men are SUPPOSED to actually care for and provide for the mother and child. Which they are not doing.

Men are NOT protecting and providing for women & children - meaning they are NOT fulfilling their God-given role, which means women are opting out of their God-given role, which men then want to try and force them back into without having to step up and fulfill their OWN God-given role.

Here are the main reasons women have abortions:

They are religious and can't deal with the shame heaped on them by the Church if they get pregnant out of wedlock

They can't afford to have a baby on their own and "daddy" is nowhere to be found

They do not feel their partner is a safe person to have a child with

Their partner already can't provide for the children they have, let alone any more.

All in all, I would say these are all the result of men falling down in THEIR role to "protect and provide." Quite frankly, any man even so much as talking about abortion is a hypocrite.

https://robinthinks.substack.com/p/why-christian-men-talking-about-abortion

Expand full comment
Jun 26, 2022Liked by Robin Thinks

I do very much appreciate your points about trusting God, if you are religious that women should make the decisions.

Expand full comment
Jun 26, 2022Liked by Robin Thinks

Our male dominated government has not provided any substantive support for those having babies. Perhaps in the spirit of "equality," they haven't made maternity leave universal or same pay for women to support their children or fund more research into female healthcare to keep them from dying in childbirth or free contraceptives everywhere to give them a chance to not get pregnant. Our now male dominated governments want to ban abortions whilst making pregnancies and childbirth the most dangerous situation for a woman.

Expand full comment
author

True. But I just voted for 5 women this election, more than I've ever seen on a ballot. I think women are finally figuring out the lies men have been telling us about themselves for decades in the form of movies and media aren't actually true.

They don't lay down their own lives for the sake of women & children, (as we most recently saw in Uvalde) and they don't actually put our needs ahead of their own. And, in many ways, they should not have to.

Women are not the dainty little delicate flowers we have allowed men to portray us as, although I think we liked that image as much as men like the image of themselves as superheroes. Bottom line, it's time for women to step up to the plate and fight for our own rights by participating in governance and leadership.

Expand full comment

You offered no scientific evidence of when life begins, just kept telling us that science “proves” it’s not at conception. Also, no one believes that a zygote is a fully formed human. What is a “fully formed human” to you? A newborn baby is also not a fully formed human. Neither is a teenager. So what was your point? This piece just sounded like an angry rant about men.

Expand full comment
Jun 26, 2022Liked by Robin Thinks

You're being vague. What is "life?" Life exists in every cell in our bodies. Even though alive, none of our cells is a human being. Neither is a spermatozoon nor a fertilized egg. These are just cells. None have protection under the Constitution. NO ONE has any right to grant protection status to a single cell within the body of another person.

The word "conception" is not in science. Fertilization is the process that may result the birth of a human being. Conception a religious idea. Religion can be one's moral center but is of no consequence in the actual processes of life.

The point is: men have zero participation in what women decide to do with their own bodies. On the bright side, women have no say in what you decide to do with your own body.

Expand full comment
author

That's actually a really good point. Life doesn't *begin* - it simply perpetuates. A new human is literally created from the cells and already living tissue of a woman, who was created from the cells and living tissue of her mother and so and and so on all the way back to "the beginning" - wherever and whatever that may be.

Expand full comment
author

That's because I don't think science can actually tell us when life begins. I personally believe that "life" is the result of the placing of a soul into the "shell" we call a body. The point is, religious men always seem to conveniently use "science" when it seems to work in their favor, and simply reject it when it does not. I think this is just one more of man's many attempts to play God. I think God and only God knows when "life" begins - and I think it ends largely the same way. We can either wait for God to decide when its our time or we can make that choice for ourselves - if someone else doesn't make that choice for us first.

Expand full comment

Could you please tell me when science tells us life begins?

Expand full comment
author

I don't believe science actually has all the answers man wants it to. I think science can explain a lot but I also think there are just things bigger than science - or maybe just far, far beyond our current ability to understand them.

Expand full comment
author

I don't believe science can tell us when life begins. I don't think it's up to us.

Expand full comment

Define what is "life?"

Expand full comment
Jun 25, 2022·edited Jun 25, 2022

That was a good read. But you're missing something that men keep in the darkest part of themselves. Firstly, let's establish that white supremacy, specifically Anglo-Saxon Protestant, is the undercurrent of this republic. Secondly, abortion is the enemy of white supremacy because having a majority in population is key to holding land and thus power. Non-whites adversely affected by uncontrolled population booms would be handled through government sanctioned sterilization or allow the justice system free interpretation of law enforcement upon non-whites.

Just as the pharaohs did 5,000 years ago, god is the scapegoat for rationalizing the subjugation of white women and non-whites. Neither the Constitution nor Bill Of Rights mentions a Right to Vote. This was explicitly done to maintain the appearance of equality while allowing any voting district to prevent white women and non-whites from participating in the process. The Electoral College was added to prevent non Anglo-Saxons from reaching the highest office. (There is a hierarchy among whites.) The vagueness of those Documents was intentional. It allows state governments, all Anglo at the time, to "regulate" specific rights. One of these is to uphold the Second Amendment on a national level while restricting access to arms to non-whites in each state. This is not just to prevent a "slave uprising" but also to keep non-Anglo group populations low through violence. (Why else would one need a military style rifle if not to massacre blacks or brown or even gay people who don't actively contribute to the increase of the white population?)

This [justified] vagueness has also allowed white supremacists to twist the Constitution + Bill of Rights into such things redlining for blacks and restricted land ownership for Asians. It allowed the removal and/or genocide of Native Americans and internment of Japanese- and German-Americans and government exclusion of Semitic, Catholic and Islamic observers. As well as interpret laws in ways that favor whites over non-whites in arrests and criminal sentencing.

You must understand that the US has a social hierarchy that goes like this: Anglo-Saxon males, Anglo-Saxon females, Celts, Teutons/Germans, Norwegians, Slavs, Italians/Spanish, Semites, white Latin-Americans, Asians, Native Americans/Pacific Islanders, and Africans/black Americans. Under the superior numbers of non-Anglo immigrants these groups were allowed to participate in governance using the College to prevent them from reaching The Office. Blacks and indigenous Americans were always excluded and never even considered as Americans, sometimes even as human beings. Each non-Anglo white group would eventually follow the practice of treating these two groups poorly.

While limiting non-Anglo whites from getting the proverbial upper hand would be very difficult in politics, limiting rights for African- and indigenous-Americans was helped using a mythology crafted for centuries in North America. Even today, black and Indian men are believed to have superhuman strength but low intellect. As well as bodies that can withstand normal abuse. This makes them more animal than human. And women like furniture than human. It's allowed government to exclude them from politics. It's allowed the economy to excluded them from financial resources and jobs. It's allowed doctors to exclude them in health/disease research or even in urgent situations. It's allowed police to ignore the dangers created by extreme poverty, treat suspects as humans with rights, or just allow them to rule over them using fear and force. And if that's how they treat the men imagine how poorly they treat the non-white women. What happens to these women has never been a concern for American society.

Which circles back to women, specifically white women, who now can be raped by strangers or family members and forced to carry the resulting pregnancy to term. And here's the ugly, dark secret in the hearts of many many men: If she doesn't submit willingly, she will submit by force. It's a visceral display of dominance over women and possibly expand the population via women who haven't married or interested in having [white] children. And children is the only way to increase population thus maintaining power in white [Anglo] hands.

Expand full comment
author

Hey Ben!

Wow! That was great! I love people who genuinely think about the problems we face in this country and globally, rather than just spitting out the latest "hot takes" they just heard on CNN, MSNBC or FOX.

While I agree with you on so many points, here's what I truly believe about the Founding Father and MOTHERS - who conveniently never get mentioned. The reason I believe with all my heart that we owe a great deal to the Founding Mothers, is exactly what you said - men have a lot of hidden darkness that, if left to their own devices, they will deny, deny, deny. Perhaps I am naive, that is fine, but I believe that the Constitution was written with the very noblest intentions. The reason I see the mark of women in it is that it is a framework that is built with a very stark recognition of this darkness, which I just don't think men do on their own. I think that is exactly why women are so vital.

In other words, these are men who had lived or had knowledge of life under the tyranny of a King and wanted something better for themselves and this new nation. Perhaps I am too gracious or too generous, but men are only human after all and they can only change their own nature so much and/ or society so much in the span of one lifetime. I would like to believe that they wrote the Constitution with the best of intentions, hoping it would eventually lead to a better nation than the one they personally were capable of creating.

In that, I think they succeeded. I truly believe America is a far greater nation today than it was at its founding. For one thing, we are at least beginning to acknowledge the many atrocities that were committed in the name of founding this nation. I, for one, am grateful to Biden for appointing the first Native American cabinet member and I think making her the Interior Secretary is hugely appropriate. I think we would be far better as a nation if we allowed the original inhabitants of this land far greater freedom to care for it as they did back then. I truly believe Native Americans were the original conservationists and I think we ALL suffer for not following in their ways.

While how we went about it was (I believe) completely wrong, the only war we've ever really fought amongst ourselves resulted in at least the beginning of righting one of perhaps the two greatest wrongs in this country. We're still not where we need to be on either one of them, but I would like to believe that overall we are moving closer, not farther away from those goals - although to be fair, it is sometimes one step forward, two steps back.

Personally, rightly or wrongly, I believe there are far more caring, compassionate citizens of this great nation than the hotheads and zealots that just love to hear the sound of their own voice. The truth is, that women - and possibly even Blacks (I can't speak to that)- have for the most part sat back and bitched about what white men have been doing, without actually doing the hard work of engaging in civic and government affairs. That is rapidly changing but it does beg the question of whether things would be different if women and minorities had run for office en mass before Trump happened.

I think an argument could be made that we (all of us who did not run, did not get involved) "let" this happen. I think we are learning our lesson. I think we are going to see the changes that we have wanted for so long because we are finally stepping up to the plate and MAKING them happen. I think the next two years are going to be very interesting.

Thank you for your thoughtful response, but maybe don't give up on America just yet...

Expand full comment
Jun 26, 2022Liked by Robin Thinks

I always refer to them as the Founders. These are the men and women who wrote this well-crafted document that gives lots of leeway to The People to govern themselves. But these are also the men and women who permitted, if not prospered, in the enslavement, genocide and subjugation of people. It's not that I "believe" but that I can accurately assume that every decision since the first humans came from both men and women. Even if history "gives" women a free pass from both the good and the bad. One can say beyond any doubt that human migration across this planet may have started with a woman saying, "I don't like it here, let's move." (My mom got my dad to do a lot of things.)

Every human being everywhere has the exact same rights as every other human being everywhere. Barring disease or underdevelopment, every human being as the same privileges as every other human being. If not the same, every person must be treated the same as every other person. No way around this.

Every human being has a right to their own body to do as they wish. That is the very essence of Free Will. And although the Founders might've originally hoped that only Anglo-Saxon Protestant land-owning males took advantage of this freedom via the Constitution and Bill of Rights, they knew that other "breeds" of people would soon figure out that these inalienable rights belong to everyone.

That being said, an embryo before 24 weeks is not a formed human being and cannot rule over the life and health of the woman who carries it. We know it has no motor functions and doesn't communicate outwardly. We even refer to it as "it" as proof we don't consider it a person yet. And "yet" is not a basis for forfeiting a woman's freedoms.

The truth is that in a life-or-death situation any man given the choice between him and an embryo he would choose himself over that embryo. So why can't a woman make that same choice for herself? A potential life does not supersede an existing one.

Expand full comment
author

Wow, I'm kind of impressed. You understand something that very few people seem to. Many people get angry about white supremacy, but it's not that they are opposed to supremacy, they are simply opposed to WHITE supremacy. Same with straight supremacy, wealth supremacy, male supremacy - fill in the blank.

They are fully in favor of there being hierarchies, they are just angry they are not at the top of them. On the other hand, they also don't want to topple them or do away with them, they just want to change the dynamic so they are on top. This is why the middle class never wants to tax the wealthy. They genuinely believe they will be one of them one day, so they don't want to put any limits on rich people that might haunt them when they finally become one of them.

Then you get the people that have resigned themselves to the fact that they will never be at the top of pile and play "who's the biggest victim" instead, trying to essentially create a reverse hierarchy. Which ultimately is just a backwards way of still trying to be on top.

I am anti-hierarchy. I am no better than anyone else, but I am no worse, either. I do not acknowledge anyone to be my superior but I do not consider myself to be above anyone else either. It's very freeing when you stop allowing other people to control you. The desire to control others also ceases almost the second you stop allowing anyone to control you.

I fully agree with you not just that everyone everywhere has the exact same rights but that we are all equal. I know a lot of people dispute this but the truth is no one has any power over you/ me/ us except that which you/ I/ we give them. I know a lot of people are screaming that our rights as women have been taken away, but the truth is that most women who don't have rights don't have them because they gave them up to a man or men, not because the government took them away.

While I am angry about the complete and utter hypocrisy of so-called "Christian" men, the truth is that they only have so much power because too many women have been giving it to them for too long. It's time we took our power back. Or, to put it anther way, it's time we claimed our rightful free agency.

Expand full comment
Jun 26, 2022Liked by Robin Thinks

Usually folks will stop me when I say "everyone is equal to everyone" but they won't know why. They don't recognize that their own privilege makes them second guess true egalitarianism.

There's nothing in the Constitution or Bill of Rights that restrict or limit women, or people of color for that matter.

All of human history is based on people following in lockstep and too often into very ugly places. I'm still amazed after thousands of years how quickly individuals are willing to suspend their own critical thinking to participate in mob mentality.

Expand full comment
author

I can't post photos in the comments, but there are two "illustrations" in this article you might be interested in. One is the way I see man's hierarchy and the other is how I see God's hierarchy. All in all, you might be interested in the whole article.

https://robinthinks.substack.com/p/understanding-americas-rage-problem

Expand full comment

Science also indicates that a female's brain is wired to make decisions based on emotions/feelings more so than males - which then, does it not, jade the interpretation of the very data you cite?

You also need to learn the concept of a 'right'. Where in human history has a 'right' been inherent? They never have nor will be - they are conveyed and enforced by a source outside of ourselves. Someone outside yourself has to acknowledge your claim.

Expand full comment
author

Hey Craig,

You do you realize you literally just proved my point, right? While there have been studies that show there are in fact differences in men's and women's brains, they literally have nothing to do with feeling/ emotion but rather that women are better at some types of cognitive processing tasks, while men are better at others. But even if I provide you the link to this study, you won't believe it because you don't want to believe it because believing you are superior to a woman feeds your EGO. Here's the link anyway.

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html

Also, I literally have no idea what you are talking about/ responding to with your incoherent rambling about rights. The only rights I referred to in my entire article is the "rights" men feel they are entitled to but that doesn't seem to be what you are responding to, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

But, thanks for reading!

Expand full comment
Jun 25, 2022·edited Jun 25, 2022Liked by Robin Thinks

Yeah, Craig B. Everything you said about women's brains and rights for women apply equality to men. Men's brains are affected by emotions all the time. Anger being the dominant emotion - a combo of testosterone and our competitive upbringing. Right, Craig?

If women don't have rights then neither do men. The Founders said that WE the People have these rights. The Constitution and Bill of Rights establishes this. WE don't need to convey rights NOR do WE enforce rights. WE protect these rights from those who attempt to infringe upon our rights.

What we do with our own bodies is our Right. Wouldn't you agree, Craig. I mean, unless you're willing to give up your own body to government regulation.

Expand full comment