Cattle and Men: No Bull

 

Weld County, Colorado, where I went to college, is known for sugar beets, winter wheat and cattle.  The cattle were raised on huge feed lots. As the cattle fattened, they were moved to pens that got closer and closer to the big, white slaughterhouse.  It is the classic example of that admonition, “Don’t go toward the light.”  The cattle did not know any better. 

            If you are going to raise beef cattle, you must have bulls impregnating cows.  Farmers found out decades ago that this impregnation could be done faster by a man with a syringe than with an actual bull.  But you still need the semen.  Back when I was in school you had farms of champion bulls that were tapped four to eight times weekly for their sperm.  It sounds like a tricky business, getting a huge, mean-tempered bull excited and then offering him a plastic cup. 

            While today they use an electronic stimulant, back when I was in college, they had an easy way to get the bulls aroused.  They would walk them around in a circle with one bull in front of the other.  It seems that just seeing another bovine up ahead was enough to get the bulls going.  Anything with a hole in it was good enough for your average male.  

            The intelligent among you now see where I am going. 

            If the news of the last month has taught us anything it is that understanding men is way too easy.  From Bill Gates (who is progressive, altruistic and a self-made billionaire) to Matt Gaetz (who is a neo-Nazi, spoiled brat who got his money from Daddy) it seems that men have absolutely no control over their penis. 

What is more, men take no responsibility for their actions.  Nor is society in a mood to force responsibility on them.

            Case in point: this month Gov. Abbott of Texas signed his anti-abortion bill making it harder for women to get an abortion.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am pro-life.  I have come to terms with Roe v. Wade, as an ugly necessity, but I do not have to like it.  But that does not mean I like this legislation either.  It fails the one test that all such legislation fails.  It fails to address the man who caused the pregnancy.

            There is not a single woman since the Virgin Mary who has become pregnant without a man starting the whole thing in motion.  It is his sperm, not her egg that initiates a pregnancy.  The woman is then required to either have the child and assume primary responsibility for raising it or have an abortion.  The man faces no responsibility, no critical choices, no life changing and life-threatening procedures. 

            An abortion is an invasive, hemorrhagic procedure.  It (just like pregnancy) opens a woman to the possibilities of infection and complications.  Women are supposed to endure this because a man chose not to wear a condom.  Yet, men get off scot free.  They bear no responsibility.  They are as carefree in their actions as those bulls.  See a hole.  Fill it.  Move on.

            I have a suggestion.  Every man who impregnates a woman has 20% of his income (wages to welfare, inherited or earned), automatically given to the mother of his child for the next 21 years to use as she see’s fit for the rearing of her child.  A DNA test is an easy way to name the correct father and he now has—you should pardon the expression—some skin in the game.  Condom sales will explode. 

Do you see how this thinking changes the dynamic?  Suddenly the responsibility is on the man who supplies the sperm, not the woman who only supplied an egg that was going to be there in any event.  If you think this sounds a bit harsh keep in mind that my first thought was to say that for every woman who has an abortion, the man who impregnated her must have the inside of his penis scrapped raw so that it bleeds for three to five days.  Once again, the sale of condoms would explode, but some people might think this too punitive.

Place the responsibility where it belongs and keep the faith.