If you feel angry by just reading the title of this post, you are not alone. Millions of women in America are now feeling angry by seeing the misogynistic posts with this title all over the social media, posted by self-proclaimed “alpha” males who feel empowered by the results of the recent presidential election. Their argument for such disgraceful proclamations: we are pro life.

Okay, let’s for a moment assume that they really believe what they say. That they care about the lives of the unborn fetuses. In that sense, I am pro life too. I also care about the life of any living being, be it a human being, a pet, a wild animal, an insect, and yes, a living unborn fetus. In fact, I go as far as claiming that the life of any living being should have the same value as the life of any other living being (if you are interested in reading about this somewhat controversial thought, please see my earlier post titled Living a Contradiction). So, assuming that we are all sensible enough to agree on what needs to be done in the extreme scenarios where the life of the mother can be put in danger if she is forced to carry a dead fetus to term, we may not have much disagreement as far as caring about the life of a fetus is concerned. But why should we stop there? Is the life only important before birth? How about thinking about the livelihood of a born child, about her or his nutrition, about she or he being raised in a loving and caring environment, about her or his education, and about her or his work opportunities? The “alpha” male social media influencer’s answers to these questions will probably be, no, we should not be concerned about those issues; everyone should “pull themselves up by their bootstraps!”

As ridiculous as the above argument may sound, it is what millions of Americans believe in. I will return to this later maybe in some other post. But here, I want to discuss the “choice” term that is used in the title of this post (and the title of the many misogynistic social media posts it is referring to). I think it is easy for these self-proclaimed “alpha” males to claim this “choice,” because they believe it comes with no responsibility attached to it. So here I am going to propose a mechanism that I believe if implemented (and I know that it is a big “if”), can help put this seemingly controversial topic to rest once and for all. But before I present the details of my proposal, I should emphasize that I am not trying to equate the sacrifices of a mother for her child with a monetary contribution by the child’s biological father. I know that it is not fair or reasonable. My intention is only to create some form of responsibility that goes along with that “choice” that some are claiming, so that they think twice before executing the powers of that “choice.”

So, here is the proposal:

• Every child born by a mother who is subject to the above “choice” of the men in this country, will receive a stipend, enough to meet their various essential needs at various stages of their growth, until graduation from college or start of a paying job. The amount of this stipend should be calculated by considering all the essential needs of a person from food and housing to health care and education, appropriate at each age. But not any non-essential luxury items. This is consistent with the philosophy of being pro life, because it means that one is pro life even after the birth of a child as well. And I am sure there are many pro life people that can do a good job in calculating a reasonable value for the above stipend considering the effects of inflation, etc. So there shouldn’t be any controversy there.
• The funding of the above stipends will be through a mandatory contribution by the biological father of the child, regardless of him being actively involved in the raising of and care for the child or not. That is, the biological father of every child whose mother is subject to the above “choice” of the men in America, will be required to pay an amount equal to the amount of the above-mentioned stipend, to a fund managed by a governmental agency with the authority to enforce such payments under penalties recommended by the congress and decided in courts as needed. This will not make any difference in the lives of the families of the responsible and involved biological fathers, since their children will receive exactly the same amount that they pay to the fund every month. But it will make a huge difference in the lives of the children who are raised by single mothers in the absence of and without involvement of their biological fathers.

I know that with the male-dominated decision making bodies in the country, implementing a system similar to the one I am proposing above is implausible. But if it were to be implemented, it could probably help make better decisions about the lives of unborn fetuses, and it would certainly help the “alpha” males think twice before posting misogynistic social media posts with titles like the title of this post.