An irate (former?) friend recently told me that I, a man, am too "damn opinionated" on abortion. This ridiculous claim that men, as such, have no right to an opinion on abortion (unless it's the "right" one, of course) rests on the following premise:
You have no right to advocate for something or someone over whom another person has (or is believed to have) exclusive control or responsibility.
Although this premise may seem reasonable in the abstract, the obvious problem with this logic is that it implies that you also have no right to an opinion on how an exploitative boss treats his workers, on how repressive foreign governments treat their citizens, on how abusive parents treat their post-birth children, and so on. Although there's certainly a place for business rights, national sovereignty, and parental rights, among other things, it's clear enough that they're based on the same premise and aren't absolute. Unless you're some sort of libertarian (in which I case I'd still disagree with you, but that's for another post), you'll find that it's very difficult to argue consistently from this premise.
