'Men Are 100% Responsible for Unwanted Pregnancies': Gabrielle Blair on Her Viral-Tweet-Turned-Book
(a most interesting read)
‘Men Are 100% Responsible for Unwanted Pregnancies’: Gabrielle Blair on Her Viral-Tweet-Turned-Book, ‘Ejaculate Responsibly’
10/21/2022 by Steph Black
“I’d like to see the conversation shift from women’s bodies to what men can do to prevent pregnancy,” said Gabrielle Blair, author of Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion.
(Workman Publishing)
As the political landscape continues to regress, it’s time to rethink how we talk about abortion. Gabrielle Blair, a Mormon woman and mother of six, argues that the onus of preventing unwanted pregnancies should fall to those who cause them: men. In her new book, Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion, Blair reframes the conversation about sex, contraception and abortion in 28 succinct arguments. The book is based on Blair’s 2018 viral tweet: “Men are 100 percent responsible for unwanted pregnancies.” Blair posits that men should share contraceptive responsibility and become active participants in conversations around birth control.
I sat down with Blair to discuss her journey from viral tweet to publishing a book.
Steph Black: Tell me about yourself and what brought you here.
Gabrielle Blair: My background is in graphic design. I started a blog in 2006 called DesignMom about the intersection of parenting and design—and believe it or not, it’s still going! That little intersection allowed me to write about anything I wanted, and that means I can even write about abortion. That surprises some people if they’ve only known me for my house tours or recipes. But I was always writing about current events and political things that I was talking to my own children about. I’m a mother of six, and a Mormon. I have a good understanding of arguments surrounding abortion, religious and otherwise. I’ve been listening to men grandstand about women’s reproductive rights, and I’m convinced men actually have zero interest in stopping abortion. Here’s why…
— Gabrielle Blair (@designmom) September 13, 2018
Black: Your book really started with a viral tweet thread back in 2018 when you wrote that men were responsible for 100 percent of unplanned pregnancies. What has the journey been like from that tweet to this book?
Blair: It was my very first thread. I had never really used Twitter for anything other than promoting blog posts. That changed during the election. I had written this piece about abortion, but I wasn’t sure where to put it on my blog. It was a little angrier maybe than other things I had written. I sat on it until the Kavanaugh hearings, which was politician after politician grandstanding about abortion. None of them cared or knew anything about abortion. It was just so maddening. So I decided to publish that thread and it went viral instantly.
. . . . . .
Some people think my argument is actually stronger because I’m from a conservative religion and because I have six kids. They see I’m obviously pro-having kids and I’m not trying to stop people from having families. Not all Mormons would agree with me, but I study our doctrine and I feel like it fits very neatly with abortion. I have no issues being both pro-choice and Mormon.
https://msmagazine.com/2022/10/21/men-responsible-unwanted-pregnancies-gabrielle-blair/