One thing that can happen when you have sex is you get pregnant. It comes with the territory — even if you are diligent in doing all the things that prevent it, it can still happen.
So, due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, USA Today is suggesting there is a big increase in anxiety over sex between married couples. The newspaper interviewed a young mother from Nebraska who says she now fears date night with her husband because it could turn into an unplanned pregnancy.
“I’m a 42-year-old woman now afraid I’ll get pregnant from my husband of 20 years,” Elena told USA Today. “I’m over 40, so what if I became pregnant with a fetus that had a fatal developmental defect? What if I miscarried, and my body didn’t expel all the tissue? What if something went horribly wrong?”
To fear that your theoretical child could have defects is — well, it’s cruel. And to assume that pregnancy will automatically lead to death is quite over-the-top — an irrational and unscientific fear, especially in this day and age.
“I never thought about abortion, or the Supreme Court, or if a judge would determine the value of my life when I should be thinking about whether we should go out for General Tso’s chicken or carne asada tacos,” Elena said. “But in the past week, I have. I have wondered if having sex with my own husband would eventually kill me.”
I think the quote speaks for itself.
Aside from this absolutely ludicrous fear within marriage, some people dating now fear that abstinence is their best option. Sex therapists have supposedly observed an increase in anxiety since Dobbs.
“Sex is a little scary to me right now,” Brittany Johnson, 26, told USA Today.
“Sexuality is a fundamental part of life, and the enjoyment of sexuality is a part of life. Anxiety really gets in the way of that enjoyment,” sex therapist Ian Kerner told USA Today. Overall, he believes that this ruling will cause a decline in sexual exploration among the younger generation.
Wow — there’s a thought-provoking idea.
What a devastating fact that young, unmarried individuals will avoid having sex for fear of getting pregnant only now that they don’t have the easy backup plan of killing the baby as a way out of their own mistake. That whole business of people using abortion as birth control — that’s apparently for real.
Somehow, the end of USA Today’s article gently reaffirms these ignorant fears and levels of anxiety as valid.
“You’re not crazy. You’re not being dramatic. You’re having a response to something that is scary,” Victoria James, a mental health counselor, told the paper.
The mindset of seeing pregnancy as a burden and a pathway toward death is already extremely narcissistic. But to go a step further, blaming the Supreme Court for you having to skip Taco Tuesday date night with your husband, exposes how little you care about your spouse — oh yeah, and your fear of raising a child with him. If couples continue with this mindset, their marriages won’t last long.
Esther Wickham is a summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow.
