I am distracted by the stories flooding the news on the leak of Justice Alito’s decision that, if the unlovable Alito keeps his support, will overturn Roe.  With my abortion rights at risk, I spoke to Bart about obtaining an abortion. She called me an idiot, as did Fielding.  “You’re not preggo, Crocky.  And, being a Tom, you’re not ever going to get knocked up.”  I protested that she was making a prediction.  She is no seer.  Who knows what the future holds?  And why couldn’t I take that pill to get a sense of what an abortion, if I ever become pregnant, would be like?   Bart and Fielding rolled their eyes.  “Our education system has failed him,” they chimed.   But I had read radical feminist papers on the future happy day when men could carry to term.   Anything and everything are possible. If not in the past, then now.  If not now, then in the future. If not in the future, then in the timelessness of kitty heaven.” 

Still, Tony Alito’s draft bothered me. I diskliked it, even though Tony is a dear friend.  I couldn’t help wondering how many guys would wind up involuntary fathers if he had his way.  Maybe “involuntary” is the wrong word since most guys plunge with alacrity into coitus without women forcing them, but “nonvoluntary” must count as the truth about unaborted kids.  It wouldn’t be so bad if a child’s paternity was beyond proof.  Alas, Watson and Crick’s discovery of the double helix ruined that.  Man-haters got together in no time to develop reliable paternity tests based on the DNA of putative fathers. Denials of fatherhood have become impossible to pull off.  And the result?  Cis-women shaking down guys to pay for the rearing of their bastard sons and daughters.  My friend Tony had concocted a recipe for conscripting men into public fatherhood.  I weep to consider what Tony’s mad ideas would do to a struggling guy’s pocketbook.  Tony had created the premise for the best argument ever developed for boys running with Trans-, rather than Cis, girls.  Of course, in the heat of the moment, guys are wont to forget the risks of dating fecund Cis-women.  Tony ignored all of that in his opinion.   Instead, he would allow the dragooning of women into motherhood and in the future would do the same to pregnant men.  He may not think about these deep topics, but I do.

As I explained my deep thinking to Bart, her fury mounted.  She got so incensed she again beat me up. “Where do you get these insane ideas?  What have they to do with cats?  Have you ever met a trans- Tom or Molly?  Cats are all Cis-gender and will always be Cis.  You’re thinking about this like a human, you imbecile?  When I invited her to entertain the idea that trans- Mollies and Toms are so convincing in their look that they are indistinguishable from Cis-gendered kitties, Fielding beat me up.”  Neither she nor Bart ever had patience with philosophers. 

I did think there was an irony in Tony’s thinking.  Tony told me he never thought a mother or father had a duty to donate so much as a pint of blood to save their own flesh and blood.  He had never argued for forcing a parent to donate a kidney to save a dying child.  It was only if the child was literally a parasite in the womb that Tony wanted to keep the mother and child union intact.  Anyway, I began to think this opinion could only have been written under the direction of Tony’s latest crush, her Majesty Amy.  Trust me.  He will deny it.  Tony always preferred a woman that could carry no cargo or was setting sail with full ballast.  He had made occasional exceptions for his wife.  Nobody knows if Tony will succeed in imposing his view of abortion on Americans.  Can he keep a 5-4 majority?  He does not have such a gift for friendship that I would bet my life on it.  At least I’ve now unburdened myself to you, gentle reader, and am ready to talk about living in Webster Groves.