Don’t reside in Brunei? Can’t condemn the code.

Think that the Asian nation of Brunei’s encoding a punishment of death for homosexual sex is wrong? If you’re not a Bruneian, take a seat. You have nothing to say about it.

Actor George Clooney called for a boycott of hotels owned by the sultan of Brunei, but what right does he have to condemn him and their Shariah Penal Code Order? Is he a citizen of Brunei? Sit down, George.

And take a seat, every American appalled and outraged by Brunei’s stipulation of death by stoning for sex between two men if you also claim that men in this country have no right to make laws limiting abortion because they are not women. The same illogic applies.

Plenty of poor arguments are propounded by abortion rights promoters, and one of those is graphically expressed in a tweet I saw recently:

If you didn’t bleed through every pair of pants you had in 7th grade, you can’t write laws about reproductive rights.

In other words…if you’ve never menstruated, you can’t legislate to restrict the reproductive-related rights of those who have. This is fallacious reasoning on several fronts.

The most obvious one, though intentionally ignored by most who champion abortion rights, is that the argument completely fails to address the focus of abortion legislation which is the unborn child. But it also commits what I’ll call the Moccasin Mistake…the faulty argument which holds that unless you’ve shared in my experience, are part of my tribe, or “walked a mile in my moccasins,” you have no right to judge the things I do that don’t involve you.

The gist of the argument is, if you’ve never and will never be in my shoes or this issue doesn’t directly affect you, your opinion carries no weight. But it seems to me that if this is true, it necessarily defangs any objection to laws or practices in nations other than our own, as with Brunei’s encoding of Islamic Sharia law. So, instead of the sultan responding to the international outcry by saying that the death penalty for gay sex won’t be enforced, according to this argument he should have said, “We’re a sovereign nation and you’re not a part of it. So mind your own business.”

A similar retort given by some abortion supporters to those who object to it is, “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.” The faulty reasoning of this argument is easily exposed by protectors of the unborn with, “Don’t like slavery? Don’t own a slave.” Same illogic.

But of course Mr. Clooney and others feel perfectly justified in their condemnation of Brunei’s laws and boycotting of their businesses because there are some seemingly objective, inherent human rights that all humans should defend and fight for. And that’s why men have every right to do whatever they can to protect the right to life of the humans who live within the bodies of women.

And not only because they’re protecting inherent human rights, but because men also play a part in reproduction, if you’ll recall from biology class or sex ed. The lives they’re seeking to defend all required the involvement of a man and are children of men, as well as of women.

Men have a say in what happens when women choose abortion. To try and deny half the population the right to protect the victims of abortion simply because they don’t share the unique role of the woman’s body as the place where the victim resides, is no different than the sultan of Brunei demanding that George Clooney sit his butt down and shut his face.