Explain to me how a pregnancy can occur without ejaculation.
Well, technically, it happens quite frequently. Lots of men have sperm in their pre-ejaculate fluid. It's one of the reasons withdrawal as a birth control method has such a high failure rate. But perhaps you use "ejaculation" to refer to everything after penetration.
Absolutely, the statement: “every unwanted pregnancy begins with some man’s ejaculation” is simplistic as well as factual. As acknowledged elsewhere, ejaculation* is necessary but not sufficient for pregnancy to occur. My intention was never to go into a huge discourse about conception, pregnancy, the mechanics of sex, the physiological processes that need to occur to support a pregnancy, much less oogenesis, spermatogenesis, etc. I assume everyone is familiar with how pregnancy occurs at a basic high school level.
*You are correct: pregnancy can and does occur because there is sperm present in the pre-ejaculatory fluid on the tip of the penis as a part of male arousal. Any penis/vagina contact can result in pregnancy. I didn’t mention that as separate from ejaculation in the original statement because, honestly, it was a statement made to bring attention to the fact that men are not merely passive victims in unwanted pregnancies. They play an absolutely essential, generative role without which pregnancy does not occur.
This is also not about blame or fault. I’m tired of mostly ( but not only) men engaging in slut shaming and hand waving surrounding pregnancy—‘She should have kept her knees together’ and ‘Just have an abortion/ give the baby up for adoption’ —it sure ain’t MY problem! as though pregnancy were some conspiracy to rope men into commitments they do not want to make and causes no medical, physical, emotional, relationship, educational, social or economic consequences—life long consequences! for women. While men can and do just…walk away. Disappear. Throw a package of diapers on the door step and call it good. Call her a slut and bad mother and low life, etc. Sure, she might drag him to court for child support but I’ve seen how that does not work out in real life—including two marriages which failed because the wife refused to terminate a(nother) pregnancy and one ‘father’ who quit his job, moved out of state and took a job managing a property where most of his income was in form of room and board so that he could avoid paying any child support for his children on the brink of adolescence.
Don’t worry: I know some pretty shitty mothers as well. Some men who raised children on or mostly on their own, including ones not biologically theirs. And I know some adoptees who had wonderful childhoods and some who always felt a piece was missing.
Given the current make up of the US Supreme Court and the insanity of some state legislatures, not only are abortion rights being threatened but so are some forms of birth control. Perhaps all birth control.
There needs to be a genuine shift in thinking about how pregnancy begins, a stronger more solid recognition of the role men play reflected in how we treat sex, pregnancy, childbirth, child rearing.
More men are active participants in the lives of their children compared with 50 or even 30 years ago. Social institutions and workplaces have been much slower to adapt to any family model that does not center around a two heterosexual parent + child(ren)/one stay at home or mostly stay at home parent family unit. As though families were assembled in units and not comprised of living breathing human beings.
Much like this thread, this response has gone on far too long.