Men play a primary role in one of many privations that women endure. Men are principals at the inception of pregnancies. Male lawmakers, religious leaders and other entities, craft laws that affect women’s well-being and health, including restricting abortions. Since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, most abortions are currently performed through “abortion pills” — mifestone and misoprostol.

As the new Trump administration spreads its wings and turns its attention to the status of medical abortion, it’s uncertain if it will outlaw mail delivery of the abortion pill. The majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal, and in most red states abortion ballot measures have passed. Indeed in the 2024 election cycle, the ballot measure passed in seven out of 10 states.

I have written a great deal about men’s role in the abortion debate. Men, one notes, tend to be passive observers of women’s struggles for abortion, as if the women they sleep with are alone in the responsibility for their fertility. It is an unfortunate attitude that is reflected in most male legislators’ actions. Still, pregnancy after sexual intercourse: either matrimonial, by rape, incest or at war, results from man’s involvement.

We don’t often discuss how lowering the incidence of pregnancy also reduces the need for abortions. If male legislators can remember this fact, the anti-abortion measures they pass will be less onerous and less punitive against women.

We men are part of every pregnancy and therefore should involve ourselves in the gynecological welfare of the women we have sex with. That concern should include garnering knowledge: all boys and girls should be taught sex education. Every teenager in America should know the basics of sexual physiology, and quite logically, how pregnancy can be avoided. I say this because in many school boards across this country AOUM — Abstinence Only Until Marriage — has been the primary policy for many years. Clearly it is easier to legislate and prohibit what is considered a female foible and sin, than to do some real work, to teach and learn the mechanics of reproduction. Suffice it to say that an AOUM attitude is impractical and irrational.

Our legislators should know more about the human reproductive system than their own children. Men who pass laws prohibiting abortion at six weeks probably have little understanding of the union of a sperm and ovum in the fallopian tube to form a zygote. From time to time they rupture in an ectopic pregnancy that requires surgery — performed by surgeons. For any legislator to pass laws about this or any other matter, they must be well informed about what they are doing. When Pope Pius IX proclaimed Mary’s pregnancy immaculate and that Mary was a virgin in his 1854 Papal Bull Inefabilis Deus, he had little knowledge about human fertilization.

It is always interesting to compare how the U.S. is better or worse than other advanced nations in this and other scientific or cultural matters. In France and Germany, abortions are permitted up to 12 weeks of conception; while the Nordic countries are more liberal. Most abortions tend to be before nine weeks as a result of a superior public health-care system. Where abortion is concerned, most former Soviet Bloc countries lag in issues of women’s freedom, health and abortion rights — mirroring our Republican states.

In red states where severe abortion restrictions are legislated, higher maternal and infant mortality, as well as greater economic insecurity run rampant.

In these red states, male legislators dominate. Many evangelical Christian groups work hard to have these anti-abortion laws passed. Perhaps as followers of Christ and readers of the Bible, they should require passage of legislation to support the new families that are created as a result of their governmental actions.

In the end, as a physician, I would not perform an abortion; I am not trained to do so. Fortunately, there are many who do a good job. It would be ideal if our society arrived at a place where we no longer require the termination of an unwanted pregnancy. We can get there sooner if men take similar responsibility as their female counterparts in an act involving two individuals. Such male concern for their women is a sign of maturity, love and charity.

Whatever school boards say, our schools have a responsibility to teach boys and girls how their actions have consequences. Public, private, religious schools should be part of this, with the understanding that, “knowledge will set you free.”

Pius Kamau, M.D., a retired general surgeon, is president of the Aurora-based Africa America Higher Education Partnerships; co-founder of the Africa Enterprise Group and an activist for minority students ’STEM education. He is a National Public Radio commentator, a Huffington Post blogger, a past columnist for Denver dailies and is featured on the podcast, “Never Again.”