More Men Coming Forward to Talk About Post-Abortion Pain

David Andrusko writing in Today’s News and Views for the National Right to Life Committee says pro-abortionists are taking notice with trepidation about new attention being paid to abortion consequences for men. “Abortion rights supporters watch this latest mobilization warily: If anecdotes from grieving women can move the Supreme Court, what will testimony about men’s pain accomplish? They can potentially shift the entire debate,” said Marjorie Signer of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, an interfaith group that supports abortion rights. Signer was quoted in an article which ran in the January 7, 2008 Los Angeles Times.

Signer was referring to commentary which substantiated post-abortion grief for women in last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold the partial-birth abortion ban

Over the years, a few men have stepped forward to talk about the pain they experienced from losing a child through abortion. I can remember a father coming to a public hearing in Madison many years ago, testifying tearfully that he found out about his wife’s abortion when he found the bill for it while cleaning the kitchen floor. All who heard this dramatic testimony were profoundly affected by this man’s agony.

The subject of post-abortion men is no longer a now-and-then utterance as many more men come forward. At a workshop at the National Right to Life convention held earlier this month, family therapist Greg Hasek explained that post-abortive men do not seek counseling because they do not connect their pain to the abortion. Hasek said that what impacts men deeply is not the concept of abortion itself but that of lost fatherhood. Because of this, approaches to men must be different than those to women.

Kudos to the National Office for Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing for holding a major conference last November in San Francisco on “Reclaiming Fatherhood.” With 170 participants from 28 states and nine countries, this conference was so successful that a second one is planned for September 8th and 9th, 2008 in Chicago.

And, we will watch the pro-abortionists squirm as they continue to try to shove under the rug the fact that there are major harmful consequences from abortion to women and men.

Barbara Lyons

A follow-up conference is scheduled for