...The truth is that 'legal' abortion still hurts, traumatizes, and even kills women and girls.
In a letter posted at Fredricksburg.com, Eileen Roberts, president of Mothers and Advocates for Mothers Alone, and the mother of a teen girl injured by abortion, wrote:
How can we be so naive to think that every surgical procedure of abortion is safe, and use the argument that women would resort to back-alley abortions?
Legalizing abortion simply gave the back-alley physician permission to put his shingle on the front door.
… Abortion may be currently legal, but it is anything but safe for either mother or child.
In every abortion someone dies.
My 14-year-old was told she was going to the best abortion facility in Virginia. Her boyfriend and a so-called adult friend, who transported her 45 miles from our home, did not know her as her parents did.
She suffered emotional and physical consequences from a so-called safe, legal abortion.
To add insult to injury, my husband and I were responsible for more than $27,000 in medical costs to repair the damage done by the abortionist.
In my opinion, this was an example of a legal back-alley abortion.
[from http://afterabortion.org/2011/the-truth-about-back-alley-abortions/ posted 9 March 2011, Elliot Institute]
Men Grieve Too...
Abortion and Men -- The Forgotten Victims of Choice
Adapted from an article by Vincent M. Rue, PhD & Cynthia Tellefsen
Institute for Pregnancy Loss, Portsmouth , New Hampshire
Does Abortion Affect Men?
How abortion affects men remains largely a story unexamined and untold.
In modern abortion practice, gender discrimination is rampant; women may choose, fathers may not. By law, fathers are excluded from participating in the abortion.
Men and the Problem Pregnancy
Prior to a woman aborting her child, there are six scenarios of male involvement:
o He doesn’t know she is pregnant and she aborts without his knowledge;
o He knows about the pregnancy but hides his own feelings or beliefs from the woman out of his attempt to “love” her and affirm her rights over her body;
o He pressures her to abort;
o He supports and encourages her decision to abort;
o He opposes the abortion and says so openly; and
o He abandons her physically and emotionally, refusing responsibility for her or any of her choices.
Forgotten Fathers
In the only book on abortion and men, Shostak describes male
abortion pain as the loss of fatherhood and a “wound you cannot see or
feel, but it exists”. (A. Shostak. Abortion and Men: Lessons, Losses
and Love. NY, Praeger, 1984).
According to Shostak, a man gets an incredible message at the first
real evidence of his virility, his partner announces she is pregnant,
and he is the father and “we are going to have a $US180 pregnancy
termination”. In interviewing 1000 men, Shostak found:
o abortion is a “death experience”, and for most mean more emotionally trying then they expected;
o the most common post-abortion reaction was helplessness;
o men who are not helped to mourn over an abortion are
learning how to be even less involved as nurturing parents in the
future; and
o the majority of relationships failed post-abortion.
One sad reality of abortion is that sensitive men hurt the women
they love by saying nothing when the word “abortion” is first uttered
in the decision-making process.
Desperately wanting to please, these men are rejected because they
are judged deficient in their true love for their partners: “How could
you say nothing during this crisis and let me just go out and kill our
child? Is this all I mean to you?”
According to one such father:
“Things are pretty screwed up when the way you show a woman you
love her is by agreeing to abort rather than having a child.”
For men who pressure or encourage the women they care about to have
an abortion, the test of true feelings emerges later on. Typically,
having encouraged the abortion for selfish reasons or out of fear,
these men can pay a great emotional price once the reality of what an
abortion is sinks in.
Some men are so wounded by their abortion role that they abort
their own lives. Dr Rue has treated women whose partners committed
suicide because they couldn’t escape hearing the relentless little
voices that kept saying:
“Daddy, Daddy, please don’t let me die”.
And for the man who stands up and opposes an abortion, under the
law he has now legal recourse and cannot defend his child’s right to
life. His grief is punctuated with impotency and feelings of
helplessness. Words are just not enough to prevent his child’s death.
Grief, Guilt and Loss
Men’s lives contain greater attachments and are more profoundly
affected by fatherhood that is usually assumed. One father whose child
died from abortion described his grief this way:
“I wasn’t in the room; I wasn’t even in the clinic that day. But in
my mind, I’ve been there a million times since. I’ve been watching,
breaking, wanting to rescue you. In my mind I need to be a hero not a
killer, the man who didn’t flee. But I am not. I am the man I fear I
see.”
Abortion rewrites the rules of masculinity. While a male is
expected to be strong, abortion makes him feel weak. A male is expected
to be responsible, yet abortion encourages him to act without concern
for the innocent and to destroy any identifiable and undesirable
outcomes of his sexual decision-making and/or attachments. A male is
expected to protect, but by law he is encouraged to do otherwise.
All humans must grieve a loss or they will in some way be tormented.
Typical male grief responses include remaining silent and grieving alone.
Men who have experienced abortion death can become traumatised by this significant loss. They may become:
o depressed and/or anxious
o controlling, demanding and directing;
o enraged or hostile when triggering events occur.
Relationships at Risk
A guilt-ridden, tormented male does not easily love or accept love.
His guilt may prevent him from seeking compassion, support or
affection. In turn, he “forgets” how to reciprocate these feelings.
To mask or substitute the need to grieve fosters denial and forces a male to become a “fugitive” from life, loving and healing.
The Price is Too High
Only now are we beginning to see the extent of the harm abortion
visits on women, men and the surviving children. It is clear that in
addition to the other victims of abortion, men too suffer. They too pay
a high price for reproductive “freedom”. They too lose in the high
stakes world of reproductive “choice” guided only by self and
expediency.
Killing hurts the living too. It knows no gender bias.
Pregnancy Assistance Incorporated
195 Lord Street
East Perth WA 6004
9328 2929
Email:
Abortion 
