Studies show that abortion hurts men as well as women:

• The pain of broken relationships. Surveys demonstrated that more than 50% of the male-female relationships end within one year after the abortion of their child.

• Moral guilt. Of 1,050 men interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, two-thirds of those who acknowledged having fathered an aborted child said they felt guilty about it, and one-third acknowledged feelings of regret. These rates surpassed those which the Times found among post-abortive women.

• Feelings of helplessness and impotence. The law systematically excludes a man from his wife's (or partner's) decision to abort. Men are helpless to save their child, despite the fact that more than 60 percent of surveyed men believe men should be consulted under the law before their partners abort. Although many men want to protect their offspring, the Los Angeles Times found that aborting women only consulted their child's father 43% of the time.

• Impoverished character. Abortion encourages sexually predatory habits by releasing men from responsibility for their actions. It has certainly encouraged male abandonment of women who don't take the easy "out" of abortion. After interviewing 1000 men whose partners were getting abortions, sociologist Arthur Shostak warned that men who are not helped to mourn over an abortion are learning how to be even less involved as nurturing parents in the future. [Excerpted from "Almost a Daddy," Post Abortion Ministries; from AUL, 10/93]