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Studies show that abortion hurts men as well as women, leaving the former with the following consequences:

 

  • The pain of broken relationships. Surveys demonstrate that more than 50 percent of male-female relationships end within a year after the abortion of their child. National surveys have found that most surviving relationships experience increased relational problems because of the abortion.

 

  • 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 percent 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 1,000 men whose partners were getting abortions, sociologist Arthur Shostak warned that men who aren’t 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”. 1990, Post Abortion Ministries; Americans United for Life, 1993]

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 The book, Fatherhood Aborted: The Profound Effects of Abortion on Men by Guy Condon and David Hazard, includes the following:

Aftershocks of Male Post-abortion Trauma:

    * Has difficulty with commitment
    * Dodges authority
    * Has no solid sense of identity
    * Works to impress moral leaders
    * Keeps women at bay
    * Has trouble bonding
    * Fears impending tragedy
    * Doesn't own his mistakes
    * Feels inadequate as a leader

They also lay out the following symptoms:

    * Relationship struggles
    * Inability to trust friends
    * Rage
    * Addictions and sexual compulsions
    * Sleeplessness, bad dreams, nightmares
    * Sexual dysfunction
    * Depression
    * Fear of failure
    * Fear of rejection
    * Loneliness or numbness

Other Observations

Some men describe suffering great anxiety when their partner becomes pregnant and carries the baby to term.

Some men also describe being overly protective fathers, who fear something will happen to their children to the detriment of normal development of their children. Some describe becoming emotionally enmeshed. Some are emotionally distant but overly-protective.

Some describe becoming the parent who does major caretaking of the child, pushing away the mother and over-reacting to normal childhood occurrences such as a cold, by assuming the child must have contracted pneumonia and rushing the child to the emergency room.

Occasionally a man may act out in socially destructive ways: church fires, murder/ suicides or abortion clinic attacks. Confusion and grief over the end of the relationship that resulted in the pregnancy.

They may occasionally obsess about the lost partner. Some men describe becoming involved in behavior that looks like stalking, because he needs to maintain contact with her and/or figure out how she came to choose an abortion.

Some men discuss becoming involved with pornography and sexual addictions following an abortion loss.

When men identify the issue that is troubling them after an abortion experience, it is named as the loss of fatherhood.

Vincent Rue, Ph.D., pioneer researcher in the field of men and abortion, wrote in an article, The Effects of Abortion on Men, that "men do grieve following abortion, but they are more likely to deny their grief or internalize their feelings of loss rather than openly express them . . . When men do express their grief, they try to do so in culturally prescribed "masculine" ways, i.e. anger, aggressiveness, control. Men typically grieve in a private way following an abortion. Because of this, men's requests for help may often go unrecognized and unheeded by those around them." He continues, "A guilt-ridden, tormented male does not easily love or accept love. His preoccupation with his partner, his denial of himself and his relentless feelings of post-abortion emptiness can nullify even the best of intentions. His guilt may prevent him from seeking compassion, support or affection. In turn, he 'forgets' how to reciprocate these feelings"…

Much more information can be found at —
http://www.menandabortion.info/l0-aftermath.html