For every woman who participates in an abortion, there is a man. Although men are less likely to seek recovery, they suffer many of the same emotional feelings as women.
Jason was 19 years old. He had just joined the military when his girlfriend wrote and told him she was pregnant. “I was scared but excited, I wanted to marry her.” When he returned home after basic training, Jason was informed by his girlfriend’s father that he had taken his daughter for an abortion. Kate’s father told him he would no longer be allowed to see his daughter. That was ten years ago and he still cannot stop thinking about her and his child. Jason says, I let them both down, I was not there to protect her or my baby.”
Tom was a struggling college student when his girlfriend told him she was pregnant. Tom did what many in his situation have done, he convinced her to get an abortion. “Neither of us wanted to be parents,” he explained, “but I made the appointment for her. I will never forget how her face looked when she came out of the abortion clinic. She looked like she died along with our baby. I still remember going to McDonald’s afterward. It has been twenty years and I still think about her and our baby when I pass there.”
They have been called forgotten fathers, men stripped of their fundamental right to protect their unborn children. Their grief is not validated by a society that paradoxically demands accountability from the deadbeat dad but scorns the one who wants his child to live.
“Abortion rewrites the rules of masculinity,” says Dr. Vincent Rue, one of the nation’s leading psychologists in post-abortion issues. “Whether or not the male was involved in the abortion decision, his inability to function in a socially prescribed manner leaves him wounded and confused.” Society is not sympathetic to abortion survivors in general, and men are virtually ignored when it comes to abortion.
Men are also bypassed legally. Like Jason, most men do not realize until they face an unplanned pregnancy that they have no rights and no legal recourse to protect their unborn children.
What prevents men from dealing with their past abortions? First, men often don’t know they are suffering because the symptoms of post abortion stress seem unrelated to the abortion itself-inability to form trusting relationships, difficulty bonding with children, anger, risk taking, depression, suicidal feelings, panic attacks, and addictions. It is not uncommon that it may take up to ten years before men make the connection between their unhealthy behavior and an abortion.
For men to heal from an abortion they must:
Grieve: Men need to grieve and acknowledge that they have lost somebody who is dear to them. Men have been taught not to show their feelings. The result is that grown men have a difficult time expressing their own emotions. Many have never seen their fathers cry. Some have never seen another man cry. Combined with their fragile ego and lack of “emotional” role models, it is understandable why men don’t seek recovery. However, men feel pain just like women. Men grieve the loss just like women.
Forgive: It took Jason ten years and Tom twenty years to fully grasp what had happened and to accept God’s love and forgiveness.
Reconcile: After an abortion, 70 percent of relationships end shortly thereafter. Many men seek some sort of reconciliation with those involved. Tom contacted his former girlfriend and apologized for his role. Jason still has a strong need to find his girlfriend and tell her he is sorry for not protecting her.
Acceptance: ”I am a father. My child would have been ten or twenty by now.” Until men begin to acknowledge that abortion has damaged their lives and do something about it, society, families, and the Church will continue to suffer. For men and women alike, the feeling of emptiness may last a lifetime. Parents are parents forever, even of a dead child.
Hope for Fathers in the Fatherhood of God
But there is hope. God loves fathers. He is one. Fathers of aborted children can find hope and comfort in this fact. God is the Father of Jesus and, in him, our Father. The resurrected Jesus said to Mary, “Go to my brothers and sisters and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17). God understands fatherhood. God understands the loss of a child.
There is hope for fathers who were unable to prevent the abortion of their child. Fathers of aborted children have no focus for their grief. There is no body to view, no funeral to attend, and no graveside to visit. For the most part, society has abandoned these grieving fathers. But God does not abandon them. In Psalm 91, God’s Fatherhood is described as a “fortress.” But he is not a cold, immovable fortress. “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge. His truth is your shield and armor” (v.4). God is a warm, loving, and movable fortress who comes where we are. Under God’s wings, fathers of aborted children can grieve and in the resurrected Jesus, they have a living hope (1Peter 1:3).
There is hope for fathers who were unwilling to protect their children and supported or even demanded the abortion. When our heavenly Father gave up his Son for us on the cross, Jesus’ first words were, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34). The soldiers who nailed Jesus to that cross and then gambled for his clothing really had no idea of the holy innocence of this particular victim of their cruel execution. This did not excuse them from their sin, but neither were they excluded from God’s forgiveness.
There is so much acceptance of the “rightness” of abortion in our country and so much pressure that this is the one and only way out of a difficult situation that many rush into abortion without fully understanding the cruel reality of what they have done. This does not excuse them from their sin, but neither does it exclude them from God’s forgiveness. If God can forgive those who crucified his own Son, he can and does forgive those who committed the sin of abortion. “If we confess our sins, he forgives them and cleanses us from everything we’ve done wrong” (1 John 1:9). God’s justice over sin was satisfied when Jesus suffered sin’s punishment for all sinners on the cross. Because of this our faithful Father will “forgive” (literally “send away”) our sins and “purify us” (literally “cleanse completely”). He will do this for “all” sins we confess to him including the sin of abortion.