“My boyfriend came with me. He was in the room when they did it. He saw the fetus and it really flipped him out. What I remember poignantly about the whole experience was I was drugged and I went home, took a nap, and when I woke up he wasn’t there. He left a note… It was clear that he was f*cked up emotionally.
I called my best friend and told her what had happened.… I went over and we got riproaring drunk. I got really happy when we were drunk and we were toasting my abortion – “Here’s to your abortion!”… Later, my friend’s sister came up and expressed this sympathy – my friend had told her. I remember saying, “What? What’s this sympathy? What for?” I guess I was really detached from it…
I think I was kind of callous about the whole thing… I treated it like a procedure. I had to go and get a procedure done on my body. It didn’t seem quite real.
It certainly made me take birth control seriously. I was a little lax about it until then, but I knew I didn’t want to go through it again, the pain. It was very painful. And the shame that I had…”
She broke up with her boyfriend shortly after the abortion.
Anna Runkle In Good Conscience: A Practical, Emotional, and Spiritual Guide to Deciding Whether to Have an Abortion (San Francisco: Jossey–Bass Publishers, 1998) 51-52
From a man who fathered two babies that were aborted::
“I have twice experienced having pregnancies terminated for which I have been responsible.… I have felt since a terrific sense of guilt and regret. The first abortion occurred with a woman with whom I lived and loved very much. It was her decision to have the abortion, my regret is that I didn’t try to stop her. The most vivid part was when she came back from hospital producing milk and I had this awful feeling that it was my baby’s milk, and I felt sorry for the dead baby whose termination I had done so little to prevent. Needless to say, the relationship ended in appalling and painful circumstances. We felt we had been complicit in a crime. The second abortion occurred recently with a girl with whom I’ve had only a casual relationship…
Surely abortion is unnatural and a convenient gesture to selfish materialism, but it’s the individual choice and wholly the woman’s decision.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 79
Patrick B Keefe wrote a book about the abortion he encouraged his wife to have over 20 years ago. He grieves for his child and wants others to know how painful abortion is for fathers. He says:
“Get an abortion, I convinced her when she told me we were pregnant again. She trusted me. Little did I know the effect this would have on our lives… And how it would affect me for the next 20 years…
Out of fear I terminated my son’s life through abortion. In the midst of the situation it seemed like our only option, but it led us down a path of great pain and sorrow. Yes, on the outside I was able to hide it from everyone. I looked happy. But on the inside, I thought of him every day of my life. In fact, only now, through the strength God has given me, am I able to write this work. If I can touch even just a handful of men, my son’s life will not have been in vain… I pray that through my son, Luke, many will live.”
Patrick B Keefe A Father Silent Cry: A Journey of Healing (2017)
“I once fathered a baby by a woman I truly loved in what was the most beautiful experience I have ever had, and of which until that moment I did not think I was capable. I was in fact a soldier at the time and the experience occurred in another country….[she got pregnant]
In the circumstances then prevailing I could not marry the lady but begged for her to have the child, promising to see that it was provided for. She could not see it this way, and had a quick and easy legal abortion. I considered myself a pretty hard tough man after seven years wartime military service, but to my own astonishment the abortion broke me up, or broke my heart, whichever way you care to look at it, besides filling me with an appalling sense of futility and waste and denial of God’s loving kindness and mercy. This feeling festered in me for many years…”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 78
“In early 1975, when I was 20, I fell in love with a girl who was two years my senior. …. I had had relationships with girls before… but this was the first time I had been in love and it hit me like a mallet… In July 1975 we found out that she was pregnant. I was happy about it and thought with love and the support of our parents, which I was sure we’d get, we would be able to cope…
After a short amount of deliberation, she decided to have an abortion. It was she who was pregnant, it was her body, and she didn’t want to sacrifice her career for the sake of bringing up a baby that would have a poor start in life.”
The interviewer says:
Matthew argued that they could manage but his girlfriend was adamant. … Matthew started drinking afterwards. After the abortion, the relationship deteriorated…. By the New Year, they had split up.
Matthew met someone else; his former girlfriend pursued her career as a social worker, never married or had children. Matthew did marry and had three children. He sobered up and became a very devoted father. But he never quite got over the abortion.
“I still think of that abortion – nearly every day – and will do until the day I die. I have lit a candle in the church and prayed for the soul of my child and for forgiveness in consenting to its murder. This has brought me some peace. Hardly any attention has been paid to men who suffer as a result of abortion.… It is a real feeling that we have done wrong.”
Mary Kenny Abortion: The Whole Story (London: Quartet Books, 1986) 76 – 77
“The Project Rachel office in College Park is in the same building as an abortion mill. In fact, says Julia Shelava “At their College Park office, she said, they often see men in the waiting area while their girlfriend is getting an abortion.
“They look so sad,” she reflected. “My heart just aches for them. I approach them, and often they say, ‘I really didn’t want her to have this abortion.’
“I say, ‘Did you tell her?’
They say, ‘I told her I would support whatever she wants to do.’ That’s what the world tells him he should say. “We’ve had men in our office weeping while their son or daughter is being aborted.”
The article also says:
The Project Rachel staff at College Park has persuaded some of the abortion clinic’s medical technicians to quit the abortion industry
“Heartache, healing go side-by-side in College Park” Defend Life September – October, 2007
A sidewalk counselor at an abortion clinic told this story:
I wish I had a more uplifting story from the sidewalk to share today but this is what is on my mind and I wanted to write about it. Yesterday I was praying outside Planned Parenthood with about 5 other prayer volunteers. I saw a man walk outside and I motioned for him to come over and talk to me. He walked up and I offered him some reading material with local options and resources.
I introduced myself and asked him if he would mind sharing with me why he was there. I’ll call him “R”. He said that his girlfriend was inside to talk about her positive pregnancy test and get counseling. I asked him how he felt about her being pregnant and he said “Well, I’d like it but they told her that this is her choice and no one else’s to make so she’ll have to decide for herself.” It sounded like she had already been there once this week for a pregnancy test and a sonogram only to identify how far along she was and this may be the day she scheduled an abortion. Her boyfriend wasn’t sure but he made a circle around the word “Abortion” with his finger and said she may be here for this. I noticed that the thought of word was too difficult for him speak.
I asked him how he felt about not having a say in the matter and he said “The people at Planned Parenthood told her that the decision wasn’t up to me.” I told him that I disagreed and shared that the baby in her womb was made up of half of his DNA and if he hoped to be married to her one day (as he said he did); this might be a pivotal point in their relationship where he could show her that he is serious about her, will support her, and that he wanted her to keep the baby. The look on his face was of utter helplessness and I’m sure he had a thousand thoughts running through his head. It’s hard in a matter of minutes to teach a man to be bold and walk in the clinic and say something like “No, lets not do this today, this decision is permanent and forever. I love you and want the best for us. Let’s talk about this some more.”
I asked him if he had a particular faith and he said he was Catholic. I pointed to some of our Catholic volunteers on the sidewalk who were holding rosaries and hoped that this would build common ground. I shared a bible verse that I had memorized and tried to get him to see that the Lord knew of this baby’s life at the moment of conception and if we rely on Christ, He will help us even in situations like this.
We talked about a few other things including his degree from a California State University, the two jobs he works at and their closest Pregnancy Resource Center. He also gave me his phone number so that I could check on them. I asked him if he would mind if I prayed with him. I took his hand and prayed that the Lord would intervene, bless their situation and help them to see that choosing life for the baby inside her womb would be a decision that they could handle. He walked away with the flyers I gave him in hand.
I don’t know how much time went by but “R” and his girlfriend drove up near us and proceeded to merge onto the main road. After all of the years of praying and counseling on the sidewalk I know the look of someone who has just had an abortion. They have a solemn and quite look about them. They don’t look proud or empowered. They look empty. I saw “R’s” girlfriend slouching in the passenger seat of his car and by the look on her face, I hoped my presumption of her having an abortion was wrong.
A few hours later I texted “R” and asked him if there was anything I could do to help their situation. He confirmed that she did indeed have an abortion. She had the surgical procedure done and they were at the park “breathing and talking”. He texted and said “I’m sorry. Thank you for your prayers.” I responded with some resources that would be helpful if needed in the future and finally; “I wish there was more I could have done.”
This isn’t uncommon. “R” was the father of the baby in his girlfriend’s womb but both he and his girlfriend were sold on the idea that he had no say in the matter. That baby is now dead. His girlfriend’s womb is now empty. This is what they call “choice”.
Sidewalk counseling story posted to facebook by Nicola Morrison, April 7, 2017
Mark Rothberg, father of a son whose girlfriend had an abortion. He had to deal with the loss of a grandchild to abortion:
“My son was in medical school in England because he couldn’t get into a good medical school here… Then suddenly he was accepted at medical school here. And she [his daughter-in-law] decided to stay in England to finish up her masters before joining him. Rather than face the complicated mess, they decided it was not the time to have a child. And she had an abortion.
When they told us about the abortion just two weeks after they’d told us she was having a baby, it was crushing. I felt deep chagrin.… It’s a special thing, you know, a grandchild. It’s continuity. And if you have a strong family, which we do, then it’s the first dividend.
It’s more than a loss of family continuity, too. Jews are being screwed out of existence. Who uses birth control? Who gets all these abortions? We’re being physically wiped out. Now there’s one less. But even more, we lost our option for personal continuity. I feel dreadful.”
Linda Bird Francke The Ambivalence of Abortion (New York: Penguin Books, 1978) 219 –
The man facing loss of a grandchild to abortion mourns. Abortion touches many lives, even those of the grandparents.
“Because it is not socially acceptable for men to have intense reactions to these events, however, it is typical for them to dissociate from their feelings about the baby who was lost. They tend to feel it is not their place to grieve deeply for their loss, or even to have their own voice heard in the decision-making process about a particular pregnancy.
This means that men’s losses cannot be consciously dealt with but are often “acted out” instead….
I have known other men in my practice who have discovered many years after an abortion that they still carry a great deal of grief over this kind of loss. There is simply no place for them to speak about it…Men, like women, need to seek out opportunities to remember, honor, and speak about the pregnancy losses and abortions they are party to. And we all need to listen.”
Kim Kluger-Bell Unspeakable Losses: Healing from Miscarriage, Abortion, and Other Pregnancy Loss (New York: Harper, 1998) 116-117
