“I hid and suppressed the realization that the only reason our oldest daughter was not alive today was due to my own cowardice. I went to my wedding, pretending to be an upright, moral young man with my bride dressed all in white. She was beautiful, and we looked great on the outside. No one could see the brokenness we were both hiding so well. We had aborted our first child just months before.
For 15 years, I was too ashamed to tell anyone what I had done, except my best friend. My wife and I never talked about it, we did not grieve together, and we hid it deep in the recesses of our minds. Our marriage began to unravel, and through extensive counseling, we realized how much of our struggle had come down to the decision to end the life of our first child. We began to deal with our shame and guilt. We realized the extent of the mental and emotional trauma it caused. There were many levels – resentment, a lack of forgiveness, feelings of abandonment – all revealed as we dealt with the reality of this decision many years earlier…
There is not a day that goes by that I don’t regret my decision. After all, any good father would jump in front of a train to save the life of his child. The life of our first daughter, Sara, should not have been any different.”
Brian E Fisher Abortion: The Ultimate Exploitation of Women (Frisco, Texas: Online for Life, 2013) Kindle edition
Phil McCombs, journalist for the Washington Post, and post-abortion father, wrote:
“I feel like a murderer… I was not by her side to support her. I turned my face away. My behavior was in all respects craven, immoral. [The baby] would have inconvenienced me. I’d had my fun. He didn’t fit into my plans… His name, which I carved on my heart, was Thomas … I still grieve for little Thomas. It is an ocean of grief.”
Phil McCombs “Remembering Thomas” Washington Post, February 3, 1995
Quoted in Brian E Fisher Abortion: The Ultimate Exploitation of Women (Frisco, Texas: Online for Life, 2013) Kindle edition
“listened to dozens of men express lingering, sometimes intense, pain over abortions that proceeded either without their consent, or without them having spoken up about their desires to bring their children to term and parent.”
Dr. Keith Ablow “Men Should Be Allowed to Veto Abortions” Fox News.com July 22, 2011
Quoted in Brian E Fisher Abortion: The Ultimate Exploitation of Women (Frisco, Texas: Online for Life, 2013) Kindle edition
“I conceded to an abortion. And even as a pastor, that decision still haunts me today. What would that child look like? Would it be boy? Would it be a girl? Their first steps, saying ‘daddy,’ watching them grow – but those are just dreams, and dreams which often leave me heartbroken.”
In a post that’s now down, pro-lifer David McDonald describes an encounter with a young woman outside an abortion where he was protesting. He tells the story:
It is traumatic to watch the misery parade of young women being “escorted” to the clinics with their boyfriends who will soon be gone out of their lives. Today, I stood across the street with my “I regret lost fatherhood” sign, my friend Frances held her “I regret my abortion” sign (our abortions are not related).
A 17 year old girl approached us after sitting nearby for about an hour watching us. She had tattoos all over her arms, and lip rings and clothing that exposed more of her body than was covered up. She was very pretty underneath her Goth eyeliner, but her emotional turmoil was in her eyes. She defiantly asked “Are you guys paid to be here?” I said “No, I’m here on my own time, for no money and no other reason than to share my experience with abortion.” She said “I had an abortion last year…sometimes people can’t go through with a pregnancy, and I’d never tell someone what to do.”
I told her my experience with abortion and Frances told her story. This young girl then shared what it was like for her abortion. She had been date raped, and her mother and everyone around her pressured her to have an abortion but she wasn’t sure. She went into the abortion doctor’s office for the interview in Toronto balling [sic] her eyes out. The “doctor” said “Toughen up, why are you here? If you can’t handle it get out!” She “toughened up” and stayed.
She talked about the excruciating pain of having her feet put in stirrups and seeing the 10 inch instrument forced up into her uterus, and being in such searing pain that they strapped down her wrists and had two nurses hold down her torso as the doctor ripped her baby from her womb. Afterwards she wanted to die. She cut herself with razor blades all over her body and ended up in a psych ward. The walls were blank but she saw children running all around on the walls and she was in incredible turmoil. When she got out she got tattoos all over. She lifted up the front of her shirt and showed us a tattoo over her uterus of a thorn thicket. She said it represented her now inhospitable uterus. She said “It’s a big lie what this world says, it’s a real baby, and I will never be able to replace my lost baby, and I may not be able to have kids anymore because of complications.” She continued “I don’t know how to get over it.”…
She changed to the subject to how she tried to talk a friend out of abortion, but she said she would support no matter what … then suddenly it all came together for me… she was waiting for her friend who, at that very minute, was going through the same thing on the 3rd floor across the street at the Morgentaler abortion clinic. My heart leapt into my throat and I choked back the tears. I said “I am really sorry that this is happening.” I told her about Rachel’s Vineyard, and said that I would pray for her. Then she walked across the street to rejoin the misery parade, and I turned away, I couldn’t look anymore.
A man whose partner had an abortion a month before said the following:
Since the abortion we have separated. We constantly argue. She constantly looks at baby things. She desperately wants to become pregnant again. I want our baby back.
Catherine T. Coyle and Vincent M. Rue “A Thematic Analysis of Men’s Experience With a Partner’s Elective Abortion.” Counseling and Values October 2015
From a man whose partner had an abortion two years before:
I was a father one day and not the next. She told me she had a miscarriage, then I got a call from the abortion clinic, she forgot her medication. I have never felt so awful in my life,
Catherine T. Coyle and Vincent M. Rue “A Thematic Analysis of Men’s Experience With a Partner’s Elective Abortion.” Counseling and Values October 2015
My name is Jim and I once proudly worked for Planned Parenthood. As the Director of Security for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, I took the job thinking it was the most perfect opportunity a security professional could find.
One person I swore to protect was the Vice President and Chief of Medical Services at Planned Parenthood, Savita Ginde. In fact, I was hired mostly because she approved. She questioned me at length during the interview process, and I heard later that she was the main reason I got the job.
During that interview process, I asked her specifically “Why do the protesters claim you cut up baby parts and sell them for research?” Her answer: “Because they’re crazy.” I even spent many a morning telling the protesters how they were lying about the body parts being sold. We didn’t do that. I was confident we didn’t, because that’s what I was told.
However, recently it has come to light that some affiliates are harvesting body parts and selling them for research. I couldn’t believe it a few weeks ago when the first video came out. There was a top official for the Planned Parenthood national office talking so comfortably while eating a salad about being careful while performing the “procedure” so that she didn’t destroy the valuable parts.
While watching this video though, I was greatly relieved because as disgusting as it was, at least it wasn’t MY former clinic. At least the doctors I worked hard to protect weren’t doing this. I obviously worked for an ethical affiliate. We would never harvest baby parts and sell them.
And then there was another video, showing Dr. Ginde, the woman who had interviewed me; the woman who swore to me that our affiliate didn’t do that; the woman who I protected; on video discussing how to maximize profit by ensuring all parts were harvested and sold separately.
There she was telling how the affiliate’s lawyer, who I thought I had developed an actual friendship with, had gone to great lengths to set up the procedures to harvest and sell the baby parts across state lines.
And there she was, with her medical assistant, actually dissecting a fetus that had just been aborted.
I sat stunned watching the video. They swore that our affiliate didn’t do that. They hid it from me, and lied to me so that I would continue to protect them while they did it. And the worst part of the video? The announcement of “Hey, it’s another boy!”
Wait… it can’t be a boy. You told me it was nothing but a clump of cells. “A boy” is a determination you make about a baby. It can’t possibly be a determination you make about a clump of cells. A zygote. A “fetus”. A boy… is a child.
I protected Dr. Ginde. I protected the rest of the employees. I protected them because they swore things to me because they knew if they told me the truth I’d quit. They knew if I knew the truth I’d tell others. The allowed me to stand on the corner and call protesters liars, who were telling the truth.
I’m ashamed of my employment with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. I’m ashamed of the lies I parroted for them. I’m ashamed of the people I called liars who were doing nothing but telling the truth. I’m ashamed that I considered Dr. Savita Ginde a friend worth protecting.
In an article in Live Action, Nancy Flanders describes how Canadian paramedic David Baxter was undecided about abortion until he saw the miscarried body of a 17 week old unborn baby
17 weeks
He had picked up a 14-year-old who was having a miscarriage and delivered her to the emergency room. After a little while a nurse came out and showed him the body of the baby, which had been miscarried at 17 weeks.
Baxter said:
“All I remember, is looking at that poor little thing, and seeing fingers, and toes, and a face. I saw this was real. I thought, ‘That’s a baby; not something to be discarded.’”
