When Joyce Ann McCauley-Benner became pregnant, she didn’t know if the father was her boyfriend or the man who raped her. This is her story:
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Category: Personal Stories
Man Reveals His Postabortion Grief
A man who identifies himself only as Ryan says the following:
“I didn’t think of the baby… Not really. Not then. I was in a panic and I wanted out and that was the way I was playing it.
I don’t remember how I finally changed her mind – it took about a week, but I did it. I remember being with her at the clinic, with one of her friends, smoking outside and then driving home thinking, “Thank God it’s over!”
The child would be about 13 or 14 years old now. When I look at our two children, I know there’s supposed to be three. I don’t know if the baby was a boy or a girl. I keep thinking it was a girl, probably because my wife wanted one so badly. Although I still struggle with depression and guilt, I eventually found forgiveness. My wife is not ready to take that step. So I must continue to try and help her bear the burden and make up for the crucial time I failed her.”
“I Still Remember” Human Life Alliance Advertising Supplement Page 11
Share on FacebookRape Crisis Counselor Speaks Out
Joan Kemp, who counsels women who are victims of rape and incest, says the following:
“I am familiar with no case of incest related abortion that did not make matters worse for the victim.”
“What about Rape and Incest?” Human Life Alliance Advertising Supplement 2012
Read testimonies of women who were raped and became pregnant here
Man Whose Wife Had an Abortion Feels Grief and Guilt
One man whose wife had an abortion said:
“….the feeling of guilt gnawed away at me, until I had to do what I learned so well in the Army; I hardened my heart and buried my feelings. But I couldn’t keep the lid on them all the time. Just as the buried pain and resentment from my military duty would at times explode like a volcano, so it was with the bitterness about losing the child.”
He broke up with his wife.
“When my wife and I were facing this [decision regarding abortion] we were not getting the facts from the health clinic or the abortion clinic. No one told us that there were long-term effects from abortion. No one told us that many people involved with abortion suffer guilt, depression, and regret long after the abortion itself.”
“A Man’s Viewpoint on Abortion” Great Expectations, Fall 1988, Newsletter of the Rockville (M.D.) pregnancy center, P 1, 4
Read more stories of men’s struggles with abortions here.
Share on FacebookC Everett Koop Describes How He Became Pro-Life
Former Surgeon General C Everett Koop was a tireless opponent of abortion. In his book, he describes why he became involved in the abortion debate:
“It all crystallizes for me one Saturday in 1976. My residents and I had spent the day operating on three newborn babies with defects that were incompatible with life, but were nevertheless amenable to surgical correction. Surgery on the newborns is time-consuming, and although we started at 8:00 AM, we did not get the third youngster safely in his incubator with his immediate future assured until early evening… I said to my two colleagues: “You know, we have given over 200 years of life to three individuals who together barely weighed 10 pounds.”
One of my residents answered, “And while we were doing that, right next door in the University Hospital they were cutting up perfectly formed babies of the same size just because their mother didn’t want them.” I knew then that is a surgeon of the newborn, I had to do something about the slaughter of the unborn.”
Charles Everett Koop, Koop: the Memoirs of America’s Family Doctor (New York: Random House, 1991), 263
Quoted in:
James F Bohan. The House of Atreus: Abortion Is a Human Rights Issue (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1999) 166
Postabortion Man Calls for Churches to Recognize Abortion Grief
“Research indicates that by age 40 one in four women have had an abortion and the fact is that many of them are sitting in our church pews broken and silent. It is my position that the same can be said of the men. What about the post-abortive father’s guilt, anger and emotional scars? Many of these fathers are as hurt as the mothers. It’s time for the church to open its eyes as well as it’s hearts and arms to these wounded men. They need assistance to break their chains of secrecy, seek godly professional counsel and find true healing.”
Mark B. Morrow, postabortion father
http://www.menandabortion.info/l1-testimony4.html
Share on FacebookPro-Lifer Conceived in Rape Speaks out
A Human Life International Employee conceived in rape:
“I am sure happy that my life was not cut off because of a crime my biological father committed. I am grateful for the life I am living and I know, even though I am far from perfect, my mom has no regrets either. Despite the circumstances of my conception, once I exist, I have the right to life, just as you or anyone else does – for it IS an inalienable right.”
http://www.humanlife.org/abortion_tiredofrhetoric.php
Many people support abortion in cases where the mother is a victim of rape – but few think about the unborn baby, who was an innocent victim as well. Here’s a picture of an abortion at eight weeks. You can’t tell if the baby killed in this abortion was conceived by rape or not. Either way, it’s a violent death for the baby.
Often abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, is not in the best interest of the woman either. Read some testimonies of women were raped and became pregnant here.
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Equire Article Tells of Men’s Abortion Pain
Much has been written about the impact abortion has on women, and the depression and grief that often accompanies it. (You can read some stories of women here)
Less has been written about men and abortion. But abortion often effects them as well. In an article in Equire magazine, one man said the following of his experience with abortion.
“Abortion is presented to you as something that is easy to do. It doesn’t take very long. It doesn’t cost very much money nowadays, for a middle-class person. You say, “Well, it’s okay.” But it wasn’t okay. It left a scar, and the scar had to be treated tenderly and worked on in order for us to get on with our lives. I don’t think abortion is easy for anybody. The people who say it’s easy either don’t want to face the pain or they haven’t been through it, because it’s really a tough experience.”
Mark Baker, “Men on Abortion” Esquire, March 1990, 114 to 125. Quoted in Randy Alcorn “Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2000)
You can read more testimonies about men here
Share on FacebookPro-Choice to Pro-Life: Aimee
Since I had known about abortion, I had been for a woman’s right to choose abortion if she felt it necessary. I had been lukewarm on the issue, not really vocal or anything, but I was certainly pro-choice. I was a self-proclaimed feminist, after all, and I had left behind the morals my parents had tried to teach me when I was younger to live a life of freedom and self-determination. But my steadfast position on women’s choice withered away in the space of a few terrifyingly long days in my sophomore year of high school.
I was 16. I was scared and I felt so alone and I didn’t know what to do. I had “skipped” one month and I was waiting anxiously for Aunt Flo to arrive on my doorstep. I had been gaining weight, and I was starting to feel sick. I was mortified. What would my parents think? What would my friends think? What would the guy think? What if I was really pregnant?
And in that moment I began to think, “It’s not a baby, I can get rid of this problem like that.”
But me and the guy, we had talked about this. We said we were going to be together — if we had a child, we’d raise it together. We’d work for that.
I didn’t know what to do or to think, and my friends were picking up that something wasn’t right. A few days later in my drafting class, I was brooding terribly, and the guy walks in. He pulls me out of class to talk. We’re speaking low in the hallway and I haven’t seen him in three days — since I intimated to him that I might be pregnant. I was infuriated that he would pull me out of class to talk about this now, after he’d ignored me for days. We spoke calmly for a few minutes before it came out.
“You need to get an abortion, Aimee. I can take you and we’ll get it taken care of. I can’t possibly tell my mom what we’ve been doing. I can’t…”
“But you said that we’d work it out–!”
“I know, but we can’t. Honestly, I’ve been thinking… I dunno… I might kill you and then myself.”
“Leave–. Go–. Now. I have to go back to class. We’ll talk about this some other time.”
My mind was reeling. I might kill you and then myself. If I had the presence of mind, I suppose I would have run to the police or at least the vice principal. But I was shocked and scared and I felt so utterly alone.
And yet, in that moment, I knew something else, too: if I was indeed with child, that preborn human life within would be worthy of the same protections as me. If I were to be killed, we would both be the victims of the same violence. So what right have I to inflict the same harm that was being threatened against me upon an innocent human being? How much better would I be than the guy if I chose the path of violence to reach my goals in life?
So I looked up fetal development and I searched resources on pregnancy and adoption. And I educated myself and looked at the science and prenatal biology. It was so utterly apparent that even after everything I had been through I was not being a mere sentimentalist. My decision to become pro-life was based in science and reason and logical conclusions. The impetus, of course, was a very twisted situation which no woman should ever have to endure — but it helped to turn the light on, and it charged my research with even greater cause.
Now seven years later, the work that I do with the Life Matters Journal is to bring non-partisan, non-sectarian discussion on all life issues to the fore; whether it be about the ethics of abortion, unjust war, capital punishment, or euthanasia or other human life issues. I do hope to bring an end to aggressive violence. Becoming pro-life for me wasn’t just about being against abortion, but about beginning the fight to stand up for all human life. And I would not be here but for a terrible threat that brought the reality to me: this is about equality, this is about all human rights.
Share on FacebookRape Victim has Traumatic Abortion
One patient, Ellen Hamilton, who had an abortion because she was raped, said she was more traumatized by the abortion. According to Danielle Capelli with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on a NPR All Things Considered segment April 3, 1992, Abortions without Anesthesia at Canadian Hospital.
“She was sent over to Yellowknife, and she had–she was told that no anesthesia would be used because it wasn’t necessary; that general anesthesia was dangerous–that it would cause bleeding–and that local anesthesia wasn’t needed because it would only cause minor discomfort and the procedure would be over in a couple of minutes. In fact, she found it excruciatingly painful. She said she was strapped down to the table, held down by a number of nurses, including one male member of the staff at the hospital who had to come in and help hold her down. She said she was screaming and writhing in pain; she was begging the doctor to stop. The doctor was yelling at her, saying, ‘You’re only making it worse, stop moving,’ and refused to stop; he just kept going. “