Abortion affects both men and women. Beyond that, abortion is a human issue, not a gender issue. If abortion kills innocent human life (it does), then everyone, male and female, should stand against it. One doesn’t need to be a young girl to take a position against the sex trafficking of young girls, and one doesn’t need to be a woman to take a position against abortion.
Men are entitled to take a position on abortion. Abolitionist Samuel May once said to feminist Susan B. Anthony that because she was single she had no business talking about the institution of marriage. Anthony pointed out that the same logic demanded that May should quit speaking about slavery since he had never been a slave. [1]
Should stock brokers and investors be the only ones allowed to discuss stock market ethics? Should debates about war be restricted to those in the military?
Abortion is a human issue, not a gender issue. Facts, logic, reason, and compassion have no anatomy. Whether they are espoused by men or women is no more relevant than whether they are espoused by black or white.
The point is not the gender of those advancing arguments, but whether or not the arguments are accurate. To believe otherwise is simply sexism.
If men are disqualified from the abortion issue, they should be disqualified on both sides.
It is common for men to pressure women into abortion. The vast majority of doctors who perform abortions are men, as are most pro-choice congressmen.
Why do pro-choice advocates continuously quote from Dr. Alan Guttmacher and other male authorities?
Why do they embrace the judgment of the all-male Supreme Court that legalized abortion in 1973?
And why do pro-choice groups donate sizable campaign funds to male legislators who endorse abortion?
If men should be eliminated from the abortion debate, shouldn’t they be eliminated from both sides?
Abortion affects both men and women.
Abortion is not just just a human issue of systematic injustice that everyone, both male and female, should speak out against, but on a personal level, abortion affects not just the mother but the father as well.
The father of the child is also responsible for the child and should have a part in this decision.
On the one hand, a man is told he should take responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy and give the mother financial help and emotional support. He should take ownership of a situation he helped cause by regarding the baby not just as the woman’s, but as his own.
On the other hand, the same man is told that abortion is none of his business, only the mother’s and doctor’s. Given this mixed message, how can we expect a man to act responsibly toward the mother and child?
Ironically, abortion allows and even encourages men to sexually exploit women without the fear of having to take responsibility for any children that are conceived. If the woman does get pregnant, the man can hand over three hundred dollars and buy a dead child. When the man is long gone, with no child to have to support, the woman is left with the burden of having killed her child. “Abortion rights” bring out not the best, but the worst in men.
The father will often face serious grief and guilt as a result of abortion.
Since his life will be significantly affected, shouldn’t he have something to say about it? The implication of the “just between a mother and her doctor” argument is that no one else will have to deal with the consequences of the decision. On the contrary, abortion has powerful long-term effects on men.
In an article in Esquire magazine, twelve men speak candidly on the price they have paid because of abortion. [2]
Some agreed to the decision to abort, some didn’t. Some pushed the decision to abort, but now desperately wish they hadn’t:
It’s her body, but I had her brainwashed. I made all the decisions. Once it was over, we never talked about it again. We kept our mouths shut. She did have some real prophetic words, though. She said, “Wagner, you’re going to regret this all your life.” I told her, “No, no.” But inside me something would spark and cling to that. She was right. I’ll never forget it I’ll never forgive myself.
Reflecting on his experience, one man simply said, “An abortion is a terrible thing.” Many of the men commented on the disastrous effects on their relationship with their wife or girlfrend. One says, “Everything just dissolved after she had the abortion.”
A married man reflects:
We tried to figure out why we weren’t getting along so well. It occurred to one of us that it was a year since the abortion. That was the first time we realized that we felt we had killed something that we had made together and that it would have been alive and might have been our child…. We talked and shared how disturbed about it we both had been…. We hadn’t known that we were angry and upset and hadn’t been willing to face the facts.
One man reluctantly agreed to an abortion he did not feel good about. Years later he said:
I’ve got to think of the pain and the damage it did to her, because I know about the pain that it does to me, and it wasn’t my decision. I was part of the cause and I certainly didn’t resist in any way. I can’t help but think, am I guilty of being an accomplice in the taking of a life, or at least in not bringing it to fruition? There’s guilt, but more than anything, there’s just sadness.
One man demonstrates an understanding that not only women, but many men come to years after an abortion. In light of such testimonies, surely we should consider not only the welfare of the children and mothers, but also of fathers:
I’ve had a hell of a time dealing with it, actually. To this day I still think about it. I’ll go to bed and I’ll think about it and say to myself, “Man, what a terrible thing to do. What a cop-out. You don’t trade human life for material niceties.” Which is what I was doing, because I was hoping for a better future, more goods I could buy. I don’t have a good rationalization for it either. I’m not one of those people who believe that it’s only potential life. I’ve come to believe more and more the baby in the womb is just that—a human life. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could make myself believe differently, but I can’t. It would make it easier to deal with mentally. When you have the opposite view and you go through with the abortion anyway well, that’s worse than anything. So, you see, I’m kind of stuck. She did it for me. I feel like I murdered somebody. I wish I could do it over again, if I could just go back in time and relive those years. If she’d had the child, even if we’d got married and everything, it wouldn’t have been that bad. I’ve seen other people do it. Reality’s such a bitch sometimes, you know?
Abortion is a human issue that should be actively opposed by men and women.
Abortion isn’t a women’s issue. It’s a human issue, and it’s effects are devastating to men and women alike. Every abortion kills an innocent human being and both men and women alike are morally obligated to stand in opposition to abortion.
Abortion affects both men and women. Beyond that, abortion is a human issue, not a gender issue. If abortion kills innocent human life (it does), then everyone, male and female, should stand against it. One doesn’t need to be a young girl to take a position against the sex trafficking of young girls, and one doesn’t need to be a woman to take a position against abortion.
