Father's Rights...or lack thereof

The following is taken from the Priests for Life website http://www.priestsforlife.org/postabortion/postabortiontestimonymen.htm
In addition to the short article, there are quite a few stories; testimonies of fathers who have dealt with the issue of abortion. Their stories are heartfelt and some even devastating. These men are dealing with the abortion of their child, like many women, so many years later. I think it is VERY important to read about these men and keep them in our prayers!


Men and Abortion

Abortion has many victims, and one of them is the father of the child.
The laws of the United States do not acknowledge the right a father to stop the abortion of his own child, but rather place that act solely within the decision of the mother.
This raises a multitude of problems.
On the one hand, the father who wants to defend the life of his child is often accused of meddling in something that is not his business.
On the other hand, the father who wants to leave the (mistaken) decision of abortion in the hands of the mother alone is often accused of being uncaring and distant. This, in turn, can create feelings of isolation in the mother, which in turn makes it easier for her to resort to abortion.
Furthermore, the law is a powerful teacher. It says the father has no rights in the abortion decision. But the other side of the coin of "rights" is "responsibilities." The current state of the law regarding fathers and abortion can easily foster a sense of irresponsibility in young men.
Post-abortion counseling services are seeing an increasing number of men come forward, grieving their aborted children. Many of the same dynamics of post-abortion distress that we see in women are are also present in men.
We offer here some testimonies of fathers whose children have been killed by abortion, along with our prayers for such fathers, and our readiness to help them.

If you have a testimony, send it to us at testimony@priestsforlife.org

Eric Eckenrode website
Papa's Post-Operative Blues
The Awakening
I was her boyfriend of just a few months
I was a coward
I wasn't strong enough
A Father's Post-Abortion Testimony
Silent No More
A Dad Grieves and writes to his aborted son
Grief for an Aborted Son
Another Regretful Father Shares his Thoughts
Priests for Life Column on Abortion for Men

Abortion for Men
Fr. Frank PavoneInternational DirectorPriests for Life
One of the slogans used by extremists in the pro-abortion movement is, "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." The slogan, besides being simply ignorant, is an insult to the Church and to the integrity of pro-life people. Less crude expressions of the same sentiment take shape in arguments like, "The prohibition of abortion discriminates against women," and "Pro-life people are intent on depriving women of their rights." In fact, pro-abortion forces took this argument all the way to the Supreme Court, but lost in their attempt to claim that women as a class were discriminated against by pro-life efforts.
The fact is that we oppose abortion both for women and for men. The fact that men do not get pregnant does not stop them from choosing abortion. Indeed, anyone who has worked directly to stop abortions has seen many instances in which the "choice" in question was being made by the man, not by the woman. In the thousands of case testimonies I have in my office, time after time I read these or similar words: "My boyfriend wanted me to have the abortion; I was unsure," or "The baby's father said that unless I aborted the child, he would leave."
Of course. Abortion is not about women's rights. It is often about men wanting the right to be able to continue to have sexual relations without the "intrusive burden" of the child that can come about.
Morally speaking, the sin of abortion is committed when it is chosen, knowingly and willingly. Many factors mitigate the guilt, but the point here is that the choosing of abortion does not require that one be pregnant. Men choose abortion; men perform abortions. Men are therefore often guilty of the sin of abortion.
Being pro-life is in no way to single out women for blame. Being pro-life is about helping men and women alike to have the courage to do what is right, namely, to conceive children only within the bounds of valid marriage, and to protect all children who have been conceived under any circumstances.
Ministry to men is increasingly important, and Christians are responding more and more. We see movements like Promise Keepers, St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers, and the Catholic Men's Fellowship striving to meet the pastoral needs of men in our day. We also see the post-abortion movement increasingly extending its resources of counseling and healing to the men who have become entrapped in the lie that abortion is a solution to their problems.
It was the promoters of abortion who from the beginning framed abortion as simply a "woman's issue." No, abortion involves everyone. Once, at a Life Chain, I was asked by a passerby what right I had, as a man, to say anything about abortion. "I'm a human being," I replied, "and when my fellow human beings are being killed, I have a right to stand up and say no." "No," that is, whether it is addressed to a woman or to a man.


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