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Friend,
“I have an emptiness that always lingers. I had no choice. I couldn't save my baby.”
“Everything changed. Having to live life with this huge regret! I ask for forgiveness every day of my unborn baby. My heart will forever be broken for the decision I made that day.”
“My ex-girlfriend was pregnant, and we decided to get an abortion. I’m feeling regret and having panic attacks about it. I need to talk to someone.”
These are just a few of the responses from men who participated in a new study on abortion’s effect on men.
Help Liberty Counsel DEFEND LIFE in Every State!
The study, titled “Abortion’s Long Term Negative Impact on Men,” released last month reveals that abortion is not simply a “women’s issue.”
Abortion has a devastating effect on men — the would-be fathers who are rarely given a “choice” as to whether their child is killed or not.
71% of men suffered “adverse changes” to their mental health after losing a child to abortion, including anxiety, grief, regret, and anger.
Nearly 3 of 5 men said abortion was not their decision, but the woman’s or someone else’s.
45% said they had “no say at all” in the abortion of their child.
83% sought therapy or someone to talk to about their grief or say they could have benefited from it, but there was no one available.
Greg Mayo knows that feeling all too well.
After personally experiencing the tragedy of two abortions and finding no one to help, Mayo founded the Support After Abortion National Men's Task Force to help men heal.
“At no time did I have any say in either decision,” Mayo says.
“At that time, few people were talking about abortion healing, especially for men.
The decades that followed until I was healing in 2009 were mired and muddled by the fallout of lost fatherhood.”
When Mayo sought counseling for his grief, the therapist he went to said his pain “wasn’t a thing,” and instead tried to pass his grief off as resulting from family history.
Those remarks delayed his healing by 15 years.
“I waded through life like many men — fighting upstream to move forward in spite of the weight around my ankles,” Mayo says.
“There simply wasn’t an area in my life that was untouched by my loss: work, education, relationships (including eventually my marriage and the children I raised).
I also engaged in cliff diving and bungee jumping, which for some are simply thrills, but for me were motivated by risking my life.”
Men often have difficulty expressing or even acknowledging post-abortive grief due to heavy societal pressure to remain silent in the face of the “woman’s choice.”
The men are pressured to feel they have no right to grieve their lost children and fatherhood, nor any say in the life of their child.
The running narrative has told men to sit down and shut up because abortion is a “woman’s right,” and has nothing to do with men.
However, this study shows that men’s grief is disenfranchised, and their feelings of loss are dismissed as not valued or valid.
As a result, post-abortive men often stay silent and in pain.
Mayo eventually went into abortion recovery.
Attending men’s groups, he realized he was not alone in his agony.
The men he encountered desperately needed to talk to someone about their trauma.
“There’s really, really a big need in this country to get men out of the darkness to get them talking about their abortion experience and then to help them find healing,” Mayo says.
“Men have been minimized, if not completely overlooked, in the [abortion] conversation,” says Dr. Brian Nguyen, associate professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Southern California and a reproductive health researcher.
This grief and silencing aren’t new. A 2015 study captured comments of men after abortion. One respondent stated:
“The absolute worst thing I have ever done.
Words can’t describe the pain and overwhelming guilt that is always with me.
I have no one to blame but myself.”
That man had carried the pain with him for 26 years at the time of the study, according to psychology professor Dr. Mary G. Lamia, who wrote about the 2015 study for Psychology Today.
Planned Parenthood and abortion activists would like you to believe that one quick pill or surgery will make everything better, but the reality is abortion kills children and harms women and men.
For each abortion, there was a mother and a father, meaning abortion has impacted not just the 63 million lost lives, but also the lives of the mothers and fathers who suffered the abortion.
Liberty Counsel has been fighting for life since our founding in 1989.
Our powerful amicus brief was cited by the Supreme Court Dobbs ruling overturning Roe.
Now we are fighting state by state to overturn pro-abortion laws on the local level.
We continue to defend the unborn — and their parents — with state court filings, legislative support, and by defending pro-life heroes like Sandra Merritt and sidewalk counselors, among other things.
We need YOUR HELP to keep fighting for America’s unborn children. Please contribute to our legal fund today and have YOUR IMPACT DOUBLED through a generous Challenge Grant.
Mat Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel
Sources:
Gupta, Alisha Haridasani. “The Voices of Men Affected by Abortion.” The New York Times, June 25, 2022. Nytimes.com/2022/06/25/well/family/men-abortion-roe-v-wade.html.
Lamia, Mary C. “The Silent, Post-Abortion Grief of Men.” Psychology Today, September 30, 2022. Psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/202209/the-silent-post-abortion-grief-men.
Mayo, Greg. “STUDY: ABORTION’S LONG-TERM NEGATIVE IMPACT on MEN White Paper.” Supportafterabortion.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Support-After-Abortion-Mens-Research-White-Paper-VF2.1.pdf.
Tietz, Kendall. “‘Disenfranchised Grief’: The Quiet Pain of Men Who Experience Abortion.” Fox News, May 8, 2023. Foxnews.com/media/disenfranchised-grief-quiet-pain-men-experience-abortion.
Liberty Counsel is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Contributions are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
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