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Another Article -"Abortion and Fatherhood- A Man's Take"
Hopeforthebest
member
Abortion and fatherhood -- a man's take
By Brian Fisher, Brian Fisher
Published June 13, 2013FoxNews.com
A dear friend of mine recently confessed to me that he was the father of one living daughter and four deceased children. The four were aborted, three with his consent and one without. My friend said the pain of those deaths is something he copes with on a daily basis. ?The guilt and pain can be overwhelming,? he said.
Another friend still can?t hold back tears, even after 20 years, when he shares that he took his then-girlfriend to Planned Parenthood to erase the ?mistake? they made a few months before their wedding. Now married for two decades and the parent of four other beautiful children, he recounts how his marriage was difficult and tumultuous for years until they sought counseling. The root of their conflict and strife? The abortion.
As we approach Father?s Day once again, more and more men are realizing the impact abortion has not only had on women, but also on themselves. And the impact is anything but positive.
Abortion didn?t empower women. It empowered men.
What?s going on here? Abortion is a women?s issue and has nothing to do with men, right? Why are men struggling with the loss of their aborted children?
Because, despite what the law says, fathers are fathers from conception, not from birth.
The landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, effectively stripped the father of all legal rights regarding his unborn child. Before that decision, men were fathers from the day their child came into being, at conception.
But, with the stroke of a pen, fatherhood jumped nine months into the future. Mothers, meanwhile, maintained their parental rights from the day of conception. So much for equal rights for men and women.
Of course, millions of men welcomed the change. The sexual revolution was booming, and men were experiencing a new kind of empowerment we hadn?t previously enjoyed.
We could now sleep with anyone we wanted without any fear of responsibility if our female partner became pregnant.
The one thing that had kept us from expressing our rampant sexuality, fear of conception, was now of no concern.
Not only did we no longer have to fear a pregnancy, we had no legal right to make any decision regarding the child in the womb.
If our partner decided to abort, well, that was her call.
If she asked us our opinion about an abortion, all we had to do was utter our all-too-common response, ?It?s your decision, babe. I?ll support whatever you decide.? Which, of course, was our way of saying, ?I don?t care enough about you or the child to have a real opinion.?
Abortion didn?t empower women. It empowered men.
Fast forward to Father?s Day 2013.
Fifty-five million aborted babies later, it seems many men are realizing the Supreme Court got it wrong. Fatherhood doesn?t start with birth. It starts when we opt to sleep with a woman. And, despite federal law, our consciences testify that we are wired to protect and care for a child when it is conceived, not nine months later.
There are also an estimated 15 million fathers who, for whatever reason, lost children to elective death in the womb. Men have failed their families and their children.
The tide is beginning to turn, however. Men are realizing no one escapes the hell of abortion.
We are waking up and realizing that children are killed and women are exploited.
We are just now considering, though, that we victimize ourselves.
Depression, guilt, shame, a loss of self, a loss of honor, and destroyed relationships are common male consequences of abortion.
In our heart of hearts, we are coming to grips with what we?re doing. We are willfully taking the lives of those we are wired to protect.
We are born to be fathers. Strong. Honorable. Self-sacrificing. Men of courage. Men of valor.
We are born to provide for the weakest among us, and that most certainly includes our own unborn children.
Father?s Day is the embodiment of all those things we love and respect about or own fathers, grandfathers, and male role models. It?s a day to honor those men who raised us, cared for us, provided for us, and protected us.
If we pause to reflect, however, it is also a day to mourn. We mourn those millions of fathers who refused to provide and protect. We mourn fathers who have no legal right to do so. We mourn the loss of faithful and true fatherhood in America. And we hope, we pray, we plead, for it to return.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Another Article -"Abortion and Fatherhood- A Man's Take"
The straight forward statement in the article...Abortion didn't empower women, it empowered men, really struck me.
And the perspective that Roe v.Wade made being a father jump 9 months into the future...I hadn't really thought of it that way.
I'm still digesting the article, but I'm glad more people are talking about father's issues and looking at parenthood from both sides more it seems a little lately.
As I said, though, if we were more instinctual beings... many things we do, in fact almost everything, goes against nature. It is human 'nature' to alter environment and situations to suitability rather than adapt to it.
It is a personal choice that I am anti abortion, but my reply here is not influenced.by that. My reply is an objective look at this article.
This article bothers me. As much as I like the idea of men having increased reproductive rights, I loathe reading about men who are anti-choice.
My disclaimer here is that my opinion on this is totally unfair. But I roll my eyes so hard when men get on their soap box about how abortion is bad. I feel like they can have more of an opinion on abortion when they stop raping women, when they start undergoing the health risks of pregnancy and labor, and when they begin taking on 50% of the child rearing. Until then, I don't want to hear it.
"We are born to be fathers. Strong. Honorable. Self-sacrificing. Men of courage. Men of valor."
Seriously? Not all men. Not all women. And I say this as someone who was raised by a strong, honorable, self-sacrificing man. I'm also married to one. But not everyone is cut out for this.
I'm at work so I won't type the long response I want to, but pretty much what nineoceans said. Also, not everyone regrets an abortion decision, man or woman.
Co-signed me
Well, it didn't say everyone. If you read it without succumbing to the angle, you see that it cites a few specific people and views and presents the journalist's viewpoint trying to be proven. That being said, it is a journalist's job to angle an article when, well more like a columnist because this sounds more like that. A scientific report is supposed to be objective, not a columnist's article or an editorial.
Also, I don't think the article was saying that men should have the power to say whether abortion is legal or right or wrong. I think it is arguing that men should have a say in their child's life. And I think that is a valid argument any time sex was consentual.
Look at this another way, taking abortion out of the equation...
Man and Woman have ONS resulting in pregnancy. Woman decides to keeo child. Man wants to be involved and fully support and raise child. Woman wants Man to have nothing to do with child, no CS or anything. If we are saying Man has no rights to the 'fetus' then what is to stop us from saying that this is also acceptable?
Again, not trying to start any fights, just trying to think outside the box.
DH's XW, not BM, had three abortions while they were married. She told him long after their divorce. There was no way for her to have known who the father was, but the chances he was the father of the first was moreso.? Granted, he can accept the fact that things turned out the way they were supposed to and that three children would have been put through hell. But it still took several years for him to come to that acceptance. Even long after we were together, especially during my pregnancy with DS, he had problems dealing with it. He asked her why she did it and she said that she just didn't want to have kids yet. But she did not having unprotected sex with strangers.
I have so many issues with this article. IT's clearly a "Fox News View" in my opinion. And for what it's worth, I'm a Pro Choice woman who has never had an abortion (and never would) who does not think abortion is the answer, I do believe however women AND men have a right to choose.
WTF is all I can say.
WTF to the guy who had FOUR abortions in his life. Get a clue and wear a damn condom. I do not feel bad for this man. He SHOULD feel guilt and pain.
WTF to author of this article on so many levels. Ugh. I can't even begin to state my issues with this. I am so annoyed at his avenue of thinking. Did men really think a woman's right to choose freed them from responsibilities when they had sex with a woman? That Roe vs Wade really made them feel that they could willy-nilly have sex without fear of pregnancy and parental responsiblity? Really?
Ugh. That's just the beginning of my annoyance for this article. I can't even begin to convey what I feel here.
Please tell me men aren't this stupid and ignorant.
On a related note...(sorry to hijack) our state just gave our governor power (he has to sign yet and there is no doubt he will) to be the one that gets to decide if a woman on Medicaid gets re-imbursed for abortions. HE ALONE gets to decide. I don't think it's his choice. He's Catholic. So you can't tell me that won't come into play in his decisions.
It's just bothersome to me that we are giving this much control to one person who is a man and against abortion.
Sorry. Hijack an abortion rant over.
My thoughts exactly!
Edit: I meant to quote not being surprised this came from fox news.