Men Need Healing Too

Abortion can have negative effects on men.

Abortion can have negative effects on men. 

The legalization of abortion was intended to be beneficial for women and society.  Decades later, women often find this empowerment, that was supposed to have a positive impact on their lives and on the lives of the men involved, is leaving them feeling hopeless. 

In the United States, a man, married or not, has no legal right to keep a woman from aborting his child.  Because the woman carries the child in her womb, the man (although the child is 50% his DNA) is left without a decision, without a voice and often feeling powerless.  Men are left feeling guilt and sadness because of a decision that they were never allowed to make. Even if they were involved in the decision, they can often have these and other feelings, just as women often experience. 

In an article published by www.afterabortion.orgthe case is evident that a man’s need for healing after abortion is real.  While studies on the impact of abortion on men are scarce, available research and anecdotal evidence shows that men can experience problems such as broken relationships, sexual dysfunction, substance abuse, feelings of self-hatred, risk-taking and suicidal behavior, increasing feelings of grief over timefeelings of helplessness, guilt, and depression, greater tendencies toward becoming angry and violent, and feelings connected to a sense of lost manhood. 

The link between abortion and suicide is largely unstudied, unreported, but a 1992 article in Linacre Quarterly reported on the case of an 18-year-old man who committed suicide three months after his father died.  According to the article, the young man was despondent over his girlfriend’s abortion.  He had told a friend that the baby had been conceived the day his father died and he planned to name the child after his father. 

Men need an opportunity to heal after abortion too. 


 

The  Hearts of Hope program is available for men as well as women. We have men who can meet one-on-one with you to talk about your feelings after an abortion experience.