The repeal of Roe v. Wade has shifted the discourse on abortion into a new phase, ranging from availability and legality to ethics and safety, as well as states’ and women’s “rights.”
But as the policy and legal debates have changed, what has stayed the same is the framing of abortion as an exclusively female issue. Whether the procedure was mutually desired and agreed upon or not, a man’s perspective on an unplanned pregnancy is too often the last heard, or outright dismissed as irrelevant. Some feminists would see that as a good thing, but this one does not, and neither should Christians.
Men who have been affected by abortion are a neglected voice in the abortion debate. It is an oft-repeated mantra that men need therapy — and new research indicates this may be especially true for men experiencing grief after abortion and disenfranchisement of their pain.
Support After Abortion, an after-abortion healing research and education organization, found that 71 percent of men suffered issues after abortion — including almost one-third of men who identify as “pro-choice” — and that 82 percent of men did not know where to find help. Men struggled regardless of their involvement in the abortion decision, and even men who fully supported their partner’s decision found themselves with anger, grief, and other negative emotions when thinking about the child or children they never got to know.
This research is just the latest to show that, just like women, many men need help after an
