Women and Men Involved in Abortions Have Tremendous Impact on Debate

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 21, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Women and Men Involved in Abortions Have Tremendous Impact on Debate Email this article
Printer friendly page

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 21,
2008

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — As Americans mourn 35 years of legalized abortion, some of the men and women involved in abortion decisions say the pain and regret from the abortion has prompted them to become strongly pro-life. These post-abortive men and women are the face of not only the pro-life movement but of the problems abortion causes.

Matt Barber, the director of policy and cultural issues for Concerned Women of America told LifeNews.com about his personal account of how abortion affects men.

"Abortion doesn’t only hurt women and kill children; it can also deeply wound the men it touches," he says. "I’m sad to say that I know this from personal experience."

"Along with the realization that a woman has chosen to end the life you helped to create, comes a profound sense of loss and guilt," he explains.

Barber talks about the kinds of daydreams he has about the baby who could have been — and recounts experiences similar to women who terribly regret their abortions.

"I can’t know for sure, but I sometimes imagine my first child was a girl," he said. Today she would have been about 22 years-old, finishing college, and, I suspect, ready to take on the world."

"Perhaps I’d be walking her down the aisle soon. I can’t know. I’ll never know. Only God knows. My child was torn from this world before anyone could know," he concludes.

Max Baker, 44, also talked about the pain after an abortion in which he was involved in the decision.

"The shame and the guilt, I guess is the way that I dealt with it," Baker told CBN News. "Don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about it. We don’t bring it up, but the shame was always there."

Baker and his wife Judy had an abortion before they got married. They say it’s the worst decision they ever made.

"When I laid down on that table, I knew it was wrong," Judy told CBN.

"I knew that I was making the wrong decision. I felt horrendous pain after the procedure. It was very painful," she said. "Then they put you in a room in a recliner and you sit there by yourself and you contemplate what you’ve just done for the next hour and a half until they allow you to go home."

Today, post-abortion groups across the nation hold retreats, Bible studies and group and individual counseling sessions to help men, women and couples like the Bakers.

Such sessions didn’t exist in the same numbers or receive as much attention even a decade ago and people like the Bakers and Matt Barber have emerged as top pro-life spokespeople and are helping the next generation of Americans avoid abortions.