"Abortion rights supporters watch this latest mobilization warily: If anecdotes from grieving women can move the Supreme Court, what will testimony about men's pain accomplish? 'They can potentially shift the entire debate,' said Marjorie Signer of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, an interfaith group that supports abortion rights."
     From "Changing Abortion's pronoun," which ran in the January 7, 2008, Los Angeles Times.

A thoughtful pro-lifer, in commenting on Stephanie Simon's carefully written LA Times article, observed that it's not so much about changing abortion's pronoun but "adding one to the abortion equation." And in those six words he captured why the Abortion Establishment is so dismayed by the ultimate politically incorrect subject: men grieving over the loss of their unborn children.

For most of the past 35 years, the dogma that abortion is a "woman's issue" has reigned, making a real discussion exceedingly difficult. But that is gradually changing, as was clear from the powerful workshop given by Marriage and Family therapist Greg Hasek and attorney David Wemhoff at NRLC 2008.

When Hasek and Wemhoff first teamed up in 2004, there was for all practical purposes no national dialogue over men and abortion. But having just completed their fifth tag-team workshop, they assured their audience that the voices of men, long muted, are beginning to be heard.

Just last November 170 participants from 28 states and nine countries gathered in San Francisco for the first ever international event on the topic of men and abortion. Building on that momentum, the National Office for Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing is organizing a second "Reclaiming Fatherhood Conference September 8th and 9th in Chicago.

Early on in the workshop Hasek dealt with one of the most common criticism. If there are all that many men suffering from post-abortion symptoms and awash in grief and shame, why aren't counselors seeing them? He calmly pointed out that, in general, men don't go to counseling and if tempted they are dissuaded by the same reasons that stop women: emotions, fear of revealing themselves, and embarrassment, to name just three.

But Hasek insisted that we recognize that we are "looking for grief in all the wrong places." Men are different than women. Thus, men would rarely come to a counselor and say something direct, such as, "I'm post-abortive, and I'm hurting," Hasek said.

Instead, they internalize the pain that comes out in symptoms they do not connect to the abortion. Consequently, approaches to post-abortive men must be different than to post-abortive women.

To illustrate how men process grief, Hasek talked about a funeral he had attended. A slide presentation was shown of the deceased's life. Women teared up when they saw a picture of the man as a young child. Men choked up when they saw slides of him playing football.

Indeed, Hasek argues that the word "abortion" doesn't connect with most men. What does resonate deeply is to remind them of Lost Fatherhood.

And the pain can be almost unimaginable. In her story about the San Francisco conference, Simon wrote, "The most striking session featured the halting testimony of men whose partners aborted. [Jason] Bayer, who now lives in Phoenix, told the crowd he suffered years of depression and addiction. 'I couldn't get the thought out of my head about what I had lost.'"

Another participant at that conference had impregnated three women (once twice) with all four ending in abortions "Years later, when his wife told him she was pregnant, 'I suddenly realized that I had four dead children,' said Mark Morrow, 47, who lives near Erie, Pa. 'I hadn't given it a thought. Now it all came crashing down on me -- look what you've done.'"

At their workshop Hasek talked about the "defense mechanisms" our culture has built around abortion. However well fortified they may be, it is only a matter of time, he predicted, before they all come crashing down.

Please send any comments you may have to daveandrusko@hotmail.com.