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Men and Abortion: the
Topic that Won't Go Away
Part Two of Three By Dave Andrusko
Some surface briefly, then "disappear," only to reappear. A classic example is the capacity of the unborn child to experience pain at 20 weeks, a truth demonstrated over and over again which was brought back to national attention once again this year when Nebraska passed its historic "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act." Another is inevitably Men and Abortion--how could it be otherwise? A friend emailed me a link to story in a St. Louis weekly which, while hard on pro-life outreach to men, included that phase so it could also discuss "pro-choice" outreach to men. In an overly cutesy way, the writer says, "Men have long taken the back seat in the national conversation about abortion, but now, even if they're not driving it, they've at least graduated to passenger-seat status." That's a stretch. Men are still, at best, in the back seat. But at least they are being allowed in the car. Pro-abortionists, of course, see outreach such as Project Joseph as little more than recruitment tools for the pro-life Movement. They see their job as reassuring the men that the decision to end the child's existence was best for all--especially them. Pro-lifers see abortion in a fundamentally different way. They understand that both men and women have layers of unresolved quilt and remorse that it can't just be bottled up. There is a reason that research continues to show an aftermath of post-abortion physical and emotional complications. An unintentionally revealing comment came early in the piece ("Abortion Activists have a new target: men "): "Where pro-choicers see 50 million men relieved of the burden of caring for a child they hadn't planned for, pro-lifers see the 50 million Father's Day cards those children will never send." "Relieved of the burden": what an immensely revealing observation. The whole point of so many post-abortion stories told by men is that they would give anything to have not the "burden" of caring for the child they once abandoned but the privilege. Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. |
Except
to the most ideologically-driven pro-abortionist, it shouldn't
be at all surprising that abortion, an act which takes the life
of one individual and forever alters the lives of many others,
would be anything but simple. Endlessly complicated, the real
question is which aspect will demand attention next.