Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

This is the question I am almost assured of getting every
time I raise the awareness of the importance for our society to pay
attention to the need for post-abortion healing in men. In a sex saturated
society it seems surprising to me that people seem to know so very little about
the facts of life. A mother cannot produce a child on her own; she needs a
male’s participation for this to happen. Consequently when a child is put to
death in an abortion it results in a death for a mother and a
father, a death that needs to be dealt with through the normal process of
grieving.

There are several forces, which inhibit a man in
his attempt to address the issues arising from the killing of his child. Notice
first of all that I used the words 'killing of his child'. This statement
contains two influences which hinder a mans taking ownership regarding
what has happened in an 'abortion'. 

First of all the word 'killing'. The word 'killing'
suggests that something was alive. In order to kill something it needs to at
one point be living. At the point of conception the material in the womb of the
mother is a human being. Left alone without any tampering this embryo becomes a
living human person. Every one of us on earth was once a one-second-old
embryo. I was once a 1-second-old embryo and so were you who are reading
this article. We all were the fetuses that were. Science verifies this through
the field of genetics and spirituality verifies this through Holy Scripture.
What is extracted and destroyed in an 'abortion' is a human being.

Therefore the first hindrance that a man needs to
get past is euphemisms such as abortion. A man needs to realize that
abortion is actually killing and in reality is murder. It wasn't just a clump
of cells, it wasn't just a product of conception, it wasn't just the
termination of a pregnancy, and it was the killing and death of a viable unique
human being, his own child.

The second word I would like to look at from this
phrase 'killing of his child' is the word 'his'. Popular culture would
dictate to a man that it's not his body the child is in so he has no say it
what becomes of it. He is told that he has no rights in regards to the life or
death of that child. Legally he can do nothing to protect him or her if he
wants them to live. This reality in our culture can separate a man from
recognizing that while this was the mother’s child that has died it was also
his child. It makes it somewhat difficult to take ownership of what has
happened to his son or daughter.

If a man can get past these forces that support his denial he then has
to begin looking at his guilt, shame, remorse and anger. To narrow
down kinds of circumstances a post-abortive man has found himself in one can
look at (a) man who has forced his partner into an abortion (b)
a man who wanted his child but has had his partner kill it. Both men will
have the natural law of God within him convicting his conscience of what
he has done and releasing emotions to coincide with his experience. Many men at
this point in order to escape the speaking conscience turn to
chemicals to dull the pain and silence it's voice.

In the first case if a man has forced his partner
into an abortion he will inevitably be experiencing the residue of such
emotions such as guilt, shame, remorse, and self-hatred. God releases those
emotions in spite of a man's intellectual opinion on the issue. If the man
wanted the child and the woman has aborted the child against his will he will
have to deal with the anger and powerlessness that he feels as a consequence.
There are various dimensions in between these two extremes however most
categories will result in the onset of emotions such as guilt,
shame, remorse, and anger.

If a man is fortunate enough to be able to move
through these emotions he will then have to deal with the loss of his child. He
will have to pass through the stages of grief in order to come to a more
peaceful resolution with this issue.

Post abortion
healing weekends typically address all of these issues. They allow a man to
process the events of these issues in his life in a safe and protected
environment. If a man can summon the courage to face these skeletons in his
closet I know from experience that God can bring him to a place of fuller
healing and restoration. The abortion my girlfriend had left me
bewildered, guilty, shameful, angry, hopeless and grieving. At the time I
had no words to describe the turmoil I entered into after that event. It was
only through reconciling myself with God and entering into a journey of
healing that I was able to untangle the mass of emotions that were lumped
together inside of me. Alcohol did not work, drugs did not work and sex did not
work. Turning to a loving forgiving healing and restoring God has worked and
continues to work in restoring me from a place of destruction to a place
of victory.

Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief said the apostle Paul. He
knew what it was like to consent to the death of an innocent person, just
like I did. He also knew what God could do with a life totally yielded to
him. Let Jesus take the lid off of this Pandora's box of an abortion
experience, and allow the master physician to bring the fuller restoration you
need. He did it for Paul, he's doing it for me and he can do it for you.

Rev

Scott Miller

(Director of
Lighthouse Mission

Soup Kitchen

,

Canada

)