Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Before there were many post abortion ministries at all, the voice that was proclaiming the harm caused by abortion was Dave Reardon, Ph.D., of the Elliot Institute which does post abortion research. Dave is still in the background, humbly working hard for us. If you are not familiar with his work you should be.  Check out the website, and if you can, please support this work!

Here is an article he wrote in 1993 on men and abortion! 

Forgotten Fathers and Their Unforgettable Children
by David C. Reardon, Ph.D.

In the early seventies, Arthur Shostak accompanied his lover to a well-groomed suburban abortion clinic. They had both agreed abortion was best. But sitting in the waiting room proved to be a “bruising experience.” By the time he left the clinic, he was shocked by about how deeply disturbed he had become.

A professor of sociology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Shostak spent the subsequent ten years studying the abortion experience of men. His study included a survey of 1000 men who accompanied wives or girl friends to abortion clinics.

Shostak’s study was published in Men and Abortion: Lessons, Losses and Love (Praeger, 1984). The value of this study is limited to reporting mostly the short term reactions of men to the pregnancy and the decision to abort. In addition, because of the selection process, this study did not reflect the attitudes or experiences of men who did not accompany their partners to the abortion clinic–either because they were unaware of the pregnancy and abortion, because they were casual or unsupportive partners, or because they were opposed to the abortion. Despite these significant limitations, Shostak’s study, using the largest group of men ever surveyed about their abortions, is still the benchmark study in this understudied field.

Shostak reported that the majority of the men surveyed in clinic waiting rooms felt isolated, angry at their partners or themselves, and were concerned about the physical and emotional damage abortion might cause their partner. Only about one-fourth of the men stated that they had offered to pay the costs of raising the child if the woman chose against abortion. Half the single men said they offered to marry their female partner if she chose to give birth.

Shostak’s study found that abortion is far more stressful for men than the public would generally suppose. More than one in four equated abortion to murder. Slightly over 80% said they had already begun to think about the child that might have been born (with 29% saying they had been fantasizing about the child “frequently”), 68% believed men involved in abortions “did not have an easy time of it,” and 47% worried about having disturbing thoughts afterwards. Shostak reported that many men began to cry during the interview.

The overwhelming majority, 83% opposed any legal restrictions on abortion and 45% stated that they had urged the woman to choose an abortion (48% of unmarried men and 37% of the married men). When asked if the man and woman should have an equal say in the decision, 80% of married men agreed compared to 58% of single men. Many expressed frustration and anger about the failure of women to consider their wishes and feelings. They felt isolated from the decision and–especially if they opposed the abortion–emasculated and powerless.

In a subsequent interview Shostak said: “Most of the men I talk to think about the abortion years after it is over. They feel sad, they feel curious, they feel a lot of things; but usually they have talked to no one about it. It’s a taboo…. With a man, if he wants to shed a tear, he had better do it privately. If he feels that the abortion had denied him his child, he had better work through it himself. He does not share his pain with a clergyman, a minister; he does not share it with a close male friend…. It just stays with him. And it stays for a long time.”(1)

Read the rest here.