Pro-Life March — we need to hear from the dads

I’ve been watching the Pro-Life March on Washington for most of today. I’ve smiled at how young the protesters look, marveled at the immense size of the crowd, and listened intently to the speakers. I’m in awe of this whole pro-life movement and how they continue to stand up for their fellow human beings without becoming discouraged. It’s been 41 years since Roe v. Wade, and yet this huge crowd of close to a half million people fills the streets with hope and determination.

The only thing I wish there were more of were men. The men are marching, they’re there…but I wish there were post-abortive fathers speaking up for the rights of the children they lost. Other than priests and politicians, the men seem to be mostly in silent or supporting roles, and I would like to see that change. At some point in the past 41 years, the media and pro-choice activists convinced the men of this country that abortion was a women’s issue and men needed to be silent. It is, after all, a woman’s body. It’s a woman’s decision. Abortion rights are somehow tied to the feminine persona it seems, and therefore we need women to speak out about them.

And I agree…

It is a woman’s body, and she is the one making this decision….and yet…it’s a man’s child too. It is his son or daughter who is butchered in the name of convenience. It’s his baby. It’s his heartbreak too. Why have we allowed these men to be silenced? Why have those of us who are concerned with the sanctity of life not pushed this point? Men are broken by abortion too. They need to be allowed a voice. We need to hear from the dads. We need men to stand up and challenge the position that because they don’t possess a uterus, they aren’t entitled to an opinion.

One of the primary roles a father has in the life of his children, is to protect them and keep them safe. Abortion laws, and liberal feminism, have silenced fathers and denied them the ability to do the very thing their instincts tell them to do – protect their babies. Further, societal pressures are such that it’s not accepted for fathers to speak about the pain and senses of helplessness and loss. We have, by codifying some sort of “autonomy” for women in law, stripped men of their dignity as fathers. We have made the role of fatherhood one that is completely dependent on the whim of someone else, i.e. the mother involved. Would women accept such a thing? Would we allow men to tell us whether or not we were allowed to have children? Would we allow men to tell us how we were allowed to feel about our children, whether or not we were allowed to feel anything at all? Of course not.

The idea of someone dictating a woman’s emotions to her is absurd, and yet we have allowed liberal feminism  in the pro-choice movement to do this very thing to men. We have accepted the notion that men should have no input, no grief, no regrets about their aborted children. Why?  What is it about that Y chromosome that makes us think men are unfeeling or uncaring? Why are the fathers of miscarried children allowed the gift of their pain, and the fathers of aborted children told that their pain does not exist?

Let me tell you a story:

A few years ago, our family participated in the 40 Days for Life protest outside of our local abortion clinic. Like most such clinics, it is in a rough part of town. Next door to the facility was a run down apartment building which our group had been warned to avoid. It was filled with drug abuse and gang activity, and the prayerful protesters on the sidewalk were not a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

It was on one drizzly cold afternoon, as we stood clumped together and praying our rosaries, that a young man in gang colors brushed past us toward those apartments. He glanced at our signs and then turned around and came over to the only man standing with us. The anger rose off of him in waves, and he loudly demanded to know what the f we were doing. The gentleman with us, quietly led him aside and we overheard snippets of “babies”, “speaking up for them”, and “defending the weak.” The young man, who was around 19 or 20, shifted uneasily on his feet. He sniffed a few times and glanced away, but he listened. When the man with us finished, the younger one nodded his head a few times and loped away.

After about 10 minutes, he returned. He was no longer wearing any visible gang identifiers – he was dressed instead in jeans and a plain white shirt. He stood nervously with us for a few minutes, shifting from foot to foot with his hands crammed in his pockets – unsure what to do. Finally, he spotted the pile of signs on a lawn-chair nearby. He sifted through them for a moment before selecting a red octagon that read “Stop Abortion Now.” His face twitched and he pinched the bridge of his nose, but he continued to silently stand beside us holding that sign for all the world to see.

An hour later, we began putting our things away to make room for the next shift and he said “So what’s the purpose? Are y’all trying to close him down or what?” We assured him that we were, but that we were doing it peacefully and with prayer. He fought back tears as he nodded one more time and said “Good. That son of a bitch killed two of my kids and I never got to say nothing about it.”

One of the older women took his hand as he struggled to keep his composure. “Why didn’t I get to say nothing?” his voice cracked. “Those were my kids…they were my kids.” He looked determinedly over our heads and sniffed once more.

The woman patted his hand and told him “until now..”

He looked down and smiled a bit, pulled his hand from hers and said, “yeah..” and slowly walked back home

There are now generations of men who have been wounded by the violence of abortion, and further wounded by a society that forbids them a voice. It’s time that those of us in the Pro-Life majority (because we are the majority) stand up to the tyranny that denies them the right to speak for their children’s lives.

We hear quite often about the evil of men who force abortion on the women in their lives…isn’t it time that we acknowledge the pain and suffering of the men who have had the violence of abortion forced upon them?