Reclaiming Fatherhood

I had blogged about this several months ago but here is the report of what happened at the
the first international conference on men and abortion held in San Francisco Nov. 28-29. Nearly 200 people from at least seven nations and 28 states gathered at St. Mary's Cathedral (or St. Mary Maytag as some of the locals I knew called it) for "Reclaiming Fatherhood: A Multifaceted Examination of Men Dealing With Abortion"

The stories are gripping:

Chris Aubert, 50, an attorney, traced his life from days as a "very secular young guy" focused on "making money and in general becoming a yuppy" to his shocking realization during a 1994 ultrasound procedure for his pregnant wife "that that is a baby" in her womb.

It flooded over him, he said, that on two occasions prior to his marriage he had agreed with pregnant girlfriends to terminate their pregnancies. "I realized that I had killed two of my own kids," he said. "It was almost like the hand of God reached down and touched me."

He recalled how after the first abortion in 1985 he had left a rose and a $200 check for his then-girlfriend. "But I felt no sorrow, no pain, no nothing," he said. "I had happily agreed to the abortion."

Similarly, he described a second abortion in 1991 with a different woman. "I went to the clinic with her and sat in the waiting room reading a magazine for 20 or 30 minutes, then we went to lunch," he said.

It did not occur to him, Aubert said, "that in the next room my child was being dismembered and killed."

"Something in the depth of my belly," he said, "kept rising higher and higher" as the realization of the loss of two children sank in. By then a convert to Catholicism, Aubert said he told his wife, "There is something I have to tell you," and he revealed the past abortions.

He has since "jumped (with) both feet into the pro-life world." He has established a Web site on his experiences and abortion, www.chrisaubert.com. (The site carries a warning to visitors that it includes links to graphic photos of abortions.) He also has spoken "to groups of 50 to 1,000" about his convictions.

Other speakers reported that "many men experience depression and guilt as well as grief, anxiety, powerlessness, anger, emotional turmoil, sexual dysfunction and other symptoms often associated with post-traumatic stress disorder."

One aspect of abortion in the United States mentioned frequently during the conference is that "men have no reproductive rights whatsoever," even if they are married to women considering an abortion, in the words of Rue.

Rue charged that most media as well as the preponderance of mental health organizations and professionals continue to promote abortion despite "the mental-health risks," such as "thoughts of suicide in post-abortion women being six times higher" than in the general population.

"There is zero awareness" of a connection between male suicide and abortion, he said. "It is not even a category."

The experts said substance abuse and risk-taking behaviors appear to be common among men associated with an abortion.