Reclaiming Fatherhood

In the past I have done some posts on the post-abortion trauma suffered by men who are involved in an abortion. The pro-abortion crowd have denied men any role other than to let his child be murdered. & even more so than the emotional damage done to women, the damage to men has been ignored &/or denied. So, I was greatly heartened to recently read that there will be an upcoming conference dealing with this very subject.

The conference is entitled Reclaiming Fatherhood & will be held 28-29 November 2007 in San Francisco, CA. It is being organized by the National Office for Post Abortion Reconciliation & Healing & is co-sponsored by the Knights of Columbus & the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

According to the website: "This conference is the first to focus on the effects of abortion on men. Speakers will cover the following topics: pertinent research, abortion as trauma, and counseling men who have experienced pregnancy loss through abortion. This is a unique opportunity for those who deal with men in pastoral or clinical settings to learn about this much neglected topic." Speakers will include Vincent M. Rue, Ph.D., Catherine T. Coyle, RN, MSN, Ph.D., Reverend Martin Pable & Gregory Hasek MA/MFT LPC.

Topics will include:

Men and Abortion: A Review of the Research
Trauma and Abortion: When Men Hollow
Sociology of Fatherhood and Abortion
The Masculine Side of Healing
Spiritual Aspects of Healing for Post-Abortion Fathers
Wounded Fathers: Why Do They Come for Help
Medicating the Pain of Lost Fatherhood:
Looking for Their Pain In all the Wrong Places
Forgiveness Therapy with Post- Abortion Men

Another speaker scheduled is Chris Aubert. His story was told in the CNS article that I read talking about the event. ('Reclaiming Fatherhood' movement aims to help men touched by abortion) Here is a part of the article:

Aubert, in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service from The Woodlands, Texas, a Houston suburb, said that in 1985, when he first impregnated a woman who was " a friend, but not really a girlfriend, I was not a one-woman man, let's say, at the time, and I had no qualms about premarital sex or anything like that."

Nor did he have any qualms about her decision to have an abortion. "She got the abortion. I did not go. It was a complete and total nonevent for me," he said. "My thinking was at the time this was just a collection of nonviable tissue cells, it's perfectly legal, it's her body -- all the things today I find as laughably silly. I bought into it." He never saw the woman again.

Much the same was true in 1991, six years later, when he got his girlfriend pregnant. "I had just been civilly divorced outside the church and I was not ready to get married again. She was a Methodist, I was a 'nothing.'" Nominally Jewish, Aubert said his bar mitzvah in 1970 was the last time he had stepped into a synagogue. "She had no quarrel with the abortion. I said, 'Fine with me,'" he recalled.

There was a difference, though, between the two abortions.

"This time, however, I did go into the clinic with her. I went into the waiting room with her," Aubert said. "Looking back, it was probably something very, very deep within me that said, 'Something about this isn't right.' I wouldn't have been able to articulate it if you asked me. ... Something about the second one seems different."

Aubert and his girlfriend drifted apart, which he attributes to the abortion. Then he met his current wife, whom he described as "a cradle Catholic," and got married. Within two months she was pregnant.

"The abortions started to eat away at me a little bit" by then, Aubert told CNS. At the doctor's office upon viewing the ultrasound of the child his wife was carrying, Aubert said he blurted out, "I want to meet the person that wants to debate with me whether this is a baby or not."

"This flood of emotion came back. I realized I killed two of my kids," Aubert said. "I didn't mention this to my wife, but I was just devastated by it, just devastated. I had killed two of my kids."

Aubert, who became a Catholic in 1997, said it still took him a few years to work up the nerve to talk about the abortions at confession. When he did, he added, "I was a weeping mess. It was horrible. I ended up telling my wife. She could not have been any nicer or more understanding."

The battle to end abortion goes on. & a big part of the battle is getting the truth out there, the truth that abortion kills a child. But also the truth that abortion harms all those involved in the abortion, mother, father, siblings grandparents, etc. It is important that we tell the truth about the evil that abortion is. But just as important is bringing God's healing to those wounded by abortion. There is now 1 more way out there to bring this about.