MEN AND THE IMPACT OF THE ABORTION CULTURE

David A. Wemhoff 
2008

Abortion, we are told, is an individual choice and a woman’s issue.  This paradigm is reinforced over and over by the media, academia, entertainment, and also by well-meaning pro-lifers.    However, abortion involves others, especially men.  The evidence is accumulating that shows men hurt the same as women after an abortion, even if they hurt for reasons different from women.  This hurt, and the need for healing, is closely related to the existence of something else that is hardly ever discussed – the abortion culture. 

Dr. Vincent M. Rue writes in his article “The Psychological Realities of Induced Abortion” which was published in Post Abortion Aftermath (Sheed & Ward, 1994), “If abortion is to be accurately understood, its cultural context cannot be ignored.  This context largely determines what secrets can be privately acknowledged, what can be discussed, with whom and when.  If valid conclusions are to be reached from scientific inquiries about abortions psychosocial sequelae and prevalence, then it is vital that this aspect of reproductive secrecy be acknowledged and addressed in future investigations….” (p. 9) 

Dr. Rue has identified a largely forgotten aspect of the abortion struggle – the cultural side of life in 21^st Century America.  This has major ramifications in the abortion arena.  First, the culture influences how abortions come about, and, second, the culture profoundly affects men’s healing.   

What is culture?  Webster’s defines it as the values and ways of living held by one group of people and passed on from generation to generation.  This entails things as accepted limits of discourse (i.e., what you can talk about and how you can talk about it), beliefs (i.e., what is the common or public values), how one views the purpose of life, dress, norms of acceptable behavior towards others and self, attitudes toward sex and the sexes, and identity.  It has also come to include more, such as language, law (formal and informal), diet, entertainment, customs, celebrations, a consensus or acceptance of what is important and a certain worldview. 

We all live in a time and in a place.  Culture influences what we do, how we think about what we do, and, by implication, how we feel about what we do.  In “The Psychological Realities of Induced Abortion,” Dr. Rue notes “in public policy and in personal decision making, induced abortion does not occur in a cultural vacuum.  Instead, abortion exists within a U.S. culture sympathetic to new rules and new expectations concerning personal freedoms and so called `reproductive rights.” (p. 6.)

In Men and Abortion (a thesis submitted to the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary), Wayne Brauning concludes “American society was quite culturally conservative before the 1960s.  It is safe to say that the Judeo-Christian ethic was much more widely accepted as the standard for social behavior that it is today.” (p. 13) Brauning brilliantly observes “Here is natural revelation declaring that humankind has certain inherent needs and characteristics, and no matter where we meet human beings, they will generally exhibit certain social patters….When Roe was passed, it suddenly codified a radically different way of valuing human life, it shifted new exclusive legal powers to the woman, and it redefined the power of the government and the work of the medical and legal communities without considering the consequences of such changes”  (p. 13.) 

Dr. Rue posits that value changes occurred making possible the abortion culture which is now American culture:

“The cultural context of induced abortion in the U.S. is predicated upon some fundamental changes: (1) a culture-free independence, i.e., value-freedom versus value-direction; (2) an affirmation of the legitimacy of temporary commitments to others dependent upon the degree of self-enhancement realized; (3) a permanent commitment to self-actualization; and (4) the psychosocial transformation of desires to needs.” (p. 6, Post Abortion Aftermath) 

Dr. Rue surmises that as a consequence there has evolved a “culture of private violence” due to the decline of the family, the erosion of traditional values and moral reasoning and the normalization of violence.  “Any attempt” he writes “to assess and remediate the psychological realities of induced abortion must necessarily take into account this culture of private violence.” (p. 7.) 

This culture of violence flies in the face of numerous cultures throughout history that have held to a more or less successful view as to the duty and role of men.  Fr. Michael T. Mannion in Abortion and Healing:  A Cry to Be Whole (2^nd ed. Sheed & Ward 1992) writes, “Cultures across the globe have universally recognized manhood as linked with the tasks of procreating, protecting and providing.  And yet, to a great extent, in modern times, we have seen man’s primary focus shift from the family to the workplace.” (p. 65)  The home, which was the center of his existence, writes Fr. Mannion, is replaced by the corporation which requires him to uproot his family time and time again, and all of this occurs in a culture that approves of only two emotions for men:  lust and anger.   

In other words, the modern, or national, or dominant culture is in conflict with human nature.  Fr. Mannion notes that “Perhaps we’ve come to a point in our history where social pressures and external signs of validation are not only in conflict with, but are stronger than innate instincts.” (p. 66) This dissonance affects how men treat their pregnant women.  The result is detachment from the woman and their child.  And, in this cultural milieu of detachment, in this culture that goes against human nature, men are not only hurt, but their healing is delayed or even complicated.  Fr. Mannion notes that “Detachment in the decision making process [which] often leads to denial of the need for the healing process.” (p. 69) 

And healing is something that men need after an abortion.  The late Thomas Strahan published an article entitled “Portraits of Post-Abortive Fathers Devastated by the Abortion Experience,” in the November/December 1994 issue of the Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change.  In that paper, he described some of the problems reported by men.  These problems were:  broken relationships, sexual dysfunction, substance abuse, self-hate, risk taking and suicidal behavior, increasing grief, feelings of helplessness, guilt, depression are often experienced by men.  Greater tendencies toward being angry and violent and feelings connected with a sense of lost manhood are found frequently among those guys who lost children through abortion.     

In “The Effects of Abortion on Men” (Ethics and Medics 1996), Dr. Rue explained why it is that men suffer.  Specifically, abortion and its culture do the following:  1) encourage men to act without responsibility; 2) to act without concern for the innocent; 3) to carry on against an innate male drive to protect and provide; and 4) leaves powerless the man, with his opinion meaning little or nothing.   

With all of this, it becomes only logical that the hurt and pain that men suffer as a result of abortion is not confined to them, but that it must necessarily be felt throughout society and impact others.  It therefore becomes necessary to understand how culture is created, in general, and how the current culture came about, in particular, if we are to help men heal, if we are to more fully comprehend the individual and social tragedy of abortion, and if we are to build a legitimate culture of life.

David Wemhoff is co-editor along with Kevin Burke and Marvin Stockwell of “Redeeming A Father’s Heart:  Men Share Powerful Stories of Loss and Recovery” (Authorhouse 2007). He has co-presented workshops entitled “Lost Fatherhood” at the National Right to Life Convention.  Mr. Wemhoff is an attorney in private practice and teaches constitutional law as well as state and local law at the campuses of two universities in South Bend, Indiana, where he resides.