I remember the day the Chicago radio station announced the decision in Roe v. Wade. There was a sound of shock and pain from my parents as they both said "Oh, no!" Little did anyone know at the time that abortion would strike our family, and that I would so lose my son.
Harry Blackmun and six of his colleagues voted to find that the decision to "terminate a pregnancy" was guaranteed by the United States Constitution. We can believe that he and the others knew what "terminating a pregnancy" would do to the baby. Yet nowhere in the sixty plus pages of their opinion is there any mention of what "terminating a pregnancy" through abortion would mean to the relationship between a man and a woman, and to the child’s father, nor is there any discussion of abortion’s long-term effects.
Emma (a pseudonym) and I met when we were in our early twenties. We were crazy about each other. Despite our upbringings, we lived in a time and place where the books, magazines, movies, and music told us we could do what we wanted, as long as it felt good, and it "didn’t hurt anyone". These same voices told us that each of us was the center of the universe. Heck, they told us we were the universe.
We fell into this stupidity and when the contraception failed, as it often does, we were faced with the question of what to do. His fate was decided with two short answers to two questions exchanged in the middle of the night.
Emma and I did not know what we were doing, and we did not know what our son’s loss would do to us. We did not understand the feelings we had after the abortion, nor did we know how to deal with them. If we tried to discuss his loss, there was anger, yelling, accusations, or outright dismissal of the subject with a joke or quick turn of phrase. I think that we believed by ignoring what happened, the whole thing would just go away and things could go back to the way they were. But things could not, and would not, ever be the same.
We drifted apart and the relationship ended as most do when there is an abortion. For nearly fifteen years after that, I struggled with enormous guilt and pain from the loss of Emma and my son, yet I never really examined perhaps the most profound events of my life. Down inside, I felt the best had come and gone, and I questioned my worth. This carried over into all that I did. And as time went on, I grew angry. I did not let anyone else in and I avoided anything that may remind me of what happened. I buried it, and denied it. I carried it alone until just recently. That is very common, I have since learned, and there are reasons for it.
A man is not supposed to feel anything for the loss of a child according to the mandarins of American society. After all, they say, we men can’t get pregnant and the Supreme Court said the choice to abort belonged solely to women. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, they went on to say that not even a woman’s husband had any say in the matter. Then there is the issue of television and the media. They portray us fathers of aborted children in probably the worst of terms. To admit to being a father to an aborted child is to risk being stigmatized. And finally, a lot of our family and friends, as well-meaning and decent as they are, just have trouble accepting or understanding. Many very good people do not know how to talk to or be around a man, or a woman for that matter, who has lost a child to abortion. I remember many comments that discouraged me from opening up for fear of the opprobrium I may receive.
A lot of people do not know how prevalent abortion is, nor do they know how many people hurt from it. Probably everyone reading this knows a man, or woman, who is post-abortive, even though they may not have told you. The statistics from the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute show that by the age of 45, 43% of all women, and hence about the same number of men, have lost a child to abortion. We are everywhere, yet many of us remain isolated and alone in our pain. I commend all of you to read the work of Dr. David Reardon (www.afterabortion.org) for he has been able to identify some of the tell-tale signs of those who suffer the loss of a little one, while offering strategies to start them on the road to healing.
Dr. Theresa Burke is the co-author of the excellent book, Forbidden Grief, and founder of the Rachel Vineyards ministries for post-abortive men and women, and Dr. Wayne Brauning is the founder and director of Men’s Abortion ReCovery (MARC). Both of them have found that all of those suffering from loss through an abortion are in need of grieving the loss. To grieve, we have to face what happened, and that can be hard because it means reliving the events of many years ago.
In my case, I needed to be in a safe environment where I would not be condemned for what I had done. I am very blessed because I found this refuge with many people--my parish priest, my best friend, and the loving and caring staff of a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat. With them, I could talk and talk and talk about what I felt and still feel. I could start to remember everything and understand what happened and why it happened. I could accept it all, and I could cry for my lost son and for the pain Emma must have felt. I could begin to forgive not just Emma, but perhaps, most importantly, myself. I could start to lay down the stone that had tortured and crushed me all those years. I could be set free.
Free to recognize my son by naming him. Matthew is the first Gospel, and it means "Gift from God" in Hebrew. Peter—on his feast day Matthew would have been born. So I name my son, almost seventeen years after he died, Matthew Peter. My Matthew Peter. He is no longer a nothing, a piece of tissue, a mistake, a "dirty little secret". He is a person. He is a human being. He is my son. He is part of the family. And I was blessed with him, even though he was on this earth for such a short time, and even though I never got to hold him or talk to him. Fr. John Patrick Riley, my pastor at Sacred Heart Parish, Notre Dame, surprised me one day. He said my Matthew Peter was in heaven praying for me. What a wonderful thing, my brothers and sisters, to know we have our own children interceding for us.
Free of guilt and shame and lies. The loss of Matthew and Emma was the loss of my family, and the sorrow will remain. But while I shall never forget, I am not incapacitated by that memory as I have come to know so much. Such as, why abortion is in this land and why we must not only restore the protections of law to our unborn children and ourselves, but that we must also change the culture that allows it to exist. I understand why it is that people choose abortion, and that those who do are hurt people in need of our love and care. I understand the beauty and value of the gifts that we all need—healing, hope, rest, and peace.
Free to live my life again fully, and happily. Free to love and laugh, to hope and dream. Free to start anew and to build better than ever before.
David A. Wemhoff is an activist, writer and speaker devoted to building a culture of life. He is the co-founder of Truth Helps, Inc., the sponsor of a revolutionary new outreach known as www.groundpickle.com to help youth make the right decisions in the present culture. He has spoken at the 2004 National Right to Life Convention and Rachel’s Vineyard conference on the impact of abortion on men. David A. Wemhoff is an attorney at law in South Bend, Indiana.