Abortion's Impact on Men Frequently Ignored, UCLA Psychologist Says

Los Angeles, CA (LifeNews.com) -- A psychology professor at UCLA says the impact abortion has on men is too frequently ignored. Dr. Miriam Grossman, who is a psychiatrist at the university's student health service, says that men involved in abortion decisions have become "invisible" to researchers and members of her profession.

While research on the medical and mental health problems women face following an abortion has only barely scratched the surface, fewer scholars have examined the impact on men.

Grossman says a sociologist named Dr. Arthur Shostak is about the only researcher to examine how abortion affects men.

Shostak looked into the situation because he and his girlfriend reached the decision to have an abortion when she became pregnant unexpectedly. He was curious to know how similar decisions affected other men.

Shostak surveyed 1,000 men who accompanied their wives or girlfriends to an abortion facility at various spots around the country. He then tracked the men over subsequent years to see how abortion changed their lives.

He found that 80 percent of the men he surveyed said the trip to the abortion center was the worst day of their lives.

Grossman, speaking with Agape Press, said the number of men who regretted their decision went up over time.

"The number of men who reported that day feeling some guilt and some ambivalence about what they were doing; the number of men who were asked ’Do you think that in the future you might have some troubling thoughts about this ?’ — the percentages went up," she explained.

"So a few years afterwards, they were reporting that it was worse than they had anticipated," she added in the AP interview.

Grossman told the news service that her colleagues too readily ignore men's involvement in abortion and how it affects them.

"There is a significant number of people who do have those scars and that painfulness and if we are going to be open to victims of every sort, then we in mental health need to be acknowledging them even if they don't advance a particular ideology," she said.

Grossman says Shostak has suggested that the mental health community do more to help people recover from the problems associated with an abortion.

The UCLA professor has previously spoken out about the lack of response from academics and mental health professionals.

Grossman sat down with Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review for an interview about her latest book, Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student.

She says the wrote the book in part to "highlight the existence of an invisible group: women (and men) with emotional scars from an abortion."

"They are out there in numbers; many must seek support from networks outside our mental-health system," she said. "This is because although individual practitioners may be sensitive to the trauma of abortion, the mental-health establishment denies it exists."

As a psychiatrist, Grossman criticized "the refusal of my profession to formally acknowledge and reach out to those who suffer with severe emotional disorders following an abortion."

"And mind you, these are professionals who are normally eager to identify and assist victims of all sorts of other traumas — be it child abuse, sexual harassment, or natural disasters," she told National Review.

I have frequently deplored the predicament of husbands who have no right to object if their wives choose to have an abortion. But I admit I hadn't considered the possibility of post abortion trauma in men.

Although it's not a popular idea in our relativist, materialist culture, I believe it is a fact of human nature that we have consciences that are quite independent of our chosen opinions and ideologies.

So even a man who drives his girlfriend to the abortionist because he wants to abort the child is going to have guilt feelings afterward, regardless of his politics or his choice at the time. He may not entirely understand why, but unless he is completely evil he will have guilt feelings nonetheless.

As St. Paul wrote, the Law of God is written in the heart of every person, even the hearts of gentiles and pagans who may not be consciously aware of it.

"Reproductive Rights" is one of those public issues where the inequality between the sexes is rarely discussed.

Reproductive rights does not exist as a legal concept for men, and men are regularly told that they have responsibilities and not rights. A man has no "reproductive rights" that a woman is bound to respect, whether in nor out of marriage, to keep the baby or not. The only right that men have is to keep their pants zipped up, as the course of their lives and their hope for posterity is entirely dependent on the woman's "choice".

I remember hearing a feminazi screeching about how vital "reproductive rights " were for all human beings, insofar as their ability to determine the course of their lives is concerned. It got me to wondering how it is that no comparable "reproductive right" exists for men other than the right to keep your trousers zipped up. A man's income can involuntarily be confiscated to care for children that he does not want, affecting the course of his life. Under the law, he is utterly responsible to support any children with his DNA, and often even for those without it. In many states, women are allowed to ABANDON newborn children that they do not want at hospitals or firehouses, no questions asked. Men don't even have any "reproductive rights" in marriage, because his wife retains her "reproductive rights" if she "chooses" to exercise them.

I don't think either sex should have these "reproductive rights", and should deal with the concequences of a pregnancy, wanted or not. But if as the feminazi says, these rights are vital to human beings, than I wish to suggest the following remedies. An unmarried man, upon being promptly notified of an unwanted pregnacy by his mate, should have the option of a paternal veto (abortion) absolving him of financial and legal responsibility for the child. A married man who discovers that his wife has had an abortion against his wishes should recieve presumptive grounds for a divorce or annullment of the marriage, with the same holding true for one who concieves against his wishes.

Than again maybe the feminazi thinks that men shouldn't qualify for "reproductive rights" since she probably thinks men aren't human anyway.

My point is that men have no "reproductive right" that is INDEPENDENT of a woman's choice, wheras women have options that can be and are exercised independently of a man's wishes. Note that this feminine reproductive veto extends to nullification of the man's wishes whether the man wants the child or not, whether in or out of marriage. While I am acutely aware that this is in large part due to the uniqueness of the reproductive process, this nevertheless leaves the man without any independent ability to influence the woman legally.

I am not even necessarily saying that this is a bad thing, but I do find it curious that we often behave as though the only party affected by the birth of a child is the woman, and to prevent a negative influence on the course of her life we must preserve her right to kill her unborn child. If unmarried, she can "choose" to keep the child and can enlist the support of the state to forcibly take money from the sperm donor against his will. And if he wants the child, then he must yield to her choice to abort.

The common response to the man is that you should have been more careful in your choice of partner, or you should have kept your trousers zipped up. Legally he is told that he has no option other than the one that the woman "chooses" to give him.

Again, I think that BOTH parties should allow a normal pregnancy to take it's course, and come to a mutually agreed upon resolution. But if we insist upon a regime where a "reproductive right" is allowed for only half of the human race, than I think that men should have some LEGAL option to influence the woman's "choice" in either direction, rather than act as though this isn't a significant life altering event for them as well. The one option that I would absolutely forbid, of course is a forced abortion. Consider paternal veto for unmarried men or presumptive divorce grounds for a married man whose wife "chooses" against his wishes.

Having said all this, I do think it unlikely to happen. Men are legally held to the strictest of standard of responsibility where conception is concerned.

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