Abortion industry’s disdain for fathers could end up actually saving lives

Many in the abortion industry appear to have hostility towards men — particularly the fathers of preborn babies. This hostility may have actually saved at least one child’s life.

Baby’s father turned away from abortion facility

Pro-abortion activist Leeann Bennett, an abortion facility “escort” who tries to distract abortion patients so they don’t listen to pro-life sidewalk counselors, wrote about what happened when a couple came to her abortion facility without an appointment.

The facility didn’t allow walk-ins, but the pregnant woman and her partner wanted to talk to someone. Bennett asked the facility’s security guard if they could come in. She recalled:

After getting the okay from the clinic, he told me that the woman could come in, but not the man.

“Why can’t I come in?” the man asked.

And our security guard, in his usual display of decorum and diplomacy, hollered, “Cuz it’s none of yer f*@#–in business!”

Rather than going in alone, the woman decided with her partner to go to the pro-life pregnancy resource center across the street. Bennett didn’t follow their story any further, but never reported them coming back to the abortion facility.

In this case, the abortion industry’s hostility towards a baby’s father may have saved the baby’s life.

This abortion facility is not alone in its disdain towards men.

An article on (now deceased) late-term abortionist William Rashbaum quoted him as saying, “F-ck you” to men who wanted their partners to choose life. The author said, “He won’t talk to them directly because, he explains, ‘I don’t treat men.'”

Postabortion regret among men

While Professor of Sociology at Drexel University, Arthur B. Shostak wrote about attempting to get abortion facilities to give support to men. Shostak is pro-abortion and lists ways men can promote abortion in his article. But he is also a post-abortive father who mourns his aborted child. He later wrote a book about post-abortion trauma among men. He said of his interviews with other post-abortive men:

Many cried…  We would sit in the back of a diner in a booth I had “reserved” for an hour’s interview, and still be there hours later, with crumbled Kleenex tissues strewn about…

Shostak and his ex-girlfriend went to a group “education” session with four other couples. He said that he “resented [the ‘counselor’s’] breezy reference to a mere ‘clump of tissue,’ something as easily discarded as any other unwanted ‘stuff.’”

When Shostak complained, she told him her superiors had instructed her to use that language and that no one had ever objected before. Though pro-abortion, Shostak didn’t like how the abortion facility dehumanized his baby. When he asked for literature to help men cope after abortion, the facility told him they had none. They later had a session with another counselor who, seeing their ambivalence, suggested they think about their decision. However, they went through with the abortion.

Troubled by the way he was treated at the abortion facility, Shostak visited other abortion facilities in several cities and discovered that “the situation was worse” than he’d thought for men. One facility wouldn’t even let waiting men use the facility’s restrooms. He could not find any facilities that offered men counseling.

Shostak put together a survey to see if other men felt the way he did. But when he asked Planned Parenthood to administer the survey in the waiting room, all 45 affiliates refused. He said:

This unexpected rebuff was only made clear much later when the PP Research Director was quoted in a TIME magazine article about our work explaining that as far as she cared, “it doesn’t matter how much men scream and holler that they are being left out. There are some things they are never going to be able to experience fully. I say tough luck.”

READ: After years of excluding men from abortion decision, pro-abortion activists lament lack of men in movement

Surveys revealed men wanted to be more involved

Some facilities did distribute the survey in 1983 and Shostak did a follow-up survey in 2000. He discovered that although 73% of men wanted to be with their partners during the abortion, only 22% of facilities allowed it. Ninety-two percent of men wanted to be in the recovery room, but only 24% allowed it. In 1983, these statistics were both 12%.

Fifty-five percent of surveyed men wanted to meet with their partners and a counselor, but only 40% of abortion facilities allowed this. Presumably, the other 60% either offered no counseling or did not allow the man to sit in.

Seventy-eight percent of facilities had no literature for men. This was up from 32% in 1983.

Abortion providers refused to make changes

It was clear to Shostak that change was needed. He came up with a list of suggestions to help abortion facilities better support men. However, of all the facilities he approached, only one agreed to make the changes he suggested and offer counseling services to men. Three months later, when he followed up, the facility had stopped the program. All other facilities rejected his proposed changes outright.

Shostak presented at a National Abortion Federation convention where he encouraged abortion providers to offer counseling to men. He was met with overwhelming rejection. Abortionists and abortion workers gave various excuses. Some said they didn’t have time or money; others blamed pro-lifers, saying they were “under siege” in their communities.

Some were openly hostile to Shostak’s ideas. Shostak described that the prevailing attitude was that…

men are only interested in power, and any quest for services from abortion providers is just a power-grab in sheep’s clothings… Men have got to get used to taking second best! Women have suffered long in that place …

Men are best seen and not heard from – especially as abortion is only a woman’s business.

Abortion facilities clearly do not care about men. There is quite a bit of evidence that they don’t care very much about women either, even though they claim to serve women. Filthy conditions, lack of counseling, lies about fetal development and abortion’s risks, forced abortions, women rushed through abortions and refusal to report sexual abuse have been widely reported in the abortion industry.

1. Leeann Bennett Escorting for Jesus: Why Religious Fundamentalists Need to Crawl Back into Their Caves (2020) 30 – 31