A Man’s Battle with Abortion

In many minds, abortion is a "women's issue". In reality, the impact of abortion reaches everyone: women, children, and men.I got an email yesterday that reminded me how devastating the guilt andmisery of abortion can be... for a father. It's a testimony worthsharing:

“I think I am pregnant” these were the five words that changed myexistence as a man. It was like mental train wreck, my thoughts, myemotions, and my life derailed and crashed into a twisted pile. Therewas a sense of panic and fear that gripped me and would hold me like aprisoner without any hope for parole for the next twenty years. It wasMay of 1979 and my life was suddenly headed down a path to destructionthat I could not see at that time but was to experience turn by turn,curve by curve into the devastating crash that followed.

Myparents who were children of a post World War II era held a set ofvalues that said when a young man gets a girl in trouble the only rightthing to do is to marry her. I did love Melissa and I had alreadypictured us spending our lives together and now there was a reasonthat. I must do the right thing by asking her to marry me andsupporting her and the baby. What I did not understand at the time isthat it was the right thing to do for all the wrong reasons. After all,offering to marry Melissa after I had gotten her pregnant was likesaying, "ready, fire, aim!"

Through my own selfishness anddesire to gratify my flesh, my sexual desire, I had wounded thiswonderful woman and put her in the place of having to make a lifechanging decision. Through the influence of her mother and a societythat said it was only a blob of tissue, Melissa alone faced the choicethat brings nothing but death and destruction. Even though she facedthis horrible situation alone she was not alone in its conception. As aman, I had crossed the line of sexual and moral purity that lead to thedestruction of my son’s life and the devastation of those left behind.I was ultimately responsible because I had failed as a man to honor Godand Melissa, and my sin had come with a terrible price.

Godwas gracious and allowed me to eventually marry Melissa and begin alife with her. However, for the next ten years the weight of my sin wasso great in my personal life and the relationship of our marriage thatit nearly broke me and destroyed us. Drugs, pornography, work, andmoney, I tried every pain relieving substitute I could find to dull thepain and fill the void in my heart and soul that had been ripped openby the death of my son. Nothing worked, my life was a disaster, mymarriage was falling apart, I could not hold a job for more than ashort period and I found myself so far away from God that I wasn’t sureI had the strength to return or the belief that He would take me backafter everything I had done. The worst part of this lonely and dark pitwas that no one understood, including me, that a man could be sodevastated by an abortion. Everyone around me and the world watching ata distance suggested that I was weak and my problem was a flaw of mycharacter and personality. The voice of the giant I was facing told methat I just needed to toughen up, suck it up, and get over it. Whatnearly destroyed me as a man was that I listened to that voice, Ibelieved that I could. Weak, wounded, sick and bleeding I had nothingto fight with, I could not help myself much less anyone else.

Abortionis a symptom. It is the visible discharge of a moral wound on oursociety. The wound is created by men who cannot control their desire tosatisfy and indulge their physical nature. The injury is caused bysexual immorality and moral weakness. As a man I must stand in totalaccountability for the baby I destroyed and the lives I devastatedthrough my own selfishness. Abortion is not just a woman’s issue, it isan issue of women forced into a terrible choice by a male partner andthen played out on the stage of societal perception based on a woman’sright to choose instead of choosing what is right.  A quote byFrederica Mathewes-Green describes this choice so accurately! “Nowoman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche.She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw offits own leg.”   It is confusion, desperation, fear, isolation and most of all abandonment.

Iwas the source of this choice to be made by a woman that I claimed tolove, yet had betrayed through my own selfish human nature.  For yearsmy guilt and shame became a weight that was unbearable, and I wonderedif there were any hope to find relief, an escape. I was desperate for away out of this prison of my own making.  I had accepted and confessedJesus as my Savior years earlier however I had betrayed Him as well.  Itreated that precious gift as a cloak of convenience and safety, simplya place to hide my shame. 

It was through time, wise counciland the omnipotent power of God breaking my heart that I discoveredthat there is hope, forgiveness and restoration.  What I found was thatnot only did God still love me and desire relationship with me, He alsowanted to take my burden and grief and exchange it for somethingbeautiful and purposeful.  That purpose was to use the death of my son,the betrayal of the woman I loved and the near self destruction I hadcaused, and allow Him to use it all for the Glory of His kingdom. It isbecause of God’s love and grace that today I have the opportunity tohelp other men and couples find the same path to healing andrestoration. I have committed that this pain I both caused and enduredwould not be wasted and that I would allow God to use it for His gloryand as a testimony to others.

Today I am free of the pain andguilt of the tragedy I caused, yet I will never allow myself to forgetthe devastation it brought.  My son lives in perfect peace and in thepresence of His heavenly Father and the shining Glory of His SonJesus.  He has had the perfect Father who has shown him what true lovereally is.  Even more, God has assured me that one day we will beunited in a bond of love that will endure for eternity.  Thank God I amforgiven and free!  Thank God He does not waste the pain and tears Ished, He has exchanged beauty for ashes and grace for my tears!

Ilove you Tyler Andrew Haynie, rest and live in the presence of yourFather’s Glory for one day I will embrace and walk with you in paradise!

Because of God’s boundless and incredible love I remain,
A Father Forever
Mitch Haynie