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 and misery of abortion can be... for a father. It's a testimony worth sharing:

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

My parents who were children of a post World War II era held a set of values that said when a young man gets a girl in trouble the only right thing to do is to marry her. I did love Melissa and I had already pictured us spending our lives together and now there was a reason that. I must do the right thing by asking her to marry me and supporting her and the baby. What I did not understand at the time is that 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 like saying, "ready, fire, aim!"

Through my own selfishness and desire to gratify my flesh, my sexual desire, I had wounded this wonderful woman and put her in the place of having to make a life changing decision. Through the influence of her mother and a society that said it was only a blob of tissue, Melissa alone faced the choice that brings nothing but death and destruction. Even though she faced this horrible situation alone she was not alone in its conception. As a man, I had crossed the line of sexual and moral purity that lead to the destruction 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 God and Melissa, and my sin had come with a terrible price.

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

Abortion is a symptom. It is the visible discharge of a moral wound on our society. The wound is created by men who cannot control their desire to satisfy and indulge their physical nature. The injury is caused by sexual immorality and moral weakness. As a man I must stand in total accountability for the baby I destroyed and the lives I devastated through my own selfishness. Abortion is not just a woman’s issue, it is an issue of women forced into a terrible choice by a male partner and then played out on the stage of societal perception based on a woman’s right to choose instead of choosing what is right.  A quote by Frederica Mathewes-Green describes this choice so accurately! “No woman 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 off its own leg.”   It is confusion, desperation, fear, isolation and most of all abandonment.

I was the source of this choice to be made by a woman that I claimed to love, yet had betrayed through my own selfish human nature.  For years my guilt and shame became a weight that was unbearable, and I wondered if there were any hope to find relief, an escape. I was desperate for a way out of this prison of my own making.  I had accepted and confessed Jesus as my Savior years earlier however I had betrayed Him as well.  I treated that precious gift as a cloak of convenience and safety, simply a place to hide my shame. 

It was through time, wise council and the omnipotent power of God breaking my heart that I discovered that there is hope, forgiveness and restoration.  What I found was that not only did God still love me and desire relationship with me, He also wanted to take my burden and grief and exchange it for something beautiful 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 had caused, and allow Him to use it all for the Glory of His kingdom. It is because of God’s love and grace that today I have the opportunity to help other men and couples find the same path to healing and restoration. I have committed that this pain I both caused and endured would not be wasted and that I would allow God to use it for His glory and as a testimony to others.

Today I am free of the pain and guilt of the tragedy I caused, yet I will never allow myself to forget the devastation it brought.  My son lives in perfect peace and in the presence of His heavenly Father and the shining Glory of His Son Jesus.  He has had the perfect Father who has shown him what true love really is.  Even more, God has assured me that one day we will be united in a bond of love that will endure for eternity.  Thank God I am forgiven and free!  Thank God He does not waste the pain and tears I shed, He has exchanged beauty for ashes and grace for my tears!

I love you Tyler Andrew Haynie, rest and live in the presence of your Father’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