Happy Father's Day!

From Pastor Jason Herring, Director of Ministry Outreach for Stanton International:

In every single abortion there is a father involved.

Perhaps he is absent or has abdicated his role, adding additional pressure on the mother of their child to end her pregnancy because of the fear and cost of raising a child alone. He could be ignorant, supportive, or opposed to her abortion. There are many scenarios, and I’ve heard them all from post-abortive fathers firsthand. But the sad fact is that in the majority of abortions, the father of the baby is the main factor in why the mother felt compelled to abort her child. 

Studies on women who have had abortions revealed that 65% felt forced by their circumstances and 53% felt forced by others to terminate their pregnancy. In the same study, 83% of women say they would have kept their baby if they were encouraged by someone to do so—meaning there was NO ONE, no family, no friends, no father of the child. By far the most disturbing statistic I’ve found is that the leading cause of death among pregnant women is homicide. 
 
This just underscores the fact that men, especially fathers, are the driving factor behind abortion.

And they always have been. Contrary to the popular images of angry pro-choice feminists and celebrities bragging and hash-tagging their abortions, it is men not women, and fathers not mothers, who have been the force behind abortion in the United States.  
 
After the restrictive abortion laws that were passed recently in Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri, social media exploded with memes including one that said, “Men should not be making laws about women’s bodies” ad nauseam. The insanity of that statement is that it was an all male SCOTUS that decided in favor of Roe, and ALL of the Justices were fathers. As a matter of fact, it has been male-dominated courts and legislative bodies that have given women abortion on demand.
 
There are a number of reasons that I could list for this, but the main reason is an abdication of fatherhood.
 
When Europe was on the brink of a Second World War, King Edward VIII abdicated his role as monarch of the British Empire so he could be with his lover, an American socialite named Wallis Simpson. Edward VIII would abandon his post during England’s darkest hour and thus never be immortalized during her ‘finest hour’ as his brother, Prince Albert, would be. Albert ascended the vacated throne as King George VI and overcame a bad stuttering problem to address the nation after war was declared on Nazi Germany.  
 
There are two kinds of fathers in this world: men who will abdicate their role and men who will embrace it despite the challenges.
 
Men are being intimidated and told that they have no place on the platform in the abortion debate. This is a women’s issue and it only concerns women and their bodies. And if we were talking about a women’s decision to have her breasts augmented, reduced, or radically removed, I would wholeheartedly agree. But we’re not talking about cancer or a cyst or something cosmetic; we’re talking about a child, a human being.

A person’s right to live should never be based on someone else’s convenience.
 
Like King George VI, men need to find their voice in this debate. If we abdicate our voice on this issue then we are no better than the men who abdicate their roles as fathers. It’s not enough to just be a good father to our own children and love them and raise them to be respectable. Duty demands more of us, and we must rise to the challenge of this national crisis.

We owe it to our children.

We owe it to future generations.

Moreover, we owe it to women.

We cannot be silent.
 
Of John the Baptist, Jesus said there was no greater man born of woman. Jesus did not say “bred of man” but rather “born of woman” exactly as the Apostle would later describe Christ in his letter to the Philippian church. Every man is born of woman. Every man owes his existence to a woman. Every man owes a woman a great debt of gratitude.

And who was this great man born of woman? A voice. That’s what Jesus called him. A voice crying in the wilderness.
 
Happy Father’s Day! 

Jason Herring
Director of Ministry Outreach
StantonInternational.org