<\/p>\n
Abortion hurts fathers too, and the Church should remember that<\/p>\n
By Greg Mayo<\/span><\/span>, Op-ed contributor Thursday, February 12, 2026<\/span>Pixabay \/ StockSnap<\/span><\/p>\n I first experienced lost fatherhood to abortion at the age of 18, and I hid my pain in shame for 21 years.<\/p>\n The impact of abortion on men wasn\u2019t spoken of directly in the public square or in the church. The prevailing cultural message was, and is, centered around women. Men were to be either silent or supportive of her.<\/p>\n And the church? The message was either silence or condemnation. Both are damaging. Neither are biblical.\u00a0<\/p>\n At 18, I urged my girlfriend at the time not to go through with the abortion, but I was told it was going to happen, so I downshifted into the role that was the only possibility, and I went to the clinic with her to be supportive. I was in the waiting room for a few seconds before I was asked to wait outside, and so I sat on the steps on a chilly April morning in Central Indiana and waited.\u00a0<\/p>\n Across the parking lot, I saw poster boards on the ground, leftovers from a protest. Those placards read: \u201cBaby Killer\u201d and \u201cBurn in Hell\u201d. Another one had a picture of a mangled fetus. I wasn\u2019t a Christian at the time, but I witnessed what Christ\u2019s self-proclaimed representatives of God thought.\u00a0<\/p>\n The next four years were spent living out what I would later learn to be a collection of symptoms, acting out behaviors collectively referred to as post-abortion stress. I was living with depression and anxiety, though I didn\u2019t have a name for it. I moved all over the country, worked countless jobs, had very short relationships, and trusted almost no one.\u00a0<\/p>\n At 22, I was responsible for another abortion. If the first abortion hurt me, the second one hardened me.<\/p>\n For the next decade, I searched for a god that would make sense. I read every major work of every major world religion, diving deep into philosophy, especially French existentialism, longing for truth and for meaning. Every Christian message I\u2019d heard suggested abortion was so unforgivable, the God of the Bible wasn\u2019t an option, though I desperately wanted Him to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n But by God\u2019s grace, I found my way into a church shortly after getting married at the age of 30. We were both baptized soon thereafter, but I wasn\u2019t restored from the pain I\u2019d carried around from the two abortions until I was 39. During a men\u2019s book study at church, I first shared publicly about my abortion loss and regret. To my surprise, I wasn\u2019t the only man there who had experienced it.\u00a0As the years passed, I began to see and understand how Jesus met the broken with compassion and healing and was able to receive His forgiveness.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ever since, I have desperately wanted other men who were suffering in silence to experience the same. I started sharing my story publicly anywhere I was invited. Each time I shared, I healed a bit more. Without fail, every time I shared, at least one man approached me after and said some version of \u201cI\u2019ve never told anyone this but\u2026\u201d followed by his personal story.\u00a0<\/p>\n And every time, someone else would approach me and say, \u201cI never thought about the man.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2020, I published Almost Daddy: The Forgotten Story,<\/em> a novel written from the man\u2019s perspective of lost fatherhood to abortion, detailing the pain that follows, and pointing to the path of hope, healing, and a restored relationship with God.\u00a0<\/p>\n I thought there would be pushback from abortion rights supporters, but imagine my surprise when waves of hate came from those purporting to be pro-life. For them, forgiveness wasn\u2019t an option, and punishment was the only way. I\u2019d read their social media posts, listen to them on podcasts rant about justice and murder, and it was an all-too-familiar accusatory voice, reminiscent of those poster boards I saw in the abortion clinic parking lot all those years ago.<\/p>\n But this time, it had no power over me.\u00a0<\/p>\n But what of the millions of men still alone in their pain?\u00a0<\/p>\n They need to be ministered to as Zacchaeus was in Luke 19:1-10. Jesus saw that broken man, and did He condemn him? Order him to accept his punishment? No, He called him by name and went to dine at his house. That encounter with the Lord yielded a tax collector promising to repay anyone he had wronged four times over.<\/p>\n Abortion is sin, and it is murder. We shouldn\u2019t soften that reality. But often the behaviors that led to an unplanned pregnancy were sins that were an outcropping of brokenness. And our Savior healed that brokenness. And we must too.\u00a0<\/p>\n The pro-life movement will never see the end of abortion unless we end the demand for abortion. And the way we end the demand for abortion is by helping the millions of broken men already impacted by abortion find hope, healing, and a restored relationship with God.<\/p>\n Greg Mayo is a national public\u00a0speaker and the\u00a0award-winning author of Almost Daddy: The Forgotten Story<\/em> and its accompanying 12-step recovery guide for healing after abortion. Drawing from years of writing, speaking and advocacy on mental, emotional and spiritual health, his work centers on helping men find hope, healing and restored relationship with God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Abortion hurts fathers too, and the Church should remember that By Greg Mayo, Op-ed contributor Thursday, February 12, 2026Pixabay \/ StockSnap I first experienced lost fatherhood to abortion at the age of 18, and I hid my pain in shame for 21 years. 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