Time to Man-Up America

To all the moms whose babies never had a chance - We are sorry...

We...the men in your life who failed you when you needed us most...we're sorry. We... seven professedly Christian men wearing black robes, who illegally decided it was legal for you to do what you did...we're sorry. We...the men behind the pulpits who have either blamed you alone or remained mute leaving you to suffer in silence...we're sorry. We...the average American male who regularly sits on the fifty-yard line cheering wildly for his favorite team, while sitting on the sidelines when it comes to the defining issue of his generation...we're sorry. Our prayer is that you can someday forgive us. But, only when we find it within ourselves to man up and do something about it.

Many years ago, believing my girlfriend to be pregnant, I desperately attempted to build a case for why she should get an abortion. That case was closed while reading Psalm 139. As I wrote "no abortion" in the margin of my Bible, I had no idea how indelibly my soul was marked that day. Now, I have a dream my children will one day live in a nation where all children, born or not, are protected by law. I have a dream that abortion, like slavery over 150 years ago and Jim Crow laws, barely more than 50 years ago, will be legally abolished in my lifetime. 

Consider these facts:

Fact #1: In America today, when a pregnant woman chooses not to parent her child, she chooses abortion over adoption 50 to 1.

There were 926,240 abortions in America 2014 (abort73.com), but only 18,329 domestic infant adoptions (Adoption: By The Numbers). Here's the computation:

926,240 abortions + 18,329 infant adoptions = 944,569 non-parenting choices 926,240 abortions divided by 944,569 non-parenting choices = 98% abortion choices 18,329 infant adoptions divided by 944,569 non-parenting choices = 2% adoption choices = 50:1

Fact #2: According to Heartbeat International, 61% of post-abortive women surveyed said they would not have aborted IF a single significant male within their support system had supported them in either parenting or placing their child for adoption.

We’ve been told the right-to-choose is the ultimate women's issue. This survey, however, suggests that nearly two-thirds of the time it's the man behind the woman (or lack thereof) who ultimately determines the fate of the child. The survey further reveals that the life-affirming man need not be the baby's father. He can be the mother's father...her brother...even the paternal grandfather. Any significant male figure in the mother's life can literally determine if her unborn child lives or dies.

The ramifications are staggering. The disappearing dad syndrome is quite familiar to pregnancy counselors within the twenty-four-hundred Pregnancy Help/Resource Centers around the country. They routinely counsel pregnant women whose "men" have left them and their babies to fend for themselves. That is the rule, not the exception. What if we helped those desperate women identify and encourage the real men in their lives to stand with them for the life of their child? If there is no such man available, perhaps we could provide one.

Fact #3: A woman's so called "right-to-choose" effectively grants everyone in her support system a right to an opinion. They then express that opinion by either providing or withholding support for the choice she makes.

Since the Roe v Wade decision on January 22, 1973, there have been over 60 million abortions performed in the United States. We now know that 37 million (61%) of those were not the preferred choice of the mother. Rather, they were the default option of a pregnant woman who desperately sought a man to support her and her baby, but found no such man.

There is still hope. If our men will support their women and defend their children's right to life, we can turn the blood-stained tide of abortion. Men can start by seeking forgiveness for past mistakes and vowing not to repeat them. Forgiveness from whom? From the women who went against their maternal instincts 37 million times, all because no man was willing to follow his instincts to protect her and their child. This takes courage and selflessness both substantially missing in today's American male.

If you did not beg her then to give life to your baby, please beg her now to forgive you. Find her...use great discretion in doing so...humbly apologize...ask her to forgive you. If she refuses, beg her to forgive you. If she still refuses, leave her in peace... then pray for her every day the rest of your life. Do not contact her again unless she invites you to do so.

How is it that we know better than to place ourselves between a mother bear and her cubs, lest she tear us from limb to limb, yet we routinely dismember those conceived in God's image, our own babies, before they take their first breath? Is it because mothers of unborn humans have weaker maternal instincts than animals? Hardly. It is more that American fathers of unborn humans have weak spines and broken moral compasses. No more.  It’s time to steel our spines and recalibrate our moral compasses. It's time to man-up, America!

Attention fellow Hoosiers: Be on the lookout for the “LOVE them BOTH©” billboards around the state sponsored by Right to Life Indiana. Surely, we can find some common ground within this positive and powerful messaging.