Saturday, October 20, 2007
Men and Abortion?
Abortion is considered to be a “women’s issue” and often neglects the effects that it has on the husband. I’ve looked at how abortion affected the mother, a survived child so now I think it’s time to look at how a husband would feel. It turns out that only one out of every five women is married when they abort. Since the father is often not looked at in this situation there is limited information about the partner. When the abortion occurred it seemed that the men had experienced similar feelings to their wife’s about this incident like confusion, consistent thoughts about the lost child, helplessness, anxiety and regret. In other cases, men experience threats to their masculinity, felt powerless and wanted or needed some type of therapy. To try and reverse these feelings men use certain defense mechanisms like withdrawal and projection as a means of protecting themselves from the emotional and mental pain that they experience. They feel that it is better to ignore their feelings and to be supportive to their woman. In some cases the father has a worse case of depression than the mother. Abortion was sometimes able to ruin the relationship between the husband and wife but most of the time the men became closer to the woman. Usually shared feelings and experiences bring people closer together but a study showed that “Nearly half of women in one study said abortion had “significantly altered their relationship with their partner." What do you think about that?
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3 comments:
I think that the effect that an abortion has on a man is actually more profound than the effect it has on a woman. After all, the father of the child has no control over what happens to the child, which is even more stressful and agonizing, depending on his relationship with the child's mother.
I beleive that men have no problem with abortion because it doent happen to them and it is an easy way for them to get out of something that they created
I believe the focus is more on women because children are associated with women, especially when you're dealing with something such as pregnancy.
Reasons why one usually doesn't think of the man is because it is seen as a woman's burden, and the stereotype is that if an abortion is going on, the man 100% does not want it. Another reason, I think, for the usual thought that men feel little of an abortion is because the woman feels the most sadness due to "motherly" hormones activating upon conception, and when the child is gone...I suppose perhaps it's like some kind of withdrawl. That's a theory of mine anyway. The man does not feel that loss and bodily confusion that might lead to depression.
Personally I feel that the loss would be felt more by the woman in most cases.
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