Anguish of the men whose babies were aborted against their will
by Samantha Brick, Mailonline:
When his girlfriend told him she was pregnant, Jean-Paul Noel-Cephise was elated. Although he was only young and the pregnancy was unplanned, he had always wanted to be a dad and felt confident they would make great parents.
After all, he had a good job, was financially stable with his own home and they were madly in love.
‘I’d had a happy childhood and couldn’t wait to recreate it with my own child,’ says Jean-Paul. ‘I know some young men would’ve been horrified at the prospect of having a baby but I really wasn’t — quite the opposite.’ Sadly, though, his partner wasn’t on the same page.
‘At first I thought she was worried I didn’t want a baby,’ says Jean-Paul, now a college lecturer. ‘So I went into overdrive, reassuring her how much I loved her.’
But after weeks of trying to persuade her, Jean-Paul was devastated when she had an abortion. Years later, he still wrestles with his feelings about it.
‘Ultimately, I had to respect that her decision was final,’ he says. ‘Even though it happened a long time ago, I’ve lived with the guilt and grief ever since.’
Despite the fact that as many as one in three women will terminate a pregnancy, it’s still very much taboo, with few daring to speak out — as illustrated in a recent Femail article where a mother and daughter revealed their differing attitudes to their own abortions.
And it’s even less likely men will dare to open up about their experience of abortion, which is largely considered a women’s issue. It’s often assumed men are either absent or relieved for the pregnancy to be over.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
