Our Forgotten Allies

Maybe I'm not seeing the full picture, but it seems to be that one area we should be actively cultivating to help swell the ranks in the pro-life movement is young men. Here's why I think this could be key to gaining additional momentum.

Note: I am not implying that men are under-involved in pro-life issues and am thankful for every man who actively supports pro-life causes. I just have this feeling that even more participation among young men could be key.

Proborts have tried for too long to sway our youth to a free sex, contraceptives for all, abortion on demand agenda. Many of their claims stem from their definition of women's rights. In drawing a circle around pregnancy as something that only involves a woman, they have denied a basic fact of nature, let alone the theological truth that all life belongs to God.

Young men, men who are in the prime of life and most likely to father children, need to reclaim their rights to participating in decisions concerning the children they conceive. A father's rights begin at conception. Consider the tragedy of a man whose child is aborted without his consent. What will his lifelong psychological wounds be? How will that haunt him and follow him through the years? I recall reading a story years ago about a young man who was adopted into a loving family. When his girlfriend aborted against his wishes, he explained that he had just lost the first person in his family who would really be related to him as a blood relative, and he struggled with the pain of that.

Furthermore, our efforts to raise pro-life youth need to concentrate on our young men. We have quite an uphill battle ahead of us on this front, given our culture. How early can we educate them on the theology of the body, on the divine gift of fatherhood? How early can we emphatically tell them that abortion is as much a man's issue as a women's issue? I'd love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment.