My name is Patrick Weston. The beautiful woman that just spoke is my wife, Jeannie.
When I was in High School and College I bought into the worldly idea that a man is measured by his sexual activity. Therefore, intimacy with a woman became a conquest for me. Not the God ordained blessing that had been given to a man and woman in the covenant of marriage. The result of that world view is that, by the time I was 21, I had fathered three children. And, in every case, paid doctors to end the life of my unborn children. And I didn’t even realize that it was wrong. In fact, I felt that I doing the manly thing to pay for the abortions. After all, it wasn’t really my responsibility. It was the woman’s job to keep from getting pregnant, right? Such was the depth of my depravity.
But I thank God that He did not leave me there. By His Truth, He opened my eyes to this and so many other lies that I believed. By His grace, He showed me that those children were not just the children of those women. Those children were, those children are, my children. My three aborted children were created in the image of God and they are precious to God. And they are precious to me! That as their father, it was my responsibility to provide for and protect them ,not to kill them.
For years, when Jeannie and I would speak about abortion as a part of our past, it was a one-sided conversation. I did not want to talk about how I had failed to be the man God had created me to be. And Jeannie didn’t believe that I had anything of value to say. Because, as a man, I could never know how she felt. After all, abortion is a women’s issue right?
One day, just a few years ago, Jeannie and I were having that same one-sided conversation we had so many times before. I asked her one simple question that changed our relationship around issue of abortion. I asked her, “What would you have done if that young man had called you the night before your abortion and said, “Let’s not abort our baby.” In angry tears, because she thought that I could not understand her pain, she cried out, “I would not have killed my baby!” But the fact is that I understood her pain all too well. You see, I knew that the night before her abortion, Jeannie waited by the phone for that very call that never came. So I simply said back to her, “It was his responsibility to make that call. To protect his unborn child. To protect you from the devastation of abortion.” Just as it was my responsibility as a father to protect my unborn children. And as a man, to protect the mothers of my unborn children from the burden of abortion. He never made that call, neither did I. That is my story of abortion. Failure to be the man God had created me to be.
In surveys of post-abortive women, they are often asked what would have influenced them to choose life. The #1 factor is having a man support her in that decision. Especially, the father of the baby or her own father. My wife, and millions of women like her have born the burden of abortion all alone for long enough. That is why I will be silent no more.
Men, our silence is a critical way that our culture marginalizes the tragedy of abortion as a “women’s issue.” That is one of the core strategies of the abortion industry. If they can keep abortion a “women’s issue.” Then they can effectively stifle any real discussion about the issue of abortion. If abortion is a “women’s issue” then those who support abortion can argue that men who affirm the sanctity of the lives of the unborn are infringing on the rights of women. And, thereby, eliminate the right of any life-affirming men to engage with the issue. We must not allow this to happen.
Edmund Burke said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Men, the abortion industry wants us to do nothing. To remain silent. Do not allow evil to triumph. It is time for the fathers of aborted children to stand alongside the mothers of aborted children And BE SILENT NO MORE.
God bless you all!