By Sam Riley

As a pro-life man, you are told your opinion carries no weight in the abortion debate.  Pro-abortion enthusiasts say that because you’re a man, your voice doesn’t count:  “You’ll never be a woman,” “You don’t know what it’s like,” “Unless you have a uterus you can’t talk,” is usually followed by, “So shut up and leave.”  Sometimes I just respond, “You talk out of your uterus?” My crass response often jolts them enough to continue the conversation like adults.  However, right here, right now, I am giving you five reasons why you should man up and stand in defence of the babies.   

1. You can have an opinion about anything, regardless of the topic.  There never was, and never will be, a topic that you aren’t entitled to your opinion.  And, guess what?  You’re entitled to voice that opinion right here in America!  Anyone who tells you otherwise on the basis of your gender is engaging in vicious sexist bigotry, no matter how much they like to yell those same words at you for being a man.
    
2. Abortion is not just a “woman’s issue.”   It isn’t about women’s choices, it isn’t about safe, legal, healthcare.  It’s about the murder of human beings.  It’s always about the murder of human beings, no matter how much the liberal left try to twist it.  And when people are murdered, especially the defenseless who need love and protection, MEN SHOULD have an opinion.  And not a weak, closed off, quiet opinion, but a LOUD, PASSIONATE, BOLD opinion.  Don’t let society silence you.  Speak up!  Be heard!  Because the only way your opinion really is worth nothing, is if it isn’t expressed.
    
3. Yes, women are different from men and that certainly adds some perspective on abortion.  In fact, considering the biological factors involved in a woman’s body, how could any woman support abortion?  Since men don’t have that same strong, biological bond a mother has to her child as she shelters the child growing within her, all the more reason men should speak their minds about abortion!  Because men can more easily lean towards disconnection or apathy, can we allow ourselves to stay comfortably quiet?  How morally appalling!  Consider how a white American back in the 18th century can feel apathetic towards black slaves, because he himself isn’t black, and he isn’t a slave.  Or a  healthy Nazi German back in the 1940s can feel apathetic towards Jews and the disabled, because he isn’t Jewish, and he isn’t disabled.  When you see injustice that doesn’t apply as closely to you as it does to your neighbor, you should be more empathetic.  You SHOULD care more deeply.  Just because you aren’t physically or emotionally scarred like a woman is from abortion, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care.  Just because you aren’t dismembered and discarded like a baby is doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything.  When the injustice doesn’t apply as strongly to us that’s exactly when we should be passionately and wholeheartedly against it.
    
4. Men reap most of the “benefits” from abortion -- pleasure without responsibility.  Women have nothing to gain except heartache and pain as they realize that they bought the lie that they would be better off for having allowed their child to be killed.  In my experience, more men than women on campus are for abortion today.  Real men have two obligations:  to support, comfort, love, and stay with the mother of their child and to speak against abortion because men are equally at fault.  It takes two to make a baby, and men get the easy way out far more often than women do.  
    
5. Abortion hurts men, too.  The child conceived is the father’s child as well as the mother’s, but legally in our country the mother is the only parent who may decide if the child lives or dies. What about the rights of the father?  There are gut-wrenching accounts of men who have done all they could to stop the murder of their child, but ultimately the decision was out of their hands. Perhaps more often men have pressured the mother of their child to abort and paid to have their child killed only to later regret it and grieve as they realize the full magnitude of their actions.

So where are the real men?  I’ve been defending the preborn for a few years now, and, despite what Planned Parenthood might say, men are scarce in the fight to end abortion.  There are far more women involved than men.  That’s right, there are countless talented, compassionate, loving, generous, well-educated, intelligent WOMEN involved in fighting abortion but we’re short on men.  It’s time to make up for our mistakes and our silence by shaping the culture and letting the world know that we won’t be quiet about abortion until every human is allowed the right to life.

Abortion is the greatest injustice of the current age, so men, man up!  Get involved.  Show the truth about abortion, even if people get angry with you for doing it.  If you are ready to stand up like a man, email me at samriley95@gmail.com!  It can be very challenging to get involved, especially since our culture demands our silence.  So if you’re interested in fighting this war waged on the defenseless in our society, I’d be happy to help you start!  God didn’t make you a man for the super bowl and video games, he made you a man to protect the weak.  The widows and orphans need you.  

 Proverbs 24:11
    “Rescue those being led away to death;  hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.”