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Sunday, January 20, 2019

Don't Forget Post-Abortive Fathers Suffering in Silence, Save the Storks Leader Says

The organization has built over 40 mobile medical units to help mothers make the choice to give life to more than 4,000 children, their website states.


By Brian Showalter
Christian Post

A leader in the pro-life movement says the conversation around abortion in America is changing, and urges supporters not to forget about post-abortive fathers who often suffer in silence.
"When people talk about how I'm pro-life and radical this and radical that, I let them know that I'm probably more pro-choice than they think I am. And that confuses people because they don't understand it," said Victoria Robinson, director of external relations for Save the Storks in a sit-down interview with The Christian Post at the Trump International Hotel before a black-tie banquet Thursday.
Nearly two-thirds of women feel pressured into an abortion, she recounted, stressing the need to lower that number through education, making sure women know all of their choices. And people are realizing that what they have done in the past hasn't worked.
"Attacking the other [pro-choice] side isn't a good way to handle anything. Nobody ever gets anything done screaming at each other. Because nobody is listening to each other," Robinson said.
The shift in conversation is personal for Robinson as approximately 30 years ago she chose abortion after her husband abandoned her and her two children. She got involved with another man and became pregnant and had another abortion. The abortion clinic staff told her that her pregnancy was at such an early stage it was just a clump of cells, that she would get over it, and that it was the best option for her given the circumstances.




Victoria Robinson, external relations director for Save the Storks. 
"Immediately afterward, I knew it was something I would regret for the rest of my life. And it was," Robinson told CP.

A decade later she found help through a local pregnancy resource center and their post-abortive counseling ministry. It was there that she found hope that there is life and forgiveness after abortion. Today she urges those like her to share their stories, and believes it's essential for those voices to be elevated to frame the discourse.

"Stories sell. Facts tell people things, and people love to hear facts. Some people love all those numbers an stats. But to the majority of people, a story will sell them and move them to action," she explained.

The mission of her organization, Save the Storks, is about love, compassion, and action, "not about screaming in people's 
faces."

"You'll never see us walking around with dead babies on picket signs or calling people murderers if they're walking into an abortion clinic. We always lead with love compassion and action.

Far too often missing amid the swirl of strong feelings about abortion is how men are devastated by it. Nine out of 10 times couples split after an abortion, Robinson says. In her own journey after her abortion she grew to despise not only her ex-boyfriend but all men who left the women in their lives in similar situations.
"I felt it was his fault that I had to deal with all these ramifications from our choice. He's going on with his life, he seems so happy, we had a lot of the same circle of friends. I never ran into him but I heard about his life," she said.
"And it infuriated me. Here I was trying to get through my own healing, carrying all this hatred and unforgiveness toward this guy, as well as all other post-abortive men. I hated them all," she continued, recalling that she thought they seemed to move on with no sense of remorse.
But she knew when she wrote her book, “They Lied to Us,” a compilation of stories from women who had abortions, that her ex-boyfriend would probably hear about it. Even though she changed his name in her story to protect his identity she felt like she should call him. When he answered the phone and heard her voice he started weeping profusely, so much so that she could not understand what he was saying.



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