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Williams says that everyone who has gone through the stages of healing with him has expressed "a deep level of anger toward [himself] and others involved in the abortion process."

Many men are in denial, said Wayne F. Brauning, founder of Men's Abortion Recovery in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. "Men will not face painful issues that deal with their emotions," Brauning said. "Men isolate themselves when they are hurt, or they get drunk, promiscuous, or derelict in their work."

Those who have counseled men complicit in an abortion say that other long-term symptoms include inability to form lasting relationships, sexual dysfunction, substance abuse, nightmares, fits of rage, suicidal behavior, and fear of having more children.

Anne Pierson, executive director of Loving & Caring, a crisis pregnancy center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said that men don't want to appear weak, and that they rarely seek guidance without prodding by the woman.

"Men like to keep abortion a women's issue, but it's not," Pierson said.

Many Christian leaders have privately told Arterburn that they once paid for an abortion but, fearing an unforgiving congregation, they won't go public.

In Fatherhood Aborted (Tyndale House, 2001), David Hazard and the late Guy Condon maintained that many churchgoing men spend years estranged from God after an abortion. In fact, Christians often consider church involvement a form of payment for their abortion sin, they said.

Olivia Gans, director of American Victims of Abortion, a branch of the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, says it is a complex problem that is difficult to tackle. "There is not some magic pill to make this better," Gans said. "Emotionally, these men are grappling with a death experience."

Although he steadfastly maintained the abortion's necessity, two years later Jerry Little agreed to his daughter's request to go through a Bible study and counseling at the CareNet Crisis Pregnancy Centers of Amarillo. He grasped the immorality of his actions, admitted his guilt, prayed for God's forgiveness, and experienced healing.

"I had kept thinking those two years that I was supposed to protect her," Little, now 50, told CHRISTIANITY TODAY. "But no one could have abused her as much as [I did], because I took her to get an abortion."

Little, who today is a construction crew manager, has led four men through a 12-week post-abortive Bible study.

Fatherhood Lost (Life Issues Institute, 1998), an eight-step Bible study by Williams, can take up to 16 weeks and often is a one-on-one encounter. The post-abortive man identifies his pain, takes responsibility for fatherhood, deals with the source of anger, grieves the loss of the child, resolves guilt and shame, forgives all involved in the event, reconciles with God, and finds resolution, perhaps through a memorial service.

For Wemhoff, now a lawyer in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the healing involved naming his aborted son Matthew Peter and holding a doll as a proxy.

Scott Best, 50, a therapist in Longmont, Colorado, named his aborted son Jedidiah, participated in a burial ceremony, and placed his son's name on a plaque for unborn children in Boulder. "Even though I never got to hold him, I knew he was in the arms of the Lord, and we would one day be reunited," Best said.

Little's daughter, Candy Gibbs, now directs the Amarillo pregnancy center where she and her father found help eight years ago.

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November 2003, Vol. 47, No. 11