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Respecting men, respecting life

The setting for the Forgotten Fathers events where men spoke of their experiences, their regrets and their guilt. Photo: Supplied

WelCom October 2024

Suzanne O’Rourke

The annual Support Life Sunday, promoted each October by the Catholic Church in Aotearoa New Zealand, reflects the active work Catholics need to do to help people facing significant life decisions. 

Amidst the many issues that are a contemporary cause of anxiety, especially to our young people, the clash of attitudes over reproductive rights and the clamour for the unchallenged ending of a pregnancy through abortion, can be ugly. 

There is a deeper tragedy in assuming the pregnancy rather than the relationship is a woman’s choice. At a time when a woman is at her most vulnerable, the men in her life are largely missing. The abandonment and grief felt by women is totally understandable. That felt by men, less so.

What is lost in much of the rhetoric, is the relationship that is, or isn’t, at the heart of each pregnancy. In most unwelcomed pregnancy scenarios, men are portrayed badly. In most abortion scenarios, men are assumed to be untouched. This is far from the reality. In research and in anecdotal sharing, men respond to abortion in numerous ways, seldom any of which are helpful.

Throughout 2023, Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats in collaboration with the Buttons Project hosted a series of ‘Forgotten Fathers’ offering men a platform to talk about how they experience an abortion loss. The insights were deeply moving.

“I can say that I am the father of five – but I only got to raise three of them. It was later, in the evenings, that I began to cry and even though it’s been decades…those two sit in an emotional place.”

“It didn’t just mess me up, it messed her up as well…the depression. Mentally, emotionally…we both started drinking heavily and using drugs.”

“The weight of guilt was so overwhelming….”

Men spoke of incredible, deep-seated anger, which found expression in violence, pornography and bitterness. Many were surprised at this, having felt themselves to be supportive of whatever decision their – usually former – partner chose. Mostly they talked of a realisation coming too late, about their role in the relationship, the pregnancy and the future. 

“I should have been putting my arms around [my partner] instead of bombarding her with questions. I should have stepped up, instead of speaking out.”

The work of Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats is to ‘heal the wounds of abortion, one weekend at a time’. It is usually women who attend these retreats; they after all carry the direct experience of loss, while enquiry from men and couples is welcomed too. There is no charge for the retreat weekends, which are offered three times a year. The experience has already cost the participants enough.

Retreat enquiry is open to anyone, any age, any faith, any culture. 

The next Rachel’s Vineyard Retreat weekends are: 

For information please contact Wendy Hill, Retreat Coordinator at info@rachelsvineyard.org.nz or 027 254 9222. 

Rachel’s Vineyard is an international Catholic Lay Ministry and has been operating in New Zealand since 2010. The name is taken from scripture references from Jeremiah, ‘Rachel mourns the loss of her children because they are no more…’ and from John, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches…’.

Suzanne O’Rourke is the New Zealand site leader for Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats and is based in Wellington.

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