Asking More from Men

On Asking More from Men: Reducing Abortion's Toll

While one would not know this from media and social science neglect of the subject, about half of all abortion-seeking women have asked a man to accompany them to the clinic or doctors' waiting room.  This means that about 600,000 men (almost all of them the male sex partners in an ill-timed and unwanted pregnancy) sit for over an hour waiting to help the patient return home after the procedure. College students could help raise consciousness - and raise hell - about a situation here that cries out for reform.

A few years after sharing the experience in the late 1970s , I led a small research team in a large-scale effort to shed light on the experience of waiting-room men. A thousand mail surveys were secured in 1983-4 from men in the waiting rooms of 30 cooperating clinics in 18 states. About 200 of the respondents were later interviewed, and I became the principal author of the first - and still the only - academic book on the subject - Men and Abortion: Lessons, Losses, and Love (1984).

Throughout 1999 and early 2000 I conducted a small study to update my findings and see what difference, if any, 16 years had made. I was able to get completed surveys this time from 905 men in eleven clinics in eight states and Vancouver, BC.  A separate survey I conducted also in 1999 had several students phone 127 clinics nationwide to ask what services, if any, were actually available - research that made plain a striking lack of male-aiding options - much as I had found 16 years earlier. Most recently, the 1983-4 survey was completed in 2004 by 766 men in 12 clinics, allowing for a rare longitudinal study over a 20 year time period.

Much of value has been learned:

For example,

1. Sixty-five percent of waiting-room men in 2004, 73% in 1999, and 69% in 1983 would have liked to have accompanied their partner throughout the abortion - provided she first agreed. But only 23% of the clinics in 1999 made this possible.
2. Eighty-seven percent in 2004 and 92% of the men in 1999 wanted to hold the hand of their partner in the Recovery Room, but only 24% of the clinics in 1999 allowed this. Where help for themselves is concerned, some twenty-five percent in 2004, 55% in 1999, and 74% in 1983 would have liked a private meeting with the counselor and their partner before the procedure. But very few clinics (only 40% in 1999) offer this.
3. Thirty-six percent in 1999 vrs. 56% in 1983 would have attended an educational group session focused on contraception (techniques, effectiveness, costs, etc.). But this is unknown in actual clinic practice.
4. Twenty-seven percent in 1999 vrs. 51% in 1983 would have joined a small-group discussion made up of other waiting-room men and a clinic counselor. Again, an option conspicuous by its absence from the scene.
5. While in 1983 only thirty-two percent of 30 cooperating clinics did not have a pamphlet rack and/or reading material specifically designed to help men with their 1,001 questions about abortion (its impact, aftermath, etc.), in 1999 the figure rose to 78%. Given this record of neglect and barriers, in 1983 some twenty-five percent of clinic waiting room men were abortion repeaters. Sixteen years later the figure rose to 30%, and in 2004, it fell back only to 20%. (Interestingly enough, 51% of 905 men in 1999 indicated the couples' choice of a provider would have been influenced by the availability of male-aiding services. Half signaled their willingness to help pay for these options).

Were some 600,000 men in 2005 to have the (now unavailable) service options waiting room men seem to favor, we might have far fewer male repeaters in clinic waiting rooms.  Instead, many such men might leave an abortion experience with a new mastery of contraception and family planning techniques, and with fresh resolve to help avoid any further resort to an abortion.  Both anti-abortionist and pro-choice advocates could and should join forces to win overdue reforms here, and concerned college students might be just the agents of change needed to help get this started.

Arthur B. Shostak, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Department of Culture and Communication, Drexel University, Phila., PA, 19104