Father’s Day is June 21, a week from this coming Sunday. As promised, I’m writing a series of stories—this is the third—about what not ought to but is radioactive: Men and abortion, or, more accurately, why men ought to have a critical voice in deciding the fate of their child.

We’ve collectively been so inundated with the “fact” that abortion is a “woman’s decision” that it’s difficult to remember that this is an absurd proposition on a gazillion different levels.

I am not naïve. No one is neglecting the truth that carrying a baby to term is not easy under the best of circumstances, or that care of that child most often falls disproportionately on the mother. But it doesn’t follow from that the father ought not to have a voice in the fate of a child that is his as well as hers.

The simple-minded, one-dimensional stereotype of the boyfriend/husband who can’t wait to abort an unplanned pregnancy, while obviously true in some instances, doesn’t account for many men, let alone exhaust all the other possibilities. (Note to pro-abortionist feminists, life is rarely simple.)

It would not be true to life to photoshop out the villains. That would include the men who coerced the women in their lives—including their daughters—into having abortions. But my point is that this does not exhaust the range of possible behaviors, nor does the failure of some—even most— to act as they should exclude all men from any voice in any and all abortions.

I have known men who have opposed an abortion from the beginning, fought fiercely, but had no ability to save their child. Listen to their stories of powerlessness and you will have a tough time sleeping.

There are men—a lot of men—who’ve been lectured not to engage their hearts or their minds. Their “job” is exclusively to support the woman’s decision to abort.

To do otherwise, it’s implied when not stated flatly, is to try to “impose their will.” But what about the man who, in his heart, knows that he has a responsibility to the child and the mother of their child? He is, at best conflicted, at worst an emotional basket case.

The late Vicki Thorn single-handedly created Project Rachel, a post-abortion healing ministry, at a time when none existed. She once wrote

Talk to any counselor, as I have, and you hear how this unresolved pain and grief about an abortion she likely has not told her husband about, is almost too much to bear. And if they are unable to have children, the impact is multiplied.

Abortion does not forever change the destinies of just women and unborn children alone, but also husbands, boyfriends, brothers, grandfathers, even uncles and cousins.

Talk about something that almost never gets discussed: How a sister’s abortion affects her brother. We tend to overlook how deep the bonds can be between siblings and how much one sibling can be hurt by the decision to end the life of his niece or nephew.

If you think I am exaggerating, I can tell you from personal experience what a difference my father’s care and compassion for my unwed, pregnant cousin made in her decision to carry her baby to term and to find a loving home for that child—and how that generosity of spirit shaped my attitude forever more.

There are lots of arguments one can make that easily dismantle (or at least show the inconsistencies of) the argument that men are, at best, irrelevant to the abortion issue, at worst power-hungry intruders.

But the truth is, never more so than in the case of a crisis pregnancy, women and men are in this together.