One more thing: Abortion’s hidden toll on men

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, February 21st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Before we end the week, we’ve got just a bit more from our recent conversation with Catherine Wheeler—the OBGYN who conducted about 20 abortions during her career. Nearly all of them were due to fetal abnormalities. As an obstetrician serving the fairly conservative region of Salt Lake City, Utah, Wheeler says she didn’t believe in elective abortions …

CATHERINE WHEELER: I didn't understand abortions in that situation, I just couldn't understand it, not in a judgmental way, but I knew that people could come along and support like they did me.

She said that her limited support for abortion was only possible because she didn’t actually consider what was happening during the procedure.

In Wednesday’s segment we heard the story of her final abortion, and how she believes God removed the scales from her eyes—allowing her to see clearly the evil of abortion. What we didn’t include was how God used another medical worker’s convictions to set the stage for that revelation.

WHEELER: I showed up one day and an anesthesiologist who thought that this was a woman who was miscarrying looked and saw actually it was not, it was an abortion.

The anesthesiologist put his foot down, and refused to assist in the case, because nobody told him this was an abortion.

WHEELER: And so that opened something for me, that a doctor actually it's okay to say no... And I thought, you know, maybe this isn't a good thing to be doing at this little community hospital.

Her days of providing abortions were numbered.

Now a pro-life physician, Dr. Wheeler speaks often about how abortion harms men as well as women.

WHEELER: I have such a heart for men, mostly because I've started to hear their stories. And for men, they were told this narrative, instead of being a protector and a supporter and a care, a caring father husband, they've been given this other narrative. You have to shut up. And I don't know what that's done to men, but it has not done good things, and my heart just bleeds for them.

Dr. Wheeler remembers visiting a pregnancy center in Spokane Washington.

WHEELER: And we were putting roses on a fence on a memorial day, and a man stopped to talk, and he's just crying about, I mean, it probably been 50 years, and he's crying about the baby he lost. I'm like, wow, never thought about that affecting men. So many men come up and talk to me, and some of them have lost babies, and some of them are crying because they were going to do an abortion, and then they saw the baby, and because they got to see a baby on ultrasound, he has a child.

Dr. Wheeler encourages men in a couple ways. First, to seek healing…avoid burying the grief of participating in an abortion.

WHEELER: But secondly, step in there and be the person you are. Your voice is incredibly powerful. Just to come alongside any woman who's suffering from something frightening, as frightening as being abandoned and pregnant. Any male voice is, I think, incredibly important. So whether it's a friend or somebody else, just stepping into those roles as a strong person who cares and offering help. And when we see the lies out in the culture, we can't we can't just lay down and let them have the narrative which is harming everybody.

Doctor Catherine Wheeler told us her story after this year’s March for Life…we’ve included a link to

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