Recently, investigators from the Center for Medical Progress visited Planned Parenthood offices around the nation and met with doctors from Planned Parenthood.  Using hidden video cameras, the investigators discussed the topic of purchasing fetal internal organs and other tissue. The discussions focused on prices and market availability. The doctors added their own details, highlighting the techniques they had to use to minimize damage to the organs. For example, they discussed how some parts of the fetus should be crushed to preserve the organic integrity of the parts to be sold.

These videos were not edited in a way that distorted the words of the doctors. Words were not recombined through a video editing program. They no more edited these videos than any network news show does when they show clips of a speech by Obama or a touchdown scored during an NFL football game. 

Most people walked away from these videos horrified at how callous the doctors were concerning the value of human life. Most commentators on these videos focused, and rightly so, on the procedures used. But there’s another more human side, to this investigation that has not been widely discussed. This is the issue of how those men who had their babies aborted, and women who participated in abortions, feel after seeing how these fetuses were treated. These women may have rationalized the abortion by convincing themselves that their fetus was, at the time of abortion, only an amorphous, insensate collection of cells. But the videos showed that their fetus had a heart, lungs, and all other organs of living people.

While politicians and activists focus on the reproductive rights of women they do so while ignoring the feelings of men. In most states a teenage girl may have an abortion without the permission of her parents. While this was intended to avoid the potential embarrassment the young woman may feel, most of these young women will grow up and still have feelings about the abortion they had when young. They may feel that the decision was the right one at the time but still be troubled. How they may feel after seeing how their fetus was not just aborted but dissected into parts for sale on the research tissue market is not widely discussed.

Imagine how these women must feel, who may have made a decision when they were young, had an abortion under great emotional duress, and now regret that decision. 

There's no doubt that there are many women who carry a lifetime of guilt and remorse over the decision to abort their fetus. After seeing how these fetuses are dissected and sold on the "research tissue" market their anguish may be greatly intensified, as they wonder if their child may have been cut up and sold this way. This may be particularly hurtful to those women who had a pregnancy or two, aborted them, and then became married and were never able to conceive again.  No one knows how often this happens. It is, understandably, very difficult for women to discuss this topic.  

What is fueling their emotional and spiritual distress is that the bond between a mother and her baby is probably the most powerful emotional bond felt by women. Yet no one seems sensitive to their feelings, no one has respect for how this butchery may trouble them throughout their remaining lives. This is neglected by Hillary and her progressive supporters since they want to politicize the whole topic and collect the campaign donations of Planned Parenthood. They want to broaden and sterilize the issue by saying it's all about women's rights.  

Additionally, men who have impregnated women, only to have the woman unilaterally decide to abort, against the man's wishes -- today it is legal for a woman to make the decision alone -- may also be feeling great pain over these videos. They may wonder if their son or daughter, who they wanted to see born, was cut up and sold this way. After that abortion they may never again have contributed to the creation of a human life and wish, as they enter middle age, that the fetus was never aborted; that they now realize they want and need someone to support, help go to college, and start a family of their own.

So far, these men have not had an outlet where they can express their feelings. As today's laws stand, a woman may choose to abort a child and the man has no say in the issue. This is true even for married couples. Feminists dismiss this issue by saying men only want to have sex and don't care about the consequences. They make no effort to understand the feelings of these men, or the women who have abortions, no matter what initial circumstances led to the decision. Many people regret the decisions/mistakes they made when they were young, but the decision to abort is one that can lead to a lifetime of pain for both men and women. 

There may be millions of people who carry around both a great sense of loneliness and remorse at what happened, and these feelings are intensified by these videos. It is an abuse of their sense of humanity to dismiss these fetuses as inert collections of tissue. These are issues that must be brought up and discussed, not just those angles that help Democrats get elected.  

Anti-abortion activists should not focus on criticizing and judging those men and women who have had their children’s lives ended with abortion. Instead, they should hope that men and women who suffer from the knowledge of how their child's brief life was ended, and how they were treated, can find a way to make peace with themselves.