Washington Post Highlights Anti-Abortion Men in Red States Who Changed Their Minds on Reproductive Rights

AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh

For a growing number of men, abortion has become an issue in the 2024 election. In a story in The Washington Post on Tuesday, several men who had considered themselves anti-abortion had a change of heart after seeing the real-life consequences of abortion bans in their states.

Reporter Emily Wax-Thibodeaux spoke with several men from deep red states who considered themselves very religious and/or against any kind of abortion — who have changed their opinions on medically ending pregnancies after their loved ones faced literal life-or-death situations with their own pregnancies.

Thomas and Chelsea Stovall of Arkansas, where there is a near-total ban on abortion, drove about 400 miles to Illinois to obtain an abortion when the baby they were expecting was found to be “severely malformed and underdeveloped” and would “be stillborn if carried to term.” Continuing with the pregnancy also threatened Chelsea’s ability to have children in the future.

Thomas Stovall told the Post that he was “dead wrong about abortion being a sin” and “began knocking on doors, hoping to change other men’s minds and help get an abortion measure on the state ballot this fall.”

John Adkins , an Idaho man whose wife Jennifer was carrying a fetus with an “anomaly so complex that she was likely to suffer potentially deadly complications,” traveled with her to Oregon to get an abortion. He told the Post he “felt like a fugitive”:

“What we went through, it violates all common sense,” Adkins said. He vowed that day he would “never again sit on the sidelines when it came to abortion rights.” He has since attended rallies and related community events. “I had not really known that miscarriages would be impacted like this. It was really the first time as a man that I realized what this all meant.”

The report has several stories like this, plus an observation from Oren Jacobson , co-founder of Men4Choice: “It’s like an ocean change for men, and conversation has shifted to include men in high-profile ways.”

“When we think about our organizing strategy, it’s [to] help men see the harm” that such laws cause, including harm to their families, Jacobson said. It’s also to put the issue in a broader context for them, he added. “It’s not just about abortion. It’s about freedom, it’s about power. It is an issue that impacts all of us and the women and family we love.”

This past June, Texas radio DJ Ryan Hamilton opened up on Twitter/X about his wife’s devastating experience with a prolonged miscarriage of their fetus, whose heart had stopped beating, that resulted in her bleeding heavily for a full day and losing consciousness at their home. Hamilton started his own podcast devoted exclusively to men speaking out about similar stories called Correct . He said in separate interview: “Men have to have a voice and step up on this. This is not just an issue for women to talk about on their own. And I’m all in.”