How Do Men Choose to Choose Life?

Blake sat on the bed, a king-size mattress. His pregnant fiancée sat next to him, angry. Blake—I’m using pseudonyms in this article to protect privacy—wanted the baby. She wanted an abortion. Their budget was tight. She already had a kid, making him a soon-to-be stepfather. 

For Blake at age 23, the idea of having a child of his own was more exciting than anxiety inducing: “I wanted one … 100 percent mine, not just a stepchild.” Part of this desire came from his own experience with fatherhood, or rather, lack thereof: “I didn’t have one growing up, so I didn’t know what I could pass down. … I just wanted to be there.”

Blake tried to convince his fiancée that everything would work out, but it soon became “a yelling match.” He asked whether she cared about him. “Why can’t we start a family now? … Is she really not in love with me? Is she trying to find a way out?”