when you think about it, abortion is a fact of life. in each of three generations i have lived through, there has been an abortion.
when i was a youngchild, i often saw my mother crying silently by herself. i wonder now if it has anything to do with her abortion experience. i was born in 1940, my sister in 1937. but my mother told me that we would have had twin siblings, had they not been lost as fetuses. i have no idea how it came about or when this occurred. i do not know if it was induced or spontaneous, but it most likely happened during either wwii or during the great depression. to my knowledge, she only spoke of it once or twice. i am sure she lived with the shame and guilt associated with her experience.
i myself experienced abortion. however, it definitely was spontaneous. i woke one morning bleeding profusely. my husband brought me to a hospital and a d&c was performed. i did not even know i was pregnant at the time. under the new anti-abortion scenario proposed by some political groups, would that d&c have been unlawful? would i have been left to bleed to death rather than remove the remains of a fetus that was most likely already dead? if i had died as a result, my infant daughter would have been deprived of a mother. does that make sense? furthermore, if these groups are so concerned with the life of an uborn fetus, what about the lives of the four born children?
many years later, my fourth child came to me and told me she was pregnant. she was about twenty years old but not married. she was in a serious relationship, but felt sure she was not going to marry the man. the family was able to discuss the situation and after many tears and heartbreak, we agreed on an abortion. we lived in atlanta at that time and an abortion clinic was available. the procedure went well and in a timely way. she recovered physically, but i’m sure it left emotional effects.
we will never know how her life would have turned out had she not had the abortion, but we are glad that the option was available to her.