Most of us stereotype those who seek abortion as being young, desperate females who are frightened by an unexpected pregnancy. No doubt there are many women who seek abortions because they are young and scared. And it is easy to have sympathy for such women, even as we weep for their deceased babies.
The following article though is about a 31 year old, happily married, healthy woman who opts for an abortion. She is not frightened of her boyfriend, pressured by the fears of impending poverty or terrified of parents, she simply does not want a baby.
Alison confessed in her essay that she was part of a happily married couple, that she and her husband were in good physical health, and that they both had jobs and health insurance. She even said, “Walter and I were pretty good candidates for parenthood.”
There seems to be no reason for this family not to deal with the surprise of a pregnancy. They are healthy, relatively young, decent jobs and good insurance. But Alison has been saving money just in case she got pregnant.
She had kept several hundred dollars tucked away in case she ever needed to terminate an unplanned pregnancy
I have to admit, I was surprised by this. I can't imagine a woman keeping a fund for abortion.
she) wasn’t ready for a child—(she) want(ed) to write another book, (she and Walter) might need to move for (her) job—and wondered whether it was okay for (her) to decide based on (her) own desires.
There is no reason that Alison couldn't write a book, travel or do any number of numerous things with a child. My hubby is a military man and we have moved countless times with our children.
But she and Walter did talk about adoption before making this conclusive decision: “but I knew we couldn’t do it—we can’t even walk by a pet store without getting attached, so I knew if we spent nine months with this being, it would be ours for life
How odd to compare your unborn child to a puppy.
This seems very selfish to me. It doesn't matter that there are many couples desperate for children but that Walter and Alison would be uncomfortable giving up their child.
Then, they went and sat on a riverbank. Alison read her letter aloud. “Dear potential person,” she said, “Thank you so much for coming along.” She then started to cry. She wished “it” well, told “it” she hoped “it” found another home, and pulled the blossom off a flower and threw it into the river.
Walter cried, too, as he read his own letter to the aborted fetus. He, too, tossed a flower blossom out into the river. As both Walter and Alison’s flowers floated away, he said “I hope to God they don’t wash back ashore here.” The couple then burned their letters and kept the flower stems to take home, as a reminder of the baby. Alison proclaimed “It was a good ceremony: earth, air, fire, water, and words.”
Obviously, Alison and her husband started to feel troubled over their decision but instead of examining what they did and admitting that they did something horrible they invent a ceremony to alleviate the discomfort of their resulting guilt.
T)he story I most want to tell—and one I have never heard—is of abortion as an intimate part of a couple’s life together. Our abortion was a love story. I’d worried that Walter and I were rejecting a gift from the universe. What I discovered, though, was that when we stripped away the distractions of everyday life so that we could make this difficult decision together, it bound us together as surely as if our choice had been different—and as it turns out, that was the gift.
How sad. In the end, this couple doesn't make decisions based on what is moral or honorable. They make decisions based on what is convenient. They destroyed a life, a baby, not a mass of cells. Their child might have been the next Einstein or Mother Theresa. Or, on a more personal note, the child might have been the person who would have loved his/her parents enough to care for them when they become old and frail. Alison and Walter will never know and neither will we.
This was a very, very sad article and disturbing to read. I've included a link to the Town Hall article. One thing to point out, the article includes a link to Alison's blog. Please do no write hateful things to her, no matter how tempting that might be. Remember, pro-life people are often stereotyped-wrongly-as insane fundamentalists.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams/2008/01/23/alison_your_aim_is_true?page=1
Monday, February 11, 2008
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5 comments:
This is one of the saddest things I've ever read. May God have mercy on them.
A part of me wants this couple to understand what they have done, but another part feels that such a realization would be too horrible for anyone.
This article made me very sad also.
That was so cold blooded that I cant imagine someone making it up. Their conscience was obviously troubling them, but their poorly formed consciences didnt recognize why they felt bad.
Such an experience can come back to haunt both "mother" and "father" in terms of nightmares and such.
As for the first part about the stereotype I would say most who have an abortion dont go through what this "couple" went through. If I had to guess most women truly are scared about how they are going to explain or take care of the child, they would never describe it as a "love story".
I agree with Anon. that this rather well-intentioned woman has along with so many, a poorly formed conscience. And after reading her story, I'm still not sure why she had had an abortion. She doesn't have a conscience that recognize why her husband made the remarks he did about the flower at the river.
I remember my mother telling me about an episode of "Toched by an Angel" where the couple had been married for a long time and never dealt with the abortion they had. Why can't they bring that show back?
I can see that the state of many people is that they are likeable, "good" people but following their conscience isn't always a good bet. Too often many people have not properly formed their conscience, and if they even ask for advice from someone in authority or older person they admire, that person may not have a properly formed conscience! The blind leading the blind...
God doesn't work in Karma, Alison just might be a parent one day. She may have a perfect child, healthy and strong even though she rejected one. She may even encourage others with her story to terminate their children. Hopefully most people will see the emptiness of her decision. She'll very likely never know the impact she has with her story.
Thank you for posting her story.
God Bless!
I frequent a couple of popular baby boards-mainly because they have some great large family boards with great tips. But I often will stop in on an abortion thread and I am shocked at how many women who are married and have their 2 children decide to abort an unwanted baby. And many times they have even planned the baby and then decided to abort once their emotions were even the least out of control. The sad thing is that a lot of women base decisions while in the unsteady emotional time during the first months of pregnancy.
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