Quote:
Originally Posted by MsMcQ LV
Having checked your profile and thus knowing you are a male who is much younger than my own sons, let this 58 going on 59 year old woman explain why I chose an abortion 16 years ago, within less than a month of conception.
I was going through menopause, 42 at the time and would have been 43 before the pregnancy came to term. I already had all three of my sons and they were all grown to adulthood. My husband was nearly 50 years old. Having watched several cousins try to carry pregnancies to term in their late thirties and early forties only to lose the children to death either at or very shortly after birth was one thing that influenced my decision. Knowing that both my husband and myself would be well past retirement age by the time a new child would have become an adult was another. Yeah, for a few years I would once in a while wonder what that child would have looked like - would it have been a boy or a girl? But I have never regretted that abortion. Especially since my husband died less than six years later and I would have been left, at 49 to raise a child on my own. And I would have been destroyed emotionally had I carried to term only to have a still birth or lose a child in only weeks after. I knew that about myself then and am even more sure of it now.
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I'm sorry you made that decision. I would like to think that it was not an easy decision, but it was made so quickly, and you list all the reasons for that decision so clearly that there is no doubt in your mind even now. I can understand all the reasons you give for choosing as you did, and see that they were important to you, and still are.
But, there is a flip side to it as well. People of all ages lose children in childbirth, and after, sometimes early, sometimes later in life. We ought not to stop living and loving and taking chances because of fear. It is good to have concern about the outcome of a riskier pregnancy, but decisions made out of fear are not always the best ones. You look back from your perch now and tell yourself that it was a good decision for you, but you will never know how much you might have been blessed by this child had you allowed him or her the chance to live and be part of your life.
None of the reasons you list as justification for your action, singly or collectively, would be sufficient in my book to take a life.
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