Since this is a day for stories, let me tell mine since I come from a different direction.

After my second child, I had a very early miscarriage - what is technically a spontaneous abortion. I mourned that as the loss of a child, no question in my mind. I became pregnant again six months later, and there were some minor problems. A sonogram was scheduled and a technician came in from out of town on a Saturday to do it. He took a lot of pictures but said nothing. (This was all 25 years ago when sonograms were new.) My husband was out of town, but Sunday night when he got back the doctor phoned him to make sure I'd be in to see him on Monday morning. I knew something was wrong, and decided that the child had spinal bifida. I was upset for my child, but the notion of abortion never entered my mind. It turned out that I had a molar pregnancy - there was no fetus but there was a runaway placenta that could turn cancerous. So I had to have that removed. Again - no hesitation for this good catholic girl. In my mind, I'd lost a second child. I suppose some purists would call that an abortion.


I went on to have 4 other healthy children. I' sure everyone thought I was a good Catholic because I had 6 children, but I used birth control to have them when I wanted them and to have six, not seven.

So, I can say that when I thought my child would be crippled, abortion was so far off the table that it never occurred to me as an option. Does that make me Pro-life?

Since then, I've learned several things. No law can prevent abortion from happening; all a law would do is drive it underground. No one can decide for another person. What one woman can do is impossible for another. Two women can be in similar situations, make two opposite choices and both be right. Does that make me Pro-choice?

I pray for the day that no women chooses abortion because of her economic situation, age, marital status, job status etc. etc. I pray for the day no child is lost to disease whatever the path to death. Does that make me Pro-life?

It's been interesting reading other people's personal experiences the past couple of days.
It takes courage to post those!
:hi:

There is way too much sanctimonious shouting past each other from the Pro-Lifers and the Pro-choicers. There may be a very few women who casually use abortion as birth control (just as there are people who choose to have children for the wrong reasons), but for most I suspect this is a serious decision. Both sides need to allow these women some respect.

that's all.