Mom, Do You Wish I Died Too?

I have written about the subject of abortion from many different angles. There is the horror of the act itself, the legal aspects, the strategy aspects, and so on. I thought that I had thought about abortion from just about every angle at least to some degree. So it was with some shock when I heard the perspective of a child of parents of the baby boom generation.

Barbara Nicolosi of Church of the Masses has a movie review of Charlie Bartlett on her site. In the review she relays a story of a time when she spoke at pro-life event at UCLA put on by Feminists for Life. In her words…

Patricia Heaton was there and started off the evening by asking the crowd of mostly young women how many of them considered themselves pro-life. Fully two thirds of the packed auditorium raised their hands. When Patty asked them why they are pro-life, one raised her hand and responded in very Juno-speak, “Well, I don’t want to judge my mother, because she made the choice that she felt she had to. But, my Mom aborted two of my siblings, and I’ve spent my whole life growing up, wondering if she was glad she kept me, and whether I was worth being the one who got to live. I just don’t want those kind of thoughts for my kids.” I sat in the back and watched two-thirds of the two-thirds nodding their heads in assent.

Can you imagine growing up wondering whether your mother thinks it was worth it that she let you live or does she wish that you had perished along with your siblings?

The heads nodding is assent lend additional horror to the scene. A whole generation of kids and young adults wondering “should it have been me?”

Abortion is a horrible thing. We know this. Horrible for the young life snuffed out. Horrible for the mothers who live with this choice, sometimes oblivious to their own pain. Now add to that the horror of a generation who lived wondering, “Mom, do you wish I died too?”