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?”
March 19, 2008 at 4:51 am
This is the scenario that played out with a friend of mine. As #4, he just made the cut… #5 did not.
This bothers him a hell of a lot more than he will ever talk about.
March 19, 2008 at 7:18 am
I had long wondered if other children of baby boom parents had felt the same way. I guess it is more common, but something nobody talks about. I had always felt a bit guilty and grateful that I was born just before RoevWade and if I would have had more siblings (just 1) if ABC and abortion weren’t such common options.
March 19, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I, too, lost a sibling to abortion. When I was 12, my mother discovered she was pregnant. The baby was wanted, but my parents were informed there were serious problems with the baby (genetic issues) and that abortion was the only option. So they did it. My mother hasn’t been the same since. That was 32 years ago. She is very active in the “Rachel’s Children” ministry, but suffers everyday from that horrible “choice.” This is were the seeds of my pro-life stance were sown. I don’t know whether I’ve lost a brother or a sister…
March 19, 2008 at 1:46 pm
“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?”
Wow. Or being tormented by the thought that their aborted sibling should have lived more than you did/do. Or the child thinking that the mother thinks (thinks she thinks, or “actually” thinks) that she made the wrong choice of who should have been terminated? Or the thought that, if the circumstances were different, the mother would have terminated them just as readily as she did their sibling…
Again, wow…
March 19, 2008 at 8:49 pm
My wife made it. So did her sister. The next four or five didn’t. I think it bothers her. It scares the hell out of me.
We’re expecting our first in the summer. What are my kids going to think of Grandma? What is Grandma going to think of her grandchildren?
March 20, 2008 at 4:56 am
This is a disturbing, real question people ask themselves all the time.
What about cases where one or more multiples are aborted and one lives? Imagine the connection, then violent disconnection.
Also to be considered are people with genetic diseases. I can remember my brother and other teen boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy talking about how fetuses with their disease are now routinely aborted and how they wondered if they would have been had certain genetic tests come sooner.
If separation because of death is the most painful thing in this vale of tears, imagine the emptiness of a generation missing so many.
Mary Ann, Singing Mum