Bob, father of an aborted child:
“I found out on long-distance while she was out of town. She was very elated. She loved the idea of being pregnant. She determined that on approval from me she’d have the baby… I got caught up in the idea from her effervescence. My reaction was conditioned by hers. I had a lot of reservations, but I said, “Why not?”
Was I willing to sacrifice to be a good father? I came from a broken home. I had been denied a lot and I was looking for a lot. As a father I didn’t know if I’d be able to sacrifice my ambitions to give and cater to it. And an absentee father is not my idea of a good one. It is a conundrum for me…
I accept that conception is the beginning of life. Whatever you want to call it. It’s human, of humans. What degree of responsibility do we as a society have to women, to embryos? I believe we have to protect the rights of those who are developed…
I don’t remember who was first, but we began to talk about not going ahead with marriage and children.
It was peace and calm after we reached the decision. It was right and we felt it. I probably felt more at peace than she did. The idea of having a human being inside her was awesome to her. “Little Johnny’s gone,” she’d say in public as a spoof, but there was a cutting sense of loss.”
Rita, his partner, says:
“I don’t know how men feel about pregnancy. My feelings are strong about being pregnant. I was overjoyed. I still want it more than a husband, or a ranch house, or anything…
He had no understanding of what I had been through and what I had to go through right afterward, even though I told him. Bob did all the gesturing, but we never sat down and talked. For him it was over. He went on about his job. I wanted to move out. He showed no emotion about breaking up. I never slept with him again and we never discussed the abortion, although I ran into him several times after I moved out.
I’ve been seeing a new man for a while and he’s pretty nice, but we don’t really talk about sex or birth control. Except one night when we were first going out, he said to me, “If you never want another abortion, you’d better stop playing Russian roulette with your birth control pills, because I have no intention of marrying you.”
Arthur B Shostak, Gary McLouth, Lynn Seng Men and Abortion: Lessons, Losses, and Love (New York, NY: Praeger, 1984) 200-204
This poor woman is on her way to getting pregnant again with another man who does not support her. This is how repeat abortions happen. She seems to want a child, but will face the same pressures as before if she gets pregnant.
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