QuestionI have 3 children and 5 abortions. My first was in between my first child and second. The rest were after my third. I just found out that I am pregnant again and I am having the absolute worst time of trying to deal with this. I am in a solid relationship with the children's father and we plan to stay together but I'm having just the worst worst time trying to decide what is the best way to go. I'm worried about health, I'm worried about ethics on the side of having another abortion and on the flip side having a 4th child! Please some advice is much needed.
AnswerDear J,
choosing abortion is always difficult, and it's a decision that should always come from your OWN reasons, not anybody else's. But since you are asking for advice, let me tell you what I think of abortion.
I don't think a fetus is a full human being with the rights of a full human being. Fetuses can't express any choices or desires (unlike newborn babies), fetuses depend completely on the mother for survival (unlike newborn babies who can be cared for by anybody), and fetuses have the ability to actively and seriously harm a mother's health.
That might sound very cold and cruel, but this is what researchers have always said. There is a constant battle between your body and the fetus for essential resources. The fetus treats your body as if it were a hostile intruder (your body treats your fetus the same way, too!). If a pregnant woman doesn't artificially take in extra calcium, the fetus will leech the calcium it needs from the mother's own bones and teeth, which can easily lead to osteoporosis in the mother. The fetus causes digestion to slow down drastically in the mother, which is what leads to all the gas and heartburn common in pregnancies - think of what all this acid reflux disease is doing to your esophagus. The fetus causes a huge increase in the amount of blood flowing inside you, which leads to permanent tissue damage (varicose veins, increased clots, etc). Being pregnant puts you at great risk for gestational diabetes, which can lead to "real" diabetes much sooner in life than normal.
So if you leave out all the sentimentality associated with babies, doesn't this sound like there is a hostile creature living inside your body?
If a baby is wanted, that makes all the difference. It's YOUR love, YOUR choice, YOUR emotions that make a "fetus" into a "baby" that you look forward to. I am pregnant right now, about 12 weeks, and I already love this baby inside me.
But if you don't want to have a child, then it remains exactly what it is: a fetus that you can choose to abort. All you are doing is saying, "No, I don't want to share my body with this fetus." That is perfectly right, and perfectly normal. Let me give you an example.
Say a woman gives birth to a baby, and gives it up for adoption, without telling the father of the baby that she was even pregnant. He doesn't want the child, he doesn't love the child, he doesn't want anything to do with the child. BUT, two days later, the newborn baby is seriously ill and needs a blood transfusion, and the baby's can only tolerate blood from its biological father.
Should the biological father be COMPELLED to donate the blood to the child he has almost no connection to?
You might say yes - giving blood is easy, it doesn't cost you anything, and you recover very quickly.
Well, what if the baby needed a bone marrow transplant? That would involve a very painful spinal tap, extraction of the spinal fluid (which is a minor operation), and a much longer recovery time. Should the father be compelled then?
What about if the child needed a liver transplant? A part of the father's liver would need to be cut, and it would grow into a full liver in the baby. But it would be a major surgery for the father, and it would take him about 2 months to fully recover. Should donating livers be compulsory if the baby's life is in danger?
More importantly, do you think the father - who, remember, doesn't want anything to do with the baby - would be right to say, "No, I don't want to go through all that pain and trouble"?
Don't you think it's OK for a woman, who would be pregnant for nine months, and have permanent changes to her body and her life from having this baby, to say, "No, thanks, I don't want to go through all this pain and trouble"?
The gift of life is a GIFT, not something the fetus "deserves" or "has a right to". YOU choose whether to give this gift or not.
But let me stress, at the end of the day, that whatever you do (or don't do) should be YOUR choice for your OWN reasons. You have to live with your decisions. Our brains are not perfectly reasonable or rational. We can have all the reasons in the world to know that abortion is OK, but still believe *inside* that it's wrong. There are hundreds of thousands of women who feel they themselves would NEVER choose abortion, but still support other women's right to choose.
You've already had five abortions, so that tells me that you are OK with making that choice. But if something has changed for you, if you have started to strongly believe it would be wrong to abort, then you have every right to change your mind. Just try not to blame yourself for what you did before you had this change of heart.
If you want a different perspective on abortion, you can ask your question to any of the pro-life people in this section. But I must warn you that they might try to use guilt or religious beliefs to make you continue your pregnancy. Just stay rational when you are reading their advice. Having a baby is a huge decision that should not be based solely on emotions.
Also, whether or not you choose to keep this pregnancy, you might want to consider either a tubal ligation for yourself or a vasectomy for your partner. It sounds to me like you have already completed your family. Since you are sure you don't want any more children, you might as well prevent the need for other abortions by making sure you can't get pregnant again. Your doctor will be able to give you all the information you need on male and female sterilization. As far as I know, it's easier and less complicated for your partner to do it, rather than you.
If you don't want to undergo sterilization, consider changing or backing up your current method of birth control. For example, if you use condoms now, try using a spermicidal jelly along with it for extra protection against pregnancy. You can also try the pill, the Patch or Nuvaring if you don't mind using hormonal birth control. In my experience, the Patch and the Nuvaring are better than the pill. They don't cause so many side effects and you don;t have to remember to take them every day.
Take care, and good luck. Let me know if you have more questions.
