I Became Pregnant at 14 After Rape. If You Think I Should Have Had an Abortion, Consider This

Babies belong to their mothers whose bodies make them

That observation escaped me for most of my life. One day I was reading something and that so very simple statement struck me with deep thought.

A father is a very important element in the life of any child growing up but the father had nothing to do with the growth of the child in womb. Virtually everything that unborn needed for a healthy birth comes from the mother.

This Paul Harvey "Rest of the Story" says so very much.

When rape results in pregnancy, or when giving birth might cost the mother’s life, few women would fail to consider the alternative, abortion. But let’s say you’re a doctor—a physician not morally adverse to terminating a patient’s pregnancy—and the circumstances are neither frivolous nor dire.

Let’s say that on a given day two young women consult you, both pregnant, both doubtful as to whether they should be. Now, remember: such a choice is ultimately the mother’s, but because you are a physician, and because your judgment is respected, and because your patient is seeking guidance, everything you say, regardless of how clinically objective –yes, even the tone of your voice may sway her decision. Yours is a position of enormous responsibility. Like it or not, the very expression on your face could save or extinguish a life.

Your first expectant mother is Caterina. Caterina is unmarried, obviously in her teens, obviously poor. You ask her age, she tells you, and at once, you realize she has overstated her years by one, two, or three.

Caterina is in the first trimester of her pregnancy. You ask if she has been pregnant before. Caterina shakes her head no. Studying her, you wonder. You inquire of her general health; no problems, she says. And the health of the father? Caterina shrugs; her eyes fall.

She has lost contact with the father of her unborn child. All she knows is that he was twenty-three, a lawyer or a notary or something like that. He lives nearby, she thinks; she is not sure. Then affair was over quickly, little more than a one-night stand. No child was expected—nor now is it wanted.

What, doctor, is your advice to Caterina?

Later the same day a second expectant mother consults you. Her name is Klara. Klara is twenty-eight, married three years, the wife of a government worker; she has the look of a woman accustomed to anguish. Concerned for the ultimate health of her unborn, Klara explains that for each year of her marriage she has had a child—and each has died; the first within thirty-one months, the second within sixteen months, the third within several days. Disease? You ask. Klara nods. She suspects that any future child would be equally susceptible. For you see, her husband is also her second cousin. Both Catholic, they received papal dispensation to marry—though now Klara questions their wisdom in asking for permission.

In addition, there is something else…One of Klara’s sisters is a hunchback; another sister, the mother of a hunchback. Klara is in the first trimester of her fourth pregnancy. The odds are against the health of her child. Time is running out. And it is only later that you learn---Klara’s husband is not, as she said, her second cousin. He is her uncle.

So what, doctor, is your advice to Klara?

In addition to all immediate considerations---physical, moral, and religious---the dilemma of whether to terminate a pregnancy is a philosophical question :
Might this life, if left to live, affect the consciousness or even the destiny of mankind?

Yet if the profundity of this question is diminished by the balance, which governs all life, there is evidence in the two true stories you have just heard: the unwed mother with the unwanted child; the married mother with the graves of three infants behind her.

For if you, as the hypothetical physician, had opted for in both cases for abortion, then you would have respectively denied the world the multifaceted genius of Leonardo da Vinci; and spared humanity the terror of Adolf Hitler.

Question 1:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion? Read the next question before looking at the answer for this one.

Question 2:
It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

Candidate A -
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologers. He's had two Mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B -
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C -
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Candidate B is Winston Churchill.

Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

And, by the way, the answer to the abortion question:
If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven. Pretty interesting isn't it? Makes a person think before judging someone.

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