It’s not that I don’t love you or think you’re beautiful. I recognize that you have a heartbeat, human appendages and even fingernails (like that little Asian girl tells Juno in the movie), but I can’t take care of you right now. I’m only a freshman in college and I work twenty-five hours a week just to pay tuition and save up for the car I still can’t afford! Babies cost money, a lot of money. The cost of diapers can be at least “$600 for disposables” and for a year’s worth of formula, I can “count on spending $1500 to $2000 or more” (What to Expect). That’s how much my food costs me, if I could actually afford to buy my own food that is! Also, as if there weren’t enough problems, I don’t even have room for you in the utilitarian quarters that constitute my home.
That’s why I need the abortion. It’s not that I don’t love you or think you’re beautiful. It’s a matter of necessity. If I were forced to keep you, it would be the end of my life as I know it. No matter how much I adore you I can’t have that happen. Pro-lifers will disagree and say this is wrong. To them, if we women can’t afford a child, we’re welcome to put that child up for adoption. What they fail to see is that hospital bills cost money too…thousands of dollars in fact. Not to mention that having a child can actually endanger a prospective mother’s life. After all, “about 650 women die each year in the United States due to pregnancy and delivery complications” (Pregnancy-Related Deaths). Meanwhile, “in 2010, ten women died as a result of complications from known legal induced abortion” (U.S Abortion Statistics). This means that about sixty-five times the number of women die yearly due to pregnancy than surgery! And all this for a so-called miracle that is, in reality, just a parasite that will sponge off me like a tick off a dog. Not that you are a tick of course, my dear. I love you so very much. I simply state the issue to show proof that while science does contend that life begins at conception, it is also obvious fact that this new “life” has no means of sustainability without causing drastic changes in the lives of all those around it. Conversely, the mother not only has the means to sustain herself, but also the right to refuse the use of her body to anyone else, including her unborn child.
We women have the ability to choose abortion because it is a fundamental right. Like I mentioned before, right now, you are nothing more than a parasite, my darling. You need me to live. However, what right do you have to ask that of me, when all you will do is cause me harm while infringing on my everyday life and liberties? How can I let you determine my life, when I myself have yet to figure out what it entails? On the other hand, who am I to bring something so beautiful and precious into the world under such horrible circumstances. After all, you were nothing more than a mistake! A byproduct of the passion shared by your father and I. We were young and reckless, but definitely not in love. It isn’t like we plan to get married or something. We were all about the now, jumping between the sheets with utter disregard for what we had learned for years in high school health classes. We just wanted to have some fun. Never once did it occur to us what would happen if that answer of “yes I’m pro-choice” were to be tested.
Unfortunately, now that the error has occurred, there is nothing we can do, except stick with what we had decided upon and understand that, no matter how much it hurts; we have to think about our financial and emotional capabilities. Now let’s take a look at it from your perspective. After all, what would you, my breathtaking baby boy, be born into: a family with a broken home, one where your mother and father are not together because they were both barely older than children themselves when they had you. There would be no suburban house with the father, the mother, the brother and the family cocker spaniel. No childhood spent playing catch with your father in the afternoon, or doing homework with your mother after school, or taking your dog out with you on bike rides around the block. Instead, you’d be forced into a much darker life; we all would be. One that none of us deserve. It would be obligatory for you to grow up in a financially and emotionally unstable environment, while your father and I are forced to grow up far too early. And our hopes and dreams may as well go out the window too, because the chances of being accepted to medical school, while working and supporting an infant become my top priorities, are slim to none. Now is not the time for your acceptance into this world sweetheart, so you’re just going to have to wait a little while until it is.
Finally, my love for you also makes me inclined to not want to have you right now. It is always said that there is no stronger bond than that of a mother and her child. All this does is remind me of how difficult it would be to give up my precious bundle once you were here. I love you so much that I’m already ready to give up the world for you and I’ve only had you for mere weeks! My attachment would be immeasurable once you were actually born. If I were to have you with the intention of putting you up for adoption after your birth, then the only real miracle in that hospital room would be if I were truly able to give you up. No, it is better to not have you in my life at all than have to suffer the torture of having you snatched from me the first time I ever experience the pure, true ecstasy of love.
Love, Mom P.S. One day, I hope to see you again in whatever follows this life, so that you can show me your letter to your mother.
"Pregnancy-Related Deaths." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 02 July 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.
"U.S. Abortion Statistics." Facts About Abortion:. Abort73.com, n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.
"What to Expect." Whattoexpect. What To Expect, n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2015.