I was married [briefly, 25 years ago] to a woman traumatized just as deeply and indelibly by the act of turning over her newborn son for adoption (three years before I met her, in case anyone was asking). She was, at the time, voluntarily institutionalized at the founding site of the Florence Crittendon Homes - you know, the ones that used to append "...for Wayward Girls" to their name.

Perhaps you forget what it's like to be young and/or poor, and frightened to distraction by the prospect of parenthood - especially when the prospect manifests in reality. Perhaps you forget (after all, you were probably not of reproductive age yet, but I was) what life was like for young, sexually active people before both Roe v Wade and The Pill.

What bothers me most of all about the "pro-life" attitude is the haughty, smug, self-righteous way they dismiss the women who are faced with a choice that will irrevocably alter at least one life, as if those women are as cavalier in their actions as the pro-lifers are in their judgements.

Even though I am not female, I listen and understand that pregnancy is not merely something one knows intellectually. It is felt from within. The changes are unmistakable; so are the changes when a pregnancy is over, no matter the cause (birth, stillbirth, miscarriage, abortion) or the reason for termination. No one lives through it unchanged.