"Later, I would learn that 59% of abortion patients already have a kid - that the majority of the women who choose the procedure do it so they can better support a child that they already have. That my situation was actually quite common. Since the beginning of time, women have made decisions like this. I would also learn that the birthrate in the U.S. was falling each year and that 74% of parents under 50 were not interested in adding another child to their lives."
"On the way home, walking my bike down Vanderbilt Avenue and feeling woozy from all the blood taken for my geriatric pregnancy, with the ultrasound image folded in the pocket of my shorts, I started to cry from behind my mask. I could not have this child. Not right now, when people around me were suffocating because they couldn't breathe and when I woke up in terror every night at 3 a.m. with an asthma attack."
""It is your choice," he said quietly, turning his face toward me. He still looked like a boy, my husband, with his wiry frame and shaggy hair. "I'll support you no matter what." But I knew he was already imagining a sweet little baby to dote on. I was picturing it too. Their soft puffy cheeks. Their first beautiful smile."
Many abortion patients already have children and often choose abortion to better support an existing child amid falling birthrates and changing parental preferences. She undergoes tests for a high-risk, geriatric pregnancy and feels physically unwell, carrying an ultrasound image and emotional strain. She decides she cannot have another child right then because of pandemic conditions, respiratory vulnerability, and nightly asthma attacks. Her husband expresses quiet support despite imagining a baby. A prior pregnancy involved fetal distress, meconium, maternal fever, and neonatal intensive care, creating lasting fear and shaping decisions about future pregnancies.
Read at BuzzFeed
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