A reader writes:
Your reader obviously missed the point of the thread, to which her story has no relevance. She was not past the 20th week at the time she decided to get an abortion. She was not carrying a child about which medical professionals said there was no hope for existence for any extended period of time. She was not carrying a child for which she and her husband had waited and planned.
Hers was the type of "convenience" abortion that I'd like to see made rare. There have been thousands of women who have become pregnant without planning for it. They may not have felt capable of raising a child but bore them anyway, and found themselves more than capable of child-rearing. The stories you've posted up to now have involved people making impossible decisions, reaching deep into their innermost beings to find answers. This reader's story is an exercise in displaying her own shallowness.
Another argues along similar lines:
I don't have a personal experience with abortion, but I have noted the very strange tendency to focus on how agonizing the decision *must* be. As if the agony is somehow a requirement of making the decision. Why should it be?
To carry or terminate a pregnancy is clearly a choice, and the political argument is over who is allowed to make the choice: the individual woman, who will choose to abort or not, or a government or church that will say "no" to termination. We can argue over who should be that decision-maker. I happen think it should be the woman, and most readers (and Americans) seem to agree. So if the woman is to decide, we shouldn't hold up this agony of indecision as a requirement. Trying to do so leads to odious measures such as waiting periods, or forcing women to look at sonograms or bloody pictures. Is she less likely to want an abortion if she waits 24 hours, or after being grossed out?
If women are to have this choice, they will make it for any number of reasons -- as many different reasons as there are women. Some will do it because of medical concerns, or social reasons, or simply for convenience. Some will agonize, and some will not. A woman may base the decision on the flip of a coin, a dream she had the night before, or which way the wind was blowing when she woke up. Some will decide based on the perceived answer to prayer. There are reasons that I think are valid, and many more that I find to be terrible, shallow, and poorly thought out. But the fact is that she shouldn't need my approval for her reasons, or anyone's approval. The choice is hers.
Another writes:
That reader is the poster child for the "pro-life" argument about careless, unexpected pregnancies.