I just pray that the NYT commenters who counseled this young woman to abortion are not indicative of the general public.

Some comments that really amaze me, and not in a good way:

Since I was 19 I have had this master plan in my head….”26-28-30”. Get married at 26, a child at 28 and another at 30. I struggled and struggled with having a baby I was neither emotionally or financially ready for. I decided with the encouragement of my family and friends, that being selfish in the now can equate to being selfless in the future. And after much consideration, I decided to have an abortion in my fifth week of pregnancy.

Was I sad, distraught and even angry at myself for a few months? Yes. Did I end up going to graduate school, earning my degree, landing a terrific job, meeting a wonderful man who loves me, getting married to him and last October having our beautiful son (right on target in my 26th year and 6th month on earth)? Yes! Would I have been able to have the above happen in my life if I had had that baby? No. So at the end of the day was having an abortion the right thing to do? In my mind and my heart, I have no doubt that it was absolutely the right thing to do.

Get all the advice you need Sweetie, but don’t you dare compromise on what you want for YOUR life. Don’t you dare compromise on YOUR life. That is all I will say. I wish you the best of luck. You sound like a smart, hardworking girl who has her head on straight. Do what is right for YOU. No one else.

Once I came to the decision to terminate the pregnancy, so much of the guilt and sadness I’d been feeling melted away. I felt happy for the first time since finding out and I feel like my family is supportive of my decision. I’m focusing on the child I’ll have in a few years from now with someone I feel safe with and supported by. The life of that child will be infinitely better than this one and, sometimes, I wonder if such a miserable, lonely woman could even have a healthy child. There’s more to being a good birth mother than avoiding alcohol and eating right and I just don’t know if I have it. I’m a responsible girl but maybe that means knowing when you’ve put too much on yourself and it won’t work out.

In some ways, I feel like I’ve given up. I didn’t want to go down without a fight, I wanted to be a tough mother who braved the world for her child. But maybe that’s the truly selfish decision, to expect my baby to understand why there’s no father and no money and no time to spend with mom. How could I raise a confident child under those circumstances? I know it’s been done but I want to do better — that’s the future I envision for myself.

I owe a lot of that to your readers. They asked questions and pointed out arguments I never considered. They were honest, sometimes harsh, but always considerate. The one thing I realized, when I pulled all the comments together, was that a baby is too precious and wonderful to not plan for — I owe the children I have a better head start.

If we were to use the logic applied by the readers, and Emmie herself, we are wasting all our money trying to save the poverty-stricken and unplanned children dying every day in Africa. Just get out your guns and kill them all. Because according to those who counselled Emmie, if you don't have everything you want and need, and complete control of the timing of all events in your life you should just kill the baby.

This all comes down to the asinine refusal to recognize that life begins at the moment of conception, and not when the child can survive outside the womb.

I can't stand these stories, they make me so sad.

Not true, unborn fetuses do not have rights. Rights start when you are born.

What is your source for this, Ryan?
Why draw the line at the birth canal?

If the mother of an unborn fetus doesn't feel it right to bring a child in to this world. That is her right.

What if a mother of a just born fetus regrets giving birth? Tough luck?

tsmith

Thanks for commenting - and God bless you, your husband, your daughter, and your little precious one.

A thought that struck me today - when a baby is aborted, not only is their life over, but the lives of their future children. A branch of the tree is snuffed out.

I have long been pro-life with no exceptions. Then having children made that conviction all the stronger. And it struck me the other day that to be a parent is the definition of what it means to be selfless. You have to set aside your own agenda and life to put your kids' well being at the top of the priorities - you lose sleep when they are babies and need to eat in the middle of the night, you forget to eat because you're busy taking care of them, you ignore your own sniffles and coughs because you're taking care of your child's sniffles and coughs, you don't get to read that book or go to see that movie because you're playing with your children, and I know that I would step in front of a bus to protect my own child from that bus.

These poor babies who are killed because of the immense selfishness of their mothers must have a special place in heaven.

Our culture worships the god of self.

Ryan,
Thanks for commenting.

You wrote: Having a choice is your right as a human though.

I might help you clarify that statement. You mean having a choice is your right as a born human. Unborn humans don't get a choice about whether or not they live or die. In our current society, under current law, they are at the mercy of their mothers.

Abortion is not the same as others have said as going around killing people. Not true, unborn fetuses do not have rights. Rights start when you are born.

You are right. Legally. This is the law of the land. Right now, unborn fetuses have no rights.

Are they human? Yes. They have human DNA and two human parents.

Are they alive? Yes. They receive nourishment and they grow. (plants and your eyeballs are alive too.)

Those two points are self-evident. But there's one more thing, the thing that realy matters that they don't have right now under the law: personhood.

Under the current law, the Supreme Court has made it clear, that unborn human beings are not afforded the protection of the Constitution.

What we are arguing, however, is though they don't currently "legally" have personhood status, they should. (Once upon a time african-americans didn't have personhood status either and that was morally wrong.) Just because it's legal, doesn't make it moral.

Because we believe that they are persons. We believe the law of the land is wrong in this regard.

Think about it. Why is whether or not you are inside a mother's womb the determining factor of whether or not you are a "person" with rights?

And one last thing, isn't it weird that PETA is fighting for the legal protections under the law accorded to persons for flys?

I'm known to be harsh on this subject, so I'll try to tone it down. I think that mothers who have abortions are indeed guilty of murder, no different than mothers who kill their infants after birth. All this talk about preventing unwanted pregnancy and not bringing an unwanted child into the world is simply dressing to rationalize a heinous act. Deep inside, they know that it is wrong.

Logically, if a pregnant woman can go to the doctor and have the baby sucked out and killed, merely out of convenience, why not allow parents to kill their infants or toddlers? Most of the same arguments that apply to unborn children apply to born ones too - they're completely dependent on their parents, what happens in a family is private, etc. In ancient times, unwanted children were left in the woods to die. Have we so regressed?