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{"id":4700,"date":"2020-11-24T10:42:14","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T18:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/?p=4700"},"modified":"2021-08-05T09:57:37","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T16:57:37","slug":"the-turnaway-study-part-6-the-road-not-taken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/2020\/11\/the-turnaway-study-part-6-the-road-not-taken\/","title":{"rendered":"The Turnaway Study Part 6: The Road Not Taken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div id=\"row-6844\" class=\"row text-left\"><div id=\"col-3490\" class=\"col\"><div id=\"vid-7692\" class=\"yt-parent\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yw_ZkNeAdX8\" class=\"yt-embed\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/div><div id=\"row-3378\" class=\"row text-left\"><div id=\"col-1243\" class=\"col\"><div id=\"p-3312\"><em>Watch the video above for Tabitha\u2019s summary of Part 6, looking at the lost understanding of the road not taken when a mother chooses abortion. Read below for more.<\/em>\n<p>We are going to end this series on <em>The Turnaway Study <\/em>where we started: pointing out the lack of acknowledgement of the child who loses their life to abortion, and the impact of that loss on women. Yes, 95% of the women said abortion was the right decision for themselves, but reading through their stories I can\u2019t help but wonder about the path not taken and about the life not lived.<\/p>\n<p>This comes out in Amy\u2019s story. Amy had an abortion when her born daughter was 10. Years later, when her born daughter was a teenager, Amy says \u201ceverything that I\u2019ve ever done, ever worked for, has been for her.\u201d Despite claiming to have never wanted more children, she talks about how she has taken in her daughter\u2019s low-income boyfriend, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s funny that I never wanted any more children, but here I am helping out another one. So it\u2019s so funny, I tease him, \u2018you\u2019re the son that I never wanted.\u2019\u201d It leaves you wondering about how much love she would have had for the \u201cnever wanted\u201d child she lost to abortion.<\/p>\n<p>Kiara had an abortion when she was 26 years old. Later on, she tells of her subsequent child. \u201cWith the newest baby, my husband and I weren\u2019t actively trying, but we weren\u2019t not trying. It actually happened fairly quickly, so I was like, it was meant to be. I don\u2019t think you\u2019re ever ready fully. You always go, \u2018It\u2019s a good time; let\u2019s have a baby.\u2019 Then, you get pregnant and you\u2019re like, \u2018All right, wow. Here we are.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re ever ready fully,\u201d Kiara explains. What would have happened if she had that perspective towards her first child?<\/p>\n<h3>And yet, the unexpected love<\/h3>\n<p>Melissa describes a subsequent pregnancy after her abortion, when pro-life relatives showed up offering support and asking her not to abort her child. Those relatives now watch her born daughter every day. She concludes with this reflection on parenting: \u201cWhen I was growing up, I didn\u2019t want any kids. I didn\u2019t picture myself as a mother\u2026I had that first child, and you find out that you love them no matter what\u2026You think, there\u2019s no way I can love anyone in the world more than I love this baby right here. Then you have another one. And you worry when you\u2019re pregnant, am I going to love this one like I do that one? There\u2019s no way; you don\u2019t want it. Then you have that second one and you love them totally different. There\u2019s no amount of love more for one than the other; it\u2019s overwhelming.\u201d Melissa was able to accept her subsequent children and found the love overwhelming. It\u2019s tragic she missed out on that love with one of her children.<\/p>\n<p>All of these women likely said that the abortion was the right decision for them. Many were quite sure they were unable to parent, that it wasn\u2019t the right time, but there is little explanation of the difference between the situations where they had an abortion versus the situation they were in when they gave birth to other unintended children.<\/p>\n<h3>A risky endeavor \u2013 but worth it<\/h3>\n<p>Pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting are all difficult. Dr. Foster goes into detail about the health risks of giving birth, including the rare but tragic cases where a woman even loses her life. She concludes, \u201cThe fact that women regularly choose to endure this and are thrilled with the outcome shouldn\u2019t blind us to the fact that pregnancy is a risky endeavor.\u201d So why do women take on this risky endeavor? What is it out being a mother that we view as worth the risk? The answer is the life that comes into existence. The human being born into this world is what makes woman thrilled with the outcome.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to read the stories in this book without mourning what could have been. What if these women had opened themselves up to the endless possibilities that bringing a child into this world can bring? No one is suggesting pregnancy and motherhood are easy. Relationships, love, others, bring with them complexity, heartbreak, and pain. But they also bring joy, love, and wonder to our lives. As Erika Bachiochi points out, \u201cIn the experience of most women, pregnancy is a serious challenge, but one well worth the sacrifices made because of the profundity of the enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As my colleague Anna once put it: \u201cAbortion is a choice. A choice that is easier, maybe, than the very hard choice of parenting. Simpler, maybe, than dealing with the relationship consequences of keeping a pregnancy. Faster, certainly, than carrying to term and giving a child up for adoption. But, morally and ethically, it has the power to make people feel shame because it is shameful to say that your choice is worth more than someone else\u2019s life, that your future is worth wiping out someone else\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is this that Dr. Foster misses in <em>The Turnaway Study. <\/em>It is the lives that are lost to abortion. Lives that, whether intended or not, are intertwined physically and relationally with their mothers. The idea that we can just dispose of these children without consequence to their mothers is absurd and not reflected in the lived experiences of women.<\/p>\n<p><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3014,"featured_media":4701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[281,61,284],"tags":[79,989,990,963],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4700"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3014"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4700"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4703,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4700\/revisions\/4703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}