”Jag aborterades inte”

Julia Gorin skriver idag på OpinionJournal att de höga aborttalen i vår tid, liksom i Ryssland under kommunismen, borde föranleda en skrämmande tanke: jag kunde ha blivit aborterad! I Ryssland, där Julia växte upp, var abort mer regel än undantag vid graviditeter. Hon skriver:

Like most Soviet-era fetuses conceived in Russia by couples who were already parents, I was scheduled for abortion as a matter of course. In a society where abortion was the only form of birth control, it wasn’t uncommon to meet women who had double-digit abortion counts. Often a couple would schedule the appointment before they even stopped to remember that they wanted a second child.

Hon berättar om en vän som upptäckte att hon väntade ett andra barn. Slentrianmässigt lade hon in sig för en abort. Men där drabbar den hemska sanningen henne:

Soon after arriving in Israel, a family friend named Zoya discovered she was pregnant with a second child and went in for the abortion routine. She was dumbfounded to encounter the following whispered line of questioning from the admitting nurse: ”Do you not have a roof over your head?” There was a roof. ”Do you not have enough food on the table?” There was plenty of food. Then an altogether alien concept to Zoya: ”So why kill it?”

”I was shocked,” Zoya recalled. ”No one had ever told me I was killing anything. I’d never thought of it as a person. As soon as someone told me I was killing something, I didn’t even consider it. I left.” Much like my grandmother, today Zoya is the mother of a master violinist.

Vi borde därför fundera mer på hur en abort faktiskt förändrar historien. Julia igen:

Rather than debate what it is we’re killing, we should consider what we may be saving–for our sakes as much as for ”its” own. When you choose to abort, you alter the course of history. While the child up for abortion may or may not be the next Einstein, saving his life could one day save yours.

Julias föräldrar har på sin ålders höst blivit ensamma och de är idag ledsna över att de har så få barn. Fler barn hade givit dem ett rikare slut på livet. Julia avslutar:

We don’t have a crystal ball, but there’s someone who does, and there is a reason for every stork He sends along. I am religiously illiterate, but I have come to understand on the most visceral level why pregnancies are called ”blessings”–even if, as often as not, the blessing comes in disguise.

For all the reluctant mothers-to-be out there, you should know that when you’re having even a momentary second thought, someone you can’t see is whispering in your ear. Fortunately for my husband’s and my families, on the third occasion our parents listened.

I Sverige avslutas ungefär var fjärde graviditet med abort. Och det var varit så sedan 1975. Om du som läser detta är 30 år eller under är sannolikheten till att just du hade blivit aborterad 25 procent. Så var glad att du lever och sörj de av dina syskon som aldrig fick se dagens ljus. Och sörj dina föräldrar som kommer att åldras utan en stor barnaskara att ta hand om dem.