Too Poor to Have a Child

Too Poor for a Child

“A friend” posted a compassionate comment:

"Why do you say you cannot afford children because you are poor?"

Friends, my only answer to that question is that I was faithless.

Many pro-abortion people, particularly those who are most emotional and adamant, are saying that abortion must be made available to the poor, who would otherwise be burdened by their children. They actually believe they are working for the good of the poor by supporting abortion. It is bunk, isn’t it?

It took me twenty-five years to realize it. I lived in fear of unexpected pregnancy, even when I was married, because I had no faith. Perhaps it was because my parents divorced when I was young, and my father abandoned his children, leaving us in poverty. It was during this time, after my father had left us penniless, that my own mother had an abortion, although I wouldn’t learn that until years later. And after her abortion, she found it easier to let her children go, as she did when she let my older brother, who has a serious mental illness, get kicked to the curb when he was just a teenager. There was no money to have him committed to an institution where he would be properly cared for. We, the few remaining members of my family, have lost touch with him. He is one of many, mentally ill and homeless, upon whom most of us don’t look. You, my friend who commented, are surely not one of those. I suspect you not only look, but you offer your hand and your heart to help.

Perhaps my irrational fear stems from my pregnancy and abortion, since one of the reasons used to justify terminating my child’s life was money – no one had the means to support me during my pregnancy, or so they said. No one had the money to send me away to have the child, and of course, pride kept them from wanting a pregnant daughter around the house. They flat out refused to support a baby. I had to choose between the curb and the child, and this was 1979. There were no crisis centers, Friend, not in my small town. If there was help, it was beyond my ability to find it.

So I learned that having children would require financial security, first. I was wrong, and this is my lament – that we teach people they should not have children if they don’t have the financial means to care for them. I waited in faithlessness to be perfectly secure financially, and as I said in my post, that day never came. That day will never come to anyone who is waiting for it.

Children are a gift from God, but one I rejected because I was never going to be able to provide a child with a secure home. To me, my life and my world were not enough to involve another person, to add another responsibility. I could barely care for myself, and I thought that would make me a rotten parent. Well, I already knew I was a rotten parent. You see, Friend, they convinced me to have the abortion to save my own future, which was supposed to be filled with promise. I was bright, so I was supposed to earn scholarships, go to college, and become someone of value. I initially agreed, as you can read in my story at http://www.silentraindrops.com/. When I wanted to reneg – well, it just wasn’t allowed.

But therein was the lie: the abortion robbed my child of a future, and it also took away mine. I compare myself to Judas Iscariot – after my betrayal, I tried to throw back the thirty pieces of silver. Yes, I went to college, and I have a degree. I have an undergraduate degree, a B.A., in psychology that I have never used – by itself, it’s a nice piece of paper. Instead, I became a staff accountant – but not a certified one, because I didn’t have the formal education. I simultaneously earned and sabotaged my future, that oh, so important future for which my child had been sacrificed. I went to work in a field for which I was over-qualified in some ways, and under-qualified in others. I succeeded only in avoiding success.

This is the ruin of abortion. I engaged in self-destructive behavior in many ways. Only recently has God blessed me with the strength to face the barren ruin that was my life, and only recently has He also blessed me with the strength and the means to use my sad example to tell people that abortion is simply not an option. It helps no one, it imparts no freedoms, and it relieves no burdens. I am still waiting to hear from the woman who is avidly and emotionally pro-abortion because she has been so helped by one herself, but I haven’t met her yet. I don’t believe she exists, but if she does, I really want to talk to her. The only pro-abortion marchers I see are women who don’t know what they are talking about – they’ve never had one. I admit I have a very hard time listening to them. They make me turn away with disgust, because they don’t have the experience.

Faithless. That was me. I thank God for my recent re-conversion, although it comes too late for me to bear children now. Faithless - it applies to everyone who says children should only be born to those who can afford them.

Two-thirds of the women who seek abortions are poor, young, of minority, and/or cite financial reasons for having an abortion, as reported by the Alan Guttmacher Institute – I should warn you before you go to their site that they are related to Planned Parenthood, and compiled their statistics at the request of the abortion industry. But this only serves to prove my point – women are being told they can’t have children if they can’t afford them. Children are being killed in the womb for lack of money. If this isn’t the greatest evil we’ve seen yet, I don’t know what is. By its very nature, because it targets the poor, the disenfranchised, minorities – abortion is intrinsically discriminatory. But instead of protesting about this, pro-abortion people applaud it. They think it’s good that the poor can kill their children to prevent a financial burden.

Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travel’s, wrote a short story during the Irish Potato Famine. Please forgive me for not having the date and title handy at the moment – I will try to look it up. [The satire is entitled, "A Modest Proposal." Swift died in 1745] Swift’s story, an excellent example of pure political satire, suggested that the cure for the famine was to slaughter all of the Irish children under the age of two and feed them to the starving families. He said it would solve the problem in two ways: by providing food, and by reducing the number of mouths to be fed. His story was written in protest against those who were ignoring this great social problem of his time, but it might as well have been addressed to the pro-abortion groups who offer a similar solution to today’s impoverished peoples.