I was born ten years after all my other siblngs, and I was a surprise, though Mom always said I wasn't unwanted, just unexpected.  My middle name is the same as her best friend from that time, and I wonder if said friend convinced her to have me.  It would  have been hard, but maybe not impossible, to get an abortion around the time when I was born.

And I was a weird child, no doubt about that.  Mom wasn't paid back with a frilly little pink thing.  But she loved me, and I loved her.

In my belief system, if I hadn't been born, I'd just not be here.  I wouldn't have gone through ensoulment and then rejection.  No murder would have taken place.  I would never really have known I was here.  I wasn't a baby yet.

There are a lot of people on the anti-abortion side in whom I see a fear of the angry mother ready to demolish the child.  But I think that choice makes such threats less common, not more.  Because a woman who does not want a child could choose abortion rather than a lifetime of resentment.  She doesn't have to punish a child for existing; she can simply prevent the child's existence.

HOWEVER.  That doesn't mean she can't choose to have the child even if it's not easy.  She may be disabled, so that tasks that are easy for most mothers will be difficult for her.  She may have little or no income, so that another child stretches the budget uncomfortably, or breaks it.  Maybe she's old enough that a child is more likely to have birth defects, or she's even had amnio testing and found she's going to have a Downs Syndrome baby.

That's none of our business.  She can choose any difficult path she wants.  It just means it's her choice, and she will be more likely to handle that choice well if it's hers and not something forced on her.

Nadya Suleman made a choice that a lot of people didn't like, a choice that wasn't the "right" one in terms of some of the arguments for abortion access (lots of children already, no father, no income).  But placing any choice as the "right" one for someone else is nullifying the actual idea of choice.