It is extremely hurtful for children to hear that their mothers originally planned to have them aborted. However, a woman named Maria from Ireland chose to be understanding about her mother's past predicament. In fact, she even supports other women's decision to undergo an abortion.
Maria shares with The Irish Times that she was only 14 or 15 when her mother angrily told her, "I should have aborted you – and I did!"
Even though the words stung, Maria accepted it.
"Back then, politically and economically, the country wasn't in good shape. Young couples couldn't afford to have many children. My father had to work in another town, far from my mum and my siblings. My father was a political activist and there was always a chance he would be put in prison or would 'disappear,'" she says.
Maria knew her parents could not afford another kid, so for two months, her mother tried to abort her. She couldn't ask the family doctor to do it because it wasn't legal, so her mother became suicidal during her pregnancy. When Maria got born, her mother was so depressed that she couldn't bring herself to care for her daughter for almost a year. For most of her childhood, Maria was raised by her older brother.
"I was never mad at her," admits Maria. "When I was a teenager I couldn't understand why she didn't want me. But when you study the country, the situation... I give every right to my mum. If I were her, I probably would have aborted. It has nothing to do with her maternal instincts – she already had two kids. It's just that it wasn't the right time."
Maria says she turned out well, and she is happy to have experienced life. But now that she has experienced life, she knows how good or horrible it can be as well. "When you're not born, you have no idea. You don't care, because you don't know," she explains.
Maria adds that she does not really care if her mother succeeded in the abortion. She is glad to be alive, but not because she is glad her mother didn't succeed with the abortion.
"When it comes to anti-abortion laws, if it's not religious or it's not political, it's always very sentimental: it makes your eyes teary, but it doesn't solve many women's problems," she says. "I don't consider myself an 'abortion survivor.' That has a bad tone. If you want to articulate it that way – that my mum's abortion didn't work and that's why I'm alive – yes. But I don't label myself like that. I just got lucky."
