Letters to the Editor
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respect her choice as you would your own
Adrienne, if a woman, no matter what age, makes an informed, considered decision for an abortion, helped by someone neutral and supportive of her, then the only likely “lifelong guilt and regret” would be that imposed on her by, for example, a family or religion. Parents are almost never able to be neutrally supportive because of their unconscious identification with and consequent need to control their offspring. You seem to confuse this harmful need to control with what is in the best interests of a pregnant woman.
Readers are letting you know that your arguments don’t hold up and conflict with each other. I wonder if you offered incongruent and irrelevant arguments so as not to betray the real, underlying concern: “I am afraid of losing control of my offspring’s behavior because of how her choices might affect my esteem and standing.” Your role is to let them go, not to live your life through theirs.