empregnated her in the back of his car, while home on leave from Europe in 1961. It was her first sexual experience. There was talk of marriage, but Sheila didn't want to convert to being a Baptist. So instead, my fathers' family dragged her one night to the local abortionist. My fathers' aunt told her, 'honey its just like having your tonsils out'. But Sheila wouldn't do it! (Imagine me, listening to this story for the first time, life isn't a right, its a gift from every mother) Her 'faith' or love of me or whatever, but she firmly did not want me aborted. As they left the Abortionist, my father gave her the $500 fee the abortion cost.

So abortion was available and 'a choice' as long as women have free will and $500. I am glad the practice is legal and safe now, but I think each abortion as a tragedy, too. Yes, its terrible the way sexual mores were, but I am glad for this life she gave me. So while I understand the need for this book, as a product of those baby factories, I am grateful for the life I was given.

As for Sheila's options as a single mother in 1962, it is pretty much as you say. She had few options. She could abandon her religion and marry this man. She could have had me aborted and sinned in her mind and maybe even died. She chose to have me adopted and once this course was chosen; I'm sure there was no going back. The nuns only allowed my birthmother, Sheila, 2 hours time with me on the day I was born. The next 14 days I lived in the orphanage with the nuns. Am I crazy but I do seem to remember being on display...On day 15 I was adopted by my parents.

I finally met Sheila, my birth mother, when I was 33 years old. Its opened a whole new family to me and it has been a good, if sometimes difficult experience. Its complicated holidays and mothers days especially.

In hindsight, both the birth mother and I have had post traumatic stress related to my birth. Sheila was dis-empowed and hurt from giving me up and so was I. She definately got the worse end of the deal. So I try to make up and appreciate the woman who gave me life and she appreciates me too. I'm visiting her tommorrow as a matter of fact. I will definately buy your book for her and myself.

Thanks to this article we get insight into the potential for guilt that occurs regardless if a woman gives up her newborn to a stranger, as was common in the 50's and 60's, or has an abortion. In both cases, there is a loss that cannot be replaced, a sense of enormous guilt that gets worse over time because there is void that cannot be filled. If there is any consolation to the women of the 50's and 60's that they opted for life for their newborn. Those who chose abortion, have to deal with the loss of a child and the sick feeling that they were complicit with a destruction of a life.

I was adopted in 1970, at the tail end of this period. I’ve always known I was adopted, and even though I had a very happy life, I always knew that my happiness came at a cost. My friends always had a romantic view of adoption, but even though my parents never talked about it much, I knew the choice must have been a difficult and painful one for my birthparents. I searched for my birthmother a few years ago, but she wasn’t interested in a relationship – I’m still wondering about how it affected her, and what circumstances led her to choose adoption.

A lot of people assume that because I’m adopted, I must be pro-life. Not at all. If anything, it’s made me more certain that women should have a choice – adoption can be a wonderful choice, but not if it’s forced on someone. I’m lucky to have been adopted, and to grow up in a secure and happy family, but it’s also a burden, to know that your life was someone else’s tragedy. (Not to mention the insecurity of never knowing your medical history, something that looms larger as you get older.) Maybe open adoption can solve some of these problems – it would probably have been hard for my parents, but I think I would have been more secure and more reassured, if I’d known where I came from. And I’m adamantly convinced that prevention is the best solution of all – the anti-birth control folks just make me crazy.

I think the silence about adoption just makes it worse. People on the letter pages often praise the adoption of older children from foster care, but I can’t help wondering, wouldn’t those kids have been better off if they’d been put up for adoption at an earlier age, maybe before they suffered abuse or neglect? Of course, we shouldn’t be too quick to take kids away from their parents, but adoption is still seen as something shameful. In an earlier age, it was shameful because it meant illicit sex – today it’s shameful because it goes against our cult of perfect motherhood. Maybe a more flexible and open attitude toward adoption would help everyone in the end.

I was born in a Catholic hospital in the early '70s. My mother was single. She tells me that the nuns assumed she was giving me up for adoption and just wisked me away right after I was born (this hospital also has a home for pregnant teens that was still operating in the late '80s when I was in high school). My mother had to ask, no, demand that I be given to her. "I want my baby," she said. And thus I narrowly escaped the (adoption/foster care) system.

G-d only knows how I, a Black child, would have turned out had I been put into the adoption/foster care system at that time in New York City. Whew!