The decision to have an abortion is always a difficult one. I hear that you understand that it is a difficult decision - and one that you might never make. Nevertheless, there will always be women who are not in a circumstance where they feel capable of raising a child. Safe, legal abortion must be available to them.

And it is my deepest hope that a teenage or adult child would be able to attend to his or her mother’s personal situation and deepness of feeling at the time of her choice to get an abortion.

In an ideal world we would only get pregnant when we had the resources, both financial and emotional, to tend to a baby and eventually a child. That is simply not always the case. Here is when we all, in one way or another, turn to our spiritual beliefs about the presence or non-presence of souls, god, and the time on the outside of this life.

I am particularly thoughtful on this issue today, two days after the physician and women’s rights advocate Dr. George Tiller was killed.

I was always pro-choice, most likely due to my hippie parents influence on me. I first began second guessing my opinion when I read a section of my college psychology course book that explained human development. Embryos have arms and legs.

I’m sorry to hear about people’s troubles, and I do respect the hard choices people make in life. Still, I am disturbed to hear about a woman would choose to endure the process of having the potential son/daughter within her terminated, rather than struggling to endure the obstacles of birthing and raising a child.

The Pagan Romans would often throw unwanted children into vats, as if it was a right of ours to pick and choose which of our own children we wish to keep. I am now under the impression that modern day abortion really isn’t much different.

Again, my heart does go out to this Mother. I know she had and will continue to have a lot on her shoulders.