It’s Christmas time again. I’m peering through the frosted window of the past where a 25 year old woman is about to have an abortion.

The father was a 51 year old alcoholic and I was feeling trapped. My first abortion at age 18, was traumatic and I didn’t want to have another one.

But that wasn’t a man I wanted to have children with and I hated myself for being trapped in that situation. Maybe, by not giving life to my son, I would save him from an abusive father. In my desperation, I bought into the lie that sometimes, children are better off dead than alive.

So, four days before Christmas eve 2000, I lay on the altar of the “necessary evil” and I left a[nother] piece of my soul there. Ensued years of depression, self-hatred, fear of motherhood and wanting to die.

Having an abortion is not…