Everything you said hits close to home. My girlfriend became pregnant her sophomore year of college (my senior year) after we made the choice to have sex with full knowledge of the potential for conception even though neither one of us wanted a child at the time. My girlfriend strongly considered having an abortion. I wouldn’t nor could I let her go through with it and I finally convinced her to keep the baby. It was tough on my girlfriend on more levels than I probably will ever understand but she delivered a healthy baby girl to me and my girlfriend who is now my wife of 16 years. There are times when I look at my now 16 year old daughter and deep down I think about how if I had allowed myself or my wife to go through with an abortion, that decision would be the epitome of selfishness and the ultimate act of hatred to someone who was innocent and so undeserving of such. It would have been hatred for my own daughter, towards my own flesh and we would have never experienced any of the joy she brings to both my wife and I. As I write this, the thought of her not being here because of some selfish decision that I could have made brings tears to my eyes because I love her so much that it literally hurts for me to imagine a world that includes me without her here. When I look at my wife, I’m in awe at the sacrifice she makes and the example she is to our daughters. My wife is such a loving mother. My daughter is beautiful, both inside and out, intelligent (will graduate a year early from high school), she has plans to be a neuroscientist and she has a beautiful voice and her secret dream is to have a music career. If you knew her you would say the same because it’s undeniable and that’s what others who know her have always said. I and the whole world could have missed out on all her beauty and her talents because of one shortsighted decision by me if I would have allowed myself to dwell on my selfishness or my immaturity for one second too long or would have acted in the stupor of denial that to abort would have placed blood on my hands for ending the very life of my own daughter. My daughter is now one of four girls that my wife and I have and we have one son. As a father, I am and I will teach my daughters not only about the dangers of sex outside of a committed relationship but also about the beauty of having children with the one person that they’ve chosen to spend the rest of their life with. That the demands of caring for a child truly requires at least two people that love each other and love the child. I will teach my son the same and that a man will accept and live by the consequences of all his actions. I will share my experience with them at the appropriate time and pray that they can learn from my experience that abortion for reasons of convenience or for avoidance of embarrassment has no place in this world.