I believe that many women are coerced into abortion, but not by gun-wielding thugs. It might go something more like this:
In Terry, McGovern implies that when he and his wife learned that their 15-year-old girl was unexpectedly pregnant, they agreed with their family doctor’s decision that she should travel to Florida for an abortion. He describes the impact of the abortion this way: ‘An important part of Terry was devastated by the abortion. Her innocence, her fun-loving nature, and her self-confidence were all deeply shaken, first by an unpleasant sexual experience and then by a pregnancy that she feared and yet did not want to terminate. She later told me of these feelings and then added: ‘I thought that my special relationship with you was over.’ I never knowingly conveyed such an attitude toward Terry. I never expressed anger, nor did I ever hint at any concern about possible political consequences. But Terry felt shamed and reduced by this episode. In retrospect I wish I had gone out of my way to reassure her that for me she remained a ‘special person’ whom I both loved and admired despite her teenage mistakes.”
McGovern’s dueling statements on abortion do not reflect well on his intellectual integrity. Publicly, he believes that pregnant women alone should decide whether or not to abort. Privately, he did not grant this power to his own daughter, who did not wish to abort.
This McGovern quote is taken from his book Terry: My Daughter’s Life-and-Death Struggle with Alcoholism. From Wikipedia we learn that Terry struggled with alcoholism for three decades, dying tragically at age 45. This traces the alcoholism back to age 15, the age at which she had the abortion. Tragic.
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