Over the years friends have asked my advice about their unplanned pregnancies or their daughters’. I don’t give advice. What I say is that I’m thrilled that my son walks the earth, but that the emotional cost was so much higher than I’d imagined. That there was no ‘clean slate’ afterward, only loss. That if I were faced with the same circumstances a second time, I would probably choose an early abortion. That what saved me in the end was the ability to make the choice myself.
Author: Julia Franks
Julia Franks is the author of Over the Plain Houses (Hub City Press), an 2016 NPR Best Book that also won five major prizes. Her new novel, The Say So (Hub City Press) is forthcoming in Spring of 2023. She has also published stories in The New York Times, The Bitter Southerner, and Arts ATL.