In this case, the sperm can never meet the egg and the woman is sterile. She thought she was aborting one pregnancy, but she was aborting all her pregnancies for the rest of her life. But it is in fact her own child, as much like her as any child she will ever have, sharing her appearance, talents, and family tree. In abortion, she offers her own child as a sacrifice for the right to continue her own life as it is, and it is a sacrifice that will haunt her. For the last loss is the loss of her peace of mind.
Many women suffer depression, nightmares, and suicidal thoughts.
Some wake in the night thinking they hear a baby crying. Ironically, this encourages a view of female weakness and dependence that makes those women who accept it more likely to submit themselves to men's demands for sexual availability, and more likely to try to escape the results of their submission on the abortion table. Yet we are uniquely equipped for the role of childbearing, and strong enough to do much harder things than this. Every woman need not bear a child, but every woman should feel proud kinship in the earthly, elemental, God-given beauty of gestation and birth. To hold childbearing in contempt is to reject our distinctive power and gift.