Should I forgive him after a forced abortion?

Dear Agatha, 

There is this guy I love very much. Initially we were like siblings but one thing led to another and we became involved. Along the way, I got pregnant for him. When I informed him about my state, he said I should leave the pregnancy. I agreed. 

However, when I told him I would need money to commence antenatal, he told me he doesn’t have. Worried about the kind of life the baby and I would have, I again suggested we terminate the pregnancy but he again refused. 

Since I kept insisting we terminate it, he asked me to look for a place to do it. But he called the following day to say he has found where I can terminate the pregnancy, gave me N5,000 as well as the address of the place. When I got there, the man I met insisted on collecting N10,000. When I called him to inform him of the exact amount involved, he told me he didn’t have that kind of money. For a while after that call, he didn’t bother to call me until recently when he began calling me again asking for forgiveness. I really don’t know what to do. Please help me.

Stella.

Dear Stella,

You didn’t say if you have had the abortion or still pregnant. Whatever the case may be, you have learnt a vital lesson here, that of protecting yourself from premature sex. 

Had you taken precautions against unplanned pregnancy, you won’t be in this emotional quandary.

If you haven’t done the abortion, please don’t. It might appear to be the easy way out of the shame of pregnancy outside wedlock, but more often than not, it leaves terrible consequences for the woman whose reproductive lifespan may have been aborted with the unborn child. Only extremely lucky women go through abortions and come out with little or no tell tale sign. Every abortion a woman does reduces the lifespan of her womb more than that of childbirth.

A lot of women have had their wombs over scraped by inexperienced gynecologists or outright quacks. Because a desperate woman doesn’t have the time to investigate who is real or not has the experience or comes with little experience, she unwittingly puts her life on the line for nothing.

It is not about the money he is demanding to evacuate your unborn baby, but that of your safety and reproductive health. When he insisted you keep it, you should have pushed it. Yes, he told you he has no money for antenatal, but that wasn’t enough reason you insisted on terminating it. 

Insisting on terminating it could have sent the wrong kind of signal to him, that you don’t care about it as well as the fact that you don’t want to have his baby, a fear you confirmed by taking the N5,000 he gave you to the abortionist. 

If you really weren’t serious about terminating the baby, you should have used that money to go to the hospital to register for your antenatal. Government hospitals won’t require as much money to get you registered. If you were both married, would you have insisted on terminating this pregnancy on account of his inability to give you money to pay for antenatal?

In a way, you contributed to the way he behaved. Insisting you wanted the baby aborted definitely touched something deep inside him, unwittingly, you reminded him of his shortcomings as a man; pointed him to his inadequacies as an expectant father as well as his incompetence to manage the woman in his life.

Though wrong to have abandoned you at the point you clearly needed him the most, your insistence pushed him into it. After all, when you first informed him, he didn’t deny you, didn’t ask you to abort it but told you to keep it. You were the one insisting on removing the baby from the beginning, not him. 

If he left you, it couldn’t have been from lack of love for you but out of frustration. That he has come back to beg shows a man who has been through a lot of inner emotional struggle to do what is right, who won the battle of doing the right thing over his male pride. 

Look deep in your heart, what do you feel for him? In his shoes, what would you have done, especially as you kept insisting on terminating the baby? He left you probably because he didn’t want to be around to see his efforts as a man wasted on the abortion table.

Relationship is not only about the good times, it is more of our ability to turn the very bad times to our favour. We all make mistakes, these are things that actually give form to our relationships. If you can find it in your heart to forgive him, take him back. I am sure this episode has done something for both of you, given both of your new perspective into your relationship as well, as clarify grey areas you have about your feelings for each other.

Allow God to take the credit for whatever happened by listening through prayers to what He is saying to you over this matter.

Good luck.