The Heart of a Mother

by Julie Clark

Choosing adoption as the only alternate happy ending to abortion is a fallacy, because giving up a child is a trauma that happens not only to you but to your child as well.

All my life, I’d made it a point to respect the boundaries of others. But now I could see how easy it was to move that line. And once you’d pushed a boundary, how easy it was to push it a little further. And a little further after that. How simple it was to ignore the word no, especially when it was never actually said.

From the moment I was born, the things that happened to me were out of my control. The one thing I had was control over whether I wanted to know you or not. But you stole that from me.”