How about talking to the near-misses?

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

I read where Kamala Harris has gathered around her some who favor abortion and is lending a sympathetic ear.

Suggestion: Talk to some of us who barely escaped being aborted. How about listening to our opinions?

I don’t think that abortion being illegal at the time affected the decisions my parents made, but had they been so inclined, it might have been an easier path for them.  

They were no doubt extremely ashamed and embarrassed about my conception, but they saw it through.  

I wouldn’t even call them heroes – in a situation with awful choices, they just picked the path they saw as right and soldiered through.

My dad was a moderately prominent person in Troy, Ohio in the late 1940s. To have me out of wedlock, as they said in those days, while he had a family with four children, had to be a set of circumstances without a good solution and one of great embarrassment to him and my mother.  

After he died in 2000, I had an aunt on each side of the family make a point to tell me what a bad father he was (in reference to his first wife and four children which he left).

My parents started off financially devastated and rose from nothing to moderate success. Erasing me would have been an easier road, one with much less pain, than the path they chose.  

It was not simple for me, either; but I am glad they chose the path they did. At the time, I did not know why children did not want to play with me in elementary school.  

When I would come home and tell my mother this, which I thought was as benign as reporting the weather, she would grab me in her arms and cry with giant, heaving sobs. Then, that left me confused. Now, I understand it.

We had no money. Dad’s first wife had “taken him to the cleaners.”  

A friend of Dad’s bought his house and sold it back to him so he could get the cash for his settlement. I remember having powdered milk for breakfast, probably until I went to school. We had little furniture.  

Mother and Dad had a side job I have referenced before and where I “worked” every afternoon with my mother until I was old enough to go to school. Dad came after his day job, and they worked together until midnight every night.

So, this was how we ended up in Highland County. Highland County was my parents’ escape from a world that had rejected them and where they didn’t want to be. And you know what, I am glad they made this decision. I am thankful for my farm years in Highland County.

So, Kamala, and those of you so inclined, there are other choices besides murder.  

You know, you wouldn’t be so obsessed with when life starts if you would just admit to yourself that abortion is murder. You know it, but don’t acknowledge it.  

I like what one distinguished entomologist told me when I asked him, “When does life start?”

His answer: “Depends how valuable you think life is.”

I am glad my parents did not take life casually. 

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.