Ed

Wifey and I couldn't have kids by natural means. We adopted our daughter when she was 6 weeks old.

Her birth mother was 15. She was advised by many, I learned, to have an abortion. When I look at my beautiful little girl, and I have posted her photo on here many times, this tears my heart in two.

I don't like the idea of abortion. As Magnum says, using it as contraception is abhorrent. I do think it acceptable in cases of severe disability, rape, incest, and so on. 180,000 abortions a year (that's 550 - 600 every day) here tells me that there is a huge need for much better sex education. We need to stop being so bloody prudish about sex. We need to recognise that kids experiment, they always have and always will. We need to find ways of making sure that girls understand what can happen, and making sure that boys don't see getting their leg over as some sort of stupid conquest. And we need to make contraception easy.

A friend of one of my co-workers had an abortion. I know that she is going through hell over it.

What all this also says to me is how brave Sophie's birth mother was.