Choosing Life

MARILYN Vega, 23, was almost a New York abortion statistic. In 1978, when her immigrant mother became pregnant with her, doctors advised abortion. The mother, a factory worker with a third-grade education, was in her late thirties—an age at which child-bearing carries a risk of birth defects. Besides, she and her husband, also a laborer, were struggling to raise the five children they already had in a Brooklyn tenement.

The Vegas are evangelical Christians, however; they did not believe in abortion. Mrs. Vega had her baby. “Maybe I didn’t have a house in the Hamptons growing up, but my life is no less special because of that,” Marilyn says today. “Every child has potential. It’s totally wrong to say that because of a person’s circumstances, it’s all right to kill a child. This is America. There’s help for women like my mom.”

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Rod Dreher

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MARILYN Vega, 23, was almost a New York abortion statistic. In 1978, when her immigrant mother became pregnant with her, doctors advised abortion. The mother, a factory worker with a third-grade education, was in her late thirties—an age at which child-bearing carries a risk of birth defects. Besides, she and her husband, also a laborer, were struggling to raise the five children they already had in a Brooklyn tenement.

The Vegas are evangelical Christians, however; they did not believe in abortion. Mrs. Vega had her baby. “Maybe I didn’t have a house in the Hamptons growing up, but my life is no less special because of that,” Marilyn says today. “Every child has potential. It’s totally wrong to say that because of a person’s circumstances, it’s all right to kill a child. This is America. There’s help for women like my mom.”