-- C.T. Gent, writing on "The Loneliest Decision," in the March issue of Gear

"There are women who go through abortion with grit teeth, and then it's over, and they're glad -- or at least that's what they tell you, and if you're a male, they really won't tell you much.

"It is probably the loneliest decision they'll ever make. No one talks about abortion in glowing terms. It is not something women -- at least not the women I've known -- tend to be proud of, and society certainly doesn't hold up the aborted fetus as the paradigm of good works. . . .

"I was 21 years old and she was 25 and we were surviving on salted spaghetti. We had lived together before, and it was not good. . . .

"She was 10 weeks pregnant when we found out. . . . Two days later she went for a sonogram, kept the printout -- a radar smudge, fetus already with arms and eyes and a heart beating. . . . She wanted her child, but everyone was against her -- me, her parents, her friends, the abortion counselor with the big oak desk and red carpet. She never stood up and said it: I want my child.

"In the cab home [after the abortion], we said nothing and sat at opposite sides of the car. . . . I asked her if she was all right. She told me to go away.

"After that, there was no more dialogue for many months, for she was in mourning. . . .

"[I]t was the end of something between us -- on her side, it had killed off trust and a lot of hope, and on my side, all I felt was her resentment and bitterness and it pushed me away."