The Instant Answer Is the Cruel One : An unwanted pregnancy is only a temporary crisis, it need not mean an unwanted child. There’s another option.

What a tragedy that another teen-ager, this one in Ireland, tells a story of brutal rape. And now the ensuing media attention over her pregnancy and the abortion question. I deeply feel her pain and confusion, for my experience was much the same.

I was another “worst-case scenario” when I was raped as a virgin teen-ager from Philadelphia’s inner city. Raped by a salesman passing through my place of employment, the experience of sexual assault was traumatizing enough, but to find myself pregnant was inconceivable. Born to alcoholic parents, I was told I was an unwanted child, and now I was pregnant with an unwanted child. It wasn’t fair.

Apparently there is no easy abortion available for this 14-year-old Irish girl; there was none accessible to me 30 years ago. Today I am grateful for this. I may have welcomed the relief of a safe abortion (not understanding its ramifications). I wound up going full term with the pregnancy, and gave birth to a baby girl in a Los Angeles County hospital. She became what I referred to as “the missing piece” of my life, as I never held her or saw her; she was adopted at birth. How could I have known she’d be the only child I would give birth to?

You can’t imagine the impact when, a few years ago, I picked up the phone and a voice announced, “Hello, you’ve never met me, but I am your daughter. I’ve been searching for you to let you know you are a grandmother.”

Our remarkable reunion, chronicled in my book “The Missing Piece,” has been so fulfilling. My daughter’s husband shook my hand and tearfully remarked, “Thanks for not aborting Julie; I don’t know what my life would be like without her and our children.”

Supplying an instant abortion for a gal with an unwanted pregnancy (whether married, unmarried, raped or not) may sound compassionate--even noble--to the providers. But for a woman who is depressed, sniffing cocaine may be a welcome relief; for a person over whelmed with problems, drinking may offer instant comfort. But these remedies only lead to further problems, in much the same way an abortion also sets a woman up for future regrets. Invariably, this “abortion answer” is offered without full disclosure of its potential impact and the alternatives available.

Abortion is too permanent an answer for a temporary problem. Abortion is not an answer, it is an additional problem to be reckoned with later. Can this 14-year-old be trusted to make the best decision for her own future? Most 14-year-olds can barely decide what to wear to school in the morning! Is she being advised that this abortion will not solve the problem of victimization? Is it possible she is being coerced by the pro-choice movement, exploited by them to make a point?

For our convenience, do woman honestly have the right to eliminate the life of another who cannot speak for itself? This is not a religious issue; it is a human rights issue. The rights of unborn woman (and men) count also. Fetologists will confirm that there is no magic moment when, in the womb, this fetus will suddenly transform into a human being. If it is not a human being from conception, is it an alien being? If it is not alive, why is it growing?

Your eyes scan this column now because there was no instant answer offered to your mom. Most women I know who discovered themselves to be pregnant cried out loud. It was unexpected, not at the right time, there was not enough money, it would interfere with career plans. But in due time they got over their crisis and this groundswell of questions, and settled in on the process of giving life.

How cruel if the government had tempted our mothers with an instant answer--no more confusing questions: Simply have an abortion, on us! The question of the conception of life is not in our hands, so therefore there are no illegitimate children. Even though a couple may decide when to make love, apparently God decides when to make life.

My daughter, Julie, born of sexual assault, did not inherit any “evil genes.” As she puts it: “It doesn’t matter how I began, but what I’ll become.”

An unplanned pregnancy does not have to result in an unwanted child, not for me or that Irish teen-ager. I’m so grateful that because an easy abortion was not offered to me, I did not give this innocent child the death penalty for the crime of her father.