I have a child, and will likely be having another. I love them dearly. But to pretend that the birth process was "wondrous and miraculous" is papering over reality. It was bloody and gruesome. My wife was given an epidural to help control the very significant amounts of pain. During the birth, there was blood everywhere. While the newborn was being attended to by nurses, my wife had her vagina stitched back together. And to this day she deals with prolapse, which is where her organs drop out of her vagina. Among my friend groups, this was one of the easier/more routine pregnancies.

I agree with you. I felt disgusted writing it. For me, pregnancy inspires feelings of wonder and magic and awe. Yet for others, pregnancy may cause them to feel fear, pain, and hopelessness.

I don't want to characterize pregnancy this way, I also don't want to characterize almost any human interaction this way. I prefer to believe that we all have good intentions and sometimes accidentally hurt people and that most of us are trying our absolute best to minimize pain and maximize joy, especially to those around us. So what can hurt me is how so many mothers may feel pain whether they keep the baby or abort, and we often demonize them for making one of the hardest and most gut-wrenching decisions in their lives. That's not to say I don't feel pain for the unborn child, I also feel the pain of the lost life. But I also feel the pain for the child who is born and kills the mother, or who is born and is resented by the mother or abandoned.

I feel pain all around the situation and it hurts me that we can be so quick to demonize the unborn child or the mother.