Prefacing this to say that I understand this is a sensitive topic - I'm trying my best to handle it respectfully.

I read a book yesterday with an accidental pregnancy, and for some reason it hit me hard.  The heroine faced all kinds of reasons why she shouldn’t have a baby, which was conceived after a one-night-stand and a condom failure.  She was young, alone and terrified to tell her family, as well as worried about what having a baby on her own would do to her budding career.  

There was a moment when her best friend asked if she was keeping the baby, and she replied that of course she was.  They hugged and suddenly she was thrilled about being a mom, and I didn’t understand how that switch had flipped.  It made me think about reproductive choice in romance and why the author wrote the story the way she did.  What if the heroine had chosen abortion?  Even though her friend framed the question as "if," it seemed like a foregone conclusion that she would continue the pregnancy.   

I understand why authors may not feel free to write an abortion into their book, which would unfortunately make it potentially controversial.  In many ways romance is an escape, and abortion is a heavy topic, so maybe authors avoid it for that reason as well.  I’ve read several books where unwanted pregnancies end with a miscarriage, which avoids a heroine carrying an unwanted pregnancy without forcing the issue of reproductive choice.  In most contemporary romances I read, the use of birth control is normalized, avoiding accidental pregnancies in the first place. 

I'm also sensitive to the fact that it's not my place to tell the author how to tell the story they envision. The pregnancy in this case served the plot, even though I felt uncomfortable for the heroine.

Personally, I was raised very anti-choice.  My views evolved as a young adult, but it wasn’t until I was pregnant with my oldest child that I became fully pro-choice.  I had a much-wanted, medically uneventful pregnancy that my partner and I were financially prepared for, and it was still terrifying to me.  I feel strongly that no one should be forced to go through a pregnancy if they don’t choose to, and for me that includes romance heroines!  

That brings me to my question for the group - does abortion have a place in contemporary romance?  Would you want to see it represented more, if authors felt free to write it?  Does the surprise baby trope mean that we accept that contemporary heroines (authors) do have choice in most cases, and they're choosing to keep the baby because that's the story the author wants for them?

Thank you, lovely people, for considering 💜