Dear Elizabeth,

It has taken me a long time to write this letter, but I think it is time. If you were here you would be 33. Of course you are not. The reason you are not is why this letter is necessary. You see your mother and I decided many years ago when we very young and very scared, that sacrificing your life would somehow make our lives better. We had a lot of support in this notion. Many people we talked to agreed that having a child while we were both in school would be a terrible inconvenience and would really screw up our futures. I am not shifting blame to others just letting you know that what we did we did only after giving it much thought. As a matter of fact we gave it considerable thought. Our original decision was to get married, bring you into this world and become a family. We even got to the point of putting a deposit on married housing and deciding on names, Michael for a boy and Elizabeth for a girl. I guess I just have always known you were a daughter. But in the end we made a very different decision. Did it make our lives better, probably not and it obviously stole from you your chance to have one. You see I don’t really think your mother ever got over the fact that she decided you were disposable. I know I never did. Eventually we ended up getting a divorce anyway and at least the last few years of our marriage weren’t really that good. Would your presence have changed that? I would like to think that it would have. I know that is an awful heavy burden to place on a tiny soul that never had a chance at life, but I think having a child to love and bond with might have made us a family. Something we never were. Career, money and friends can only take you so far in a marriage, being a family and having kids and responsibilities are what really force you to make it work. Having you around would have also given us both something other than ourselves to be concerned about. You see I don’t think you can destroy that which is created in love and expect the love that created it to survive.

I have often asked myself would I have been a good father. I don’t know, because I never had a chance to find out. You see after we decided you were an inconvenience your mother could never bring herself to try again. I look around at men I know who are father and have come to the conclusion that sometimes you grow into the job. I would like to think I would have done just that. From my upbringing I think I knew pretty much what didn’t work and hopefully I could have avoided the mistakes my father made with me. I think your mother would have done all right too. She would have been strict, but loving. You would have been expected to succeed, but that is not a bad thing. Through inheritance alone you would have been born with all the tools necessary to be a success. I know you would have been a good looking young woman, smart and caring. Hopefully you would have inherited my love of sports and your mothers love of poetry. We both liked the outdoors and understood the value of a good education and being a life-long learner. All of this would have stood you in good stead for your journey through life. You would have had two sets of loving grandparents and a solid extended family of uncles, aunts and cousins, and hopefully a sibling or two.

By now I would expect you would be married and settled into a career and family of your own. I have no idea what you would be doing with yourself, but I am sure you would be good at it. I know you would have been a daughter who made your mother and me proud.

I guess the saddest thing about all of this is that it is just speculation. It is the desires of an old man who is looking back on a decision he made when he was very young and realizes how wrong he was. The real reason for this letter though is not to speculate on what might have been but to apologize for what is. I can never change what was done in April of 1971, I can only ask for your forgiveness for having done it. No one has the right to take away another person right at a chance for life. Is this a pro-choice issue? Yes, but only to the point where you decide to create life. After that it must become a pro-life issue. That is where your mother and I were wrong. We made the choice to chance creating a new life and then when we did we made the horrible choice to deny that baby its right to life. That baby was you. We stole your birthright and for that I am truly sorry and ask your forgiveness.

Your Dad,

Ric Wilcox

Indianapolis, IN