[Clara Lou]

A more rational reading would be that the poor lady was driven around the bend by post-abortion guilt.
Exactly the thought that I had this morning in my car. I wonder if the woman feels free of those guilt feelings--at the expense of a child who will not grow up with her natural mother? I wonder when guilt-feelings for doing this to a child will set in?

[Mach9]

An utterly rational take. But there's so much we don't know . . . doing WHAT to a child, exactly? No mother is guaranteed of living out all her responsibilities to a child, no child guaranteed continued parenting.

[Tax-chick]

I don't know what the outcome will be. Maybe she'll live to be 100. Maybe the hired nurse will be a good "substitute mother" for many years. Maybe the child will be happy. We can't predict the future, which is why morality can't be based on outcome.

Perhaps she could have dealt with her guilt by allowing this child (which is not genetically hers, after all) to be adopted by a married couple. Although that wouldn't help the (at least three) babies who died during the "production" of the one that survived.