A:  I am so sorry…regret is a terrible thing to bear, and I can sympathise. I don’t share your same experience, but I have wrestled with overwhelming regret, and it can be debilitating.

First of all, let me try to put your mind to rest regarding the fate of your child. According the the teachings of The Urantia Book, your child is safe. While your child was not old enough to have possessed a soul (and this is true of any child under the general age of five years), it does have a potential soul, and a potential identity. Your child is located at the Probationary Nursery , and is being lovingly cared for by the cherubim until such time as either of its parents arrive on the Mansion Worlds.

Here’s a wonderful quote from The Urantia Book regarding your possible future experience with your child:

But irrespective of parental experience, mansion world parents who have growing children in the probation nursery are given every opportunity to collaborate with the morontia custodians of such children regarding their instruction and training. These parents are permitted to journey there for visits as often as four times a year. And it is one of the most touchingly beautiful scenes of all the ascending career to observe the mansion world parents embrace their material offspring on the occasions of their periodic pilgrimages to the finaliter world. While one or both parents may leave a mansion world ahead of the child, they are quite often contemporary for a season. (47:1.5)

In any event, your child is not lost, so please try to take heart from this information. Our Father is not willing that any should perish, and knowing that, we have to trust that even unborn mortals are given the same opportunity for eternal life that all mortals enjoy. I like to think that there are special places in the nursery where the unborn are nurtured and grown in safety and love. That is my own imagining, since this specific circumstance is not covered in The Urantia Book, but I feel sure that some provision is made, so that eventually, he or she will be able to choose to advance…and that you will sometime be able to meet. There is nowhere in The Urantia Book that teaches otherwise.

And, just in case you have questions about your own survival, please see our featured page on Life After Death .

As for coming to terms with your actions, let me quote a favorite passage from The Urantia Book that has been of great solace to me:

Do not become discouraged by the discovery that you are human. Human nature may tend toward evil, but it is not inherently sinful. Be not downcast by your failure wholly to forget some of your regrettable experiences. The mistakes which you fail to forget in time will be forgotten in eternity. Lighten your burdens of soul by speedily acquiring a long-distance view of your destiny, a universe expansion of your career. (156:5.8)

It is important that you learn to forgive yourself, and move forward. I am sure that, at the time, you did this for what may have seemed to be good and sufficient reasons. Ten years is a long time to carry this burden on your heart, and for your own well-being, you must release it. Maybe the knowledge that your child is not really lost will help you to do that.

Said Jesus:

“My disciples must not only cease to do evil but learn to do well; you must not only be cleansed from all conscious sin, but you must refuse to harbor even the feelings of guilt. If you confess your sins, they are forgiven; therefore must you maintain a conscience void of offense.” (156:2.7)

So, you can see from this comforting passage from Jesus that the first step in your renewal is to confess your wrongdoing, which you likely have already done, and receive God’s forgiveness for it. And one of the surest ways to receive that forgiveness is to practice the forgiveness of others in your life who may have wronged you.

Again, From The Urantia Book:

The Father in heaven has forgiven you even before you have thought to ask him, but such forgiveness is not available in your personal religious experience until such a time as you forgive your fellow men. God’s forgiveness in fact is not conditioned upon your forgiving your fellows, but in experience it is exactly so conditioned. (146:2.4)

So, while you are already forgiven, you will actually experience the fullness of that forgiveness as you, in turn, forgive others.

Yours is not the first case that I have heard of where there is regret following this decision. I am adding your letter to our site (minus any identifying information, of course) in hopes that others may see your experience and think twice before making this life-changing choice.

Maybe you could look for an opportunity to personally minister to women who are facing this dilemma; in this way, you could see some real good come from your experience.”