What If Emilia Kaczorowska Had Aborted Her Child?

Emilia Kaczorowska was pregnant, but she was ill—so ill, in fact, that her doctor encouraged her to have an abortion, to give up the baby she was carrying rather than risk her own life. With a husband in military service, wouldn’t it be more important to care for herself?

But Emilia said no. She had already lost one child, a daughter named Olga, in childbirth. Despite her physician’s urging, she continued the pregnancy and gave birth to a healthy baby boy on May 18, 1920. Only nine years later, she died following a long illness.

Emilia had lived in Wadowice, Poland.

I mention that fact to give you a hint: Emilia’s child, the son whom she’d been advised to abort, was Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II.

Polish writer Milena Kindziuk tells the story in her new book, The Mother of the Pope, which has not yet been released in America.

Pope John Paul II left a strong pro-life legacy which included, most notably, his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life).