A singer formerly of the band Take That has recounted the heartbreak of losing his first child to abortion when he was in a relationship with his former fiancé.
Nicole Appleton, a member of the pop group All Saints, was engaged to Robbie Williams, 49, in the late 1990s, when the singer was at the height of his fame, following the release of the hit single “Angels”.
When Appleton became pregnant, Williams was overjoyed. “Robbie put his hand on my belly and told me, ‘This baby is saving my life’”, she later recalled in her autobiography. During this time, Williams was battling a drug and drink addiction, and he believed that fatherhood would help set him straight.
But Appleton said she was pressured by her record company to have an abortion, which she ultimately went through with. In its aftermath, Appleton found herself in a state of disbelief about the abortion. “I wanted to kill myself. Afterwards, everyone pretended it hadn’t happened.”
Although Williams says he was “completely behind her”, he was nevertheless “really sad” about the abortion of the baby that he believed might transform his life for the better. “It really upset me and tore me apart.”
The couple later broke up, and Williams went on to marry Ayda Field, with whom he has four children.
SPUC comment
A SPUC spokesperson said: “While abortion steals away the life of an unborn child, it also robs men and women of parenthood, a devastating reality that inflicts heartbreak and a huge emotional toll.
“The circumstances of this abortion are especially shocking, though not uncommon, a young mother pressured to have an abortion. For all pro-abortion idealogues talk about ‘choice’, the truth is that women’s choices are often undermined by employers, family and even abortion ideology itself, which seeks more unborn deaths.
“We can all learn from such tragic accounts that expose the lie promoted by the unscrupulous that abortion is about freedom and does no harm, when in fact it is quite the opposite.”
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