This story definitely made me feel uncomfortable, which is why I listen in the first place. I thought the larger theme here was addiction--and the requisite selfishness inherent in that disease--as opposed to abortion. Obviously the main character was an alcoholic, and had suffered many consequences for it, but refused to come to the realization that she was sick. In the end, she sacrifices a child to her disease, and then the obsession with the chid becomes part of her disease. Her desire for a child is perverted, though, because it comes from a place of ultimate selfishness, not from any sense of love. She wants a child to make herself feel whole, and will destroy that child again to achieve that elusive feeling. The tragedy is that she continues to obsess over outside things--liquor, sex, and now children--instead of becoming introspective and learning how to make herself whole without destroying others. Her life will now be a continuing metaphor of the cycle of addiction that passes from the addict to her children. As the older witch said, even if she lets the child survive, she will turn it into a creature like herself. A broken thing, never whole, always consuming others, and insatiable.