my dear late partner remembered his mother's sister telling him that his mother tried to induce an abortion when she was expecting him.
she may have tried to fling herself down the stairs.
apparently it was told in a withering tone of, she couldn't even get that right.
the sister, his aunt, was older, bossy, and so pragmatic as to be brutal, i'd say.
i was shocked, and said that's a terrible thing to tell any child, even when they're grown up.
he just said, no it was probably true, as there was a 10 year gap between him and his older brother.
he gleaned that possibly his mother had used the services of a local woman abortionist in the interim, but by the time he was conceived, the woman had been found out and imprisoned. so his mother tried to improvise, ineffectually.
i said, whether it happened like that or not, it was wrong to tell him.
he couldn't see it. just said it was true. maybe that was aspergic tendencies, or some defence mechanism; i don't know.