That pulled him up. For the first time he grasped, with the only kind of knowledge that matters, what they were really talking about. The words “a baby” took on a new significance. They did not mean any longer a mere abstract disaster, they meant a bud of flesh, a bit of himself, down there in her belly, alive and growing. . . . He knew then that it was a dreadful thing they were contemplating — a blasphemy, if that word had any meaning.
-from Keep the Aspidistra Flying