Living with my friend has changed how I think about “pro-life,” and I feel conflicted

I’ve lived with a close friend for about five years, and my views around pregnancy, motherhood, and what it means to value “life” have shifted a lot. I’m trying to hold compassion for her, but I also feel deeply unsettled and I’m not sure if I’m being unfair.

My friend was raised partly in the UK but moved back to her home country around age 14/15. Life became very difficult there. She didn’t finish school, couldn’t work, and had a baby young. I don’t think the baby’s dad was involved.

When she was 24 (she’s 34 now), she left her son with her grandmother when he was only four months old, and returned to the UK at 25 to work and send money back for school and necessities. She has provided financially, but she has never returned to visit her child. He is now 10, and recently she said to me they are basically strangers.

To be clear, it isn’t that she physically can’t go back. She is able to travel and has planned multiple trips over the years, including trips with family. She has a salaried job now and is no longer in the same “survival mode” situation she was in when she first came back to the UK. That’s part of why I feel so unsettled — at this point it doesn’t feel like money is the main barrier. The reality is her child doesn’t really know her, and the longer it goes on, the harder that relationship will be to rebuild.

What complicates this further is that she’s very avoidant about the situation. Her sister moved to the UK in 2021 and also had a child young, but she goes back often and maintains a relationship with her daughter. So I can see that staying connected, while difficult, isn’t impossible.

Recently my friend started talking about wanting two more children, and I can’t lie, it’s brought up a lot of emotions. It feels like wanting a “fresh start” family without fully facing the emotional reality of the child she already has and barely knows.

On top of this, she is very strongly pro-life, and we’ve argued about it. I’m firmly pro-choice — I believe women should have the right to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy, especially because bringing a child into the world isn’t something you do lightly. She has said things like rape victims should continue pregnancies because “life is beautiful.” I understand people have different beliefs, but I’m struggling to reconcile that stance with the fact that she has been absent from her own child for years. It feels contradictory to insist that other women should continue pregnancies under any circumstance, while not being present for the child you already have.

I’m not posting this to call her a monster. I understand migration, survival mode, and the pressure to provide financially. But living close to this has made me think differently about motherhood, responsibility, and what happens to children emotionally when parents are physically absent for years.

Has anyone witnessed something like this and had their beliefs shift? How do you hold compassion for the mother while still acknowledging the child’s loss? And is this kind of avoidance/“starting over” common psychologically, or am I right to feel uneasy about it?