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I did not want to raise a genetically compromised child. I did not want my children to have to contend with the massive diversion of parental attention, and the consequences of being compelled to care for their brother after I died. I wanted a genetically perfect baby, and because that was something I could control, I chose to end his life.

My mother desperately wanted children. She had a child that was stillborn - something I learned when I was looking through her 'effects' after she had died. It was then that I discovered my original birth certificate, which indicated the previous birth.

I researched children's rights, divorce law, and parental kidnapping. Millions of children and parents are touched by the inadequacy of the legal system to deal with the human heart.

Meanwhile I married and I adopted three kids who were all from one family and then later I was divorced.

For the past 25 years as an adoption attorney, I have witnessed the extraordinary courage and compassion of women - from age 14 to 40 - facing unplanned pregnancy. Not once did I believe that the government should interfere with their personal and private decision.

I'm not a good father and they're not children any more; the eldest is in his fifties. My relationship with their mothers broke down and, because of what the law was, they went with their mothers and were imbued with their mothers' morality in life and they were not my people any more.

I don't have children that I've lost in a bitter custody dispute. But I see an enormous wound in kids due to a lack of their dads.

I was an unhappy child, and that puts me off having a child of my own.

I was so intent as a young lawyer on beating the men at their own game that I didn't take any real maternity leave with my three younger children. It is only looking back that I realise I wasn't beating the system but reinforcing it.

I never believed in pushing my kids. My dad was very unhappy I wasn't going to be a doctor, but I couldn't stand to see the sight of blood. And I wanted to be a lawyer since I was in seventh or eighth grade.