On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann revealed that the miscarriage she and her husband experienced forged her reverence for life and her opposition to abortion.

I'd like to tell about similar tragedy that produced an entirely different result. In 1973, my son Marc was born. He was a beautiful baby with blue eyes and golden hair. When he was a year old, he was diagnosed with a metabolic disorder that carried with an absolute death sentence at about age 3.

When my wife became pregnant the second time, we were told that amniocentesis could be used to test the unborn fetus to see if it, too, was affected. We learned that Mendelian genetics indicated that we had a 75 percent chance of producing a baby that would survive.

Unfortunately, this fetus was found to be affected, too.

We chose to have an abortion simply because we could not bear to bring another child into the world who would never sit or crawl or speak, and who would die at age 3 with absolutely no hope of medicine, diet or surgery that could correct the problem.

My wife wanted to have children of our own, and the doctor counseled us that if we could stay strong, and if we could handle the possibility of enduring more abortions, eventually we could produce children who could lead a normal life.

Evan was born one month before Marc died, and Amanda was our sixth pregnancy. We thanked God and quit at that point. Without abortion, we would not have two healthy, grown children today.

NEAL M. ROSEN, WIMAUMA, FLA.