John stopped Ono's abortion

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

John Lennon stopped wife Yoko Ono from aborting their only son Sean. Ono was unsure if she should keep the unborn child because it was conceived shortly after the couple were reunited after splitting up for 18 months in the early 70s.

She told BBC Radio 4's 'Desert Island Discs': "I know it sounds strange now but I thought, well, I should let John decide whether to keep it or not. "We'd just got back together and I became pregnant very soon, and I didn't know if it was the right moment to have a child because maybe he didn't want it. I didn't want to burden him with something he didn't want. "He said, 'Of course we are going to keep it', and he was really upset with my remark."

Ono, who married Lennon in 1969, gave birth to Sean in 1975. Lennon took a five-year career break to help raise Sean and virtually stopped playing the guitar and creating music. Lennon, who was murdered by crazed fan Mark Chapman in New York in December 1980, was desperate to get home to see Sean on the night of his death. Ono, 74, revealed: "I said, 'Shall we go out and have dinner before we go home.' John was saying he wanted to go home before Sean went to sleep. He was concerned about that. This is the last thing he said, that he wanted to see Sean."