Karen Afua Panyin Kane, a well-known stylist and fashion enthusiast who owns Kash Boutique, is of the view that pregnancy should not be a reason one decides to settle for marriage.

The entrepreneur, speaking on Just Being Us with MzGee, shared how she single-handedly raised her daughter for years after her boyfriend, who impregnated her, refused responsibility for her pregnancy during her stay in the United Kingdom.

“For me, I met this guy, and we were dating, and I thought we were free to do anything, and I also thought that, you know, we were in this together—me and him—but it turned out that I was in this all by myself,” she said.

She added that her parents, who had sent her abroad, were disappointed with the outcome of her affair in the UK. As a result, she initially contemplated aborting her child, but the scheduled time for the procedure was unfavourable.

“One time, I decided to go to my sexual health nurse and book an appointment to have an abortion. The date they gave me—if I had gone to do an abortion on that date—my daughter would have been six months in my stomach, and it would have been impossible,” she explained.

Karen, who is now happily married, said she had to deal with societal pressure as a single mother for years.

“Pregnancy is not a good enough reason to be married to somebody,” Karen opined.

“I have always said that being a single mother is not something you plan. If it happens to you, it is not a bad thing. One advantage of being a single mother was the fact that I felt I had to work hard to prove to somebody that this is what you missed out on or something,” she added.