Maybe.
1. During the period where she either miscarried or aborted, <PERSON> was under virtual house arrest under <PERSON> supervision. <PERSON> was ferociously loyal to <PERSON> and would never have permitted <PERSON> to go out for such an errand, nor given the necessary parameters would she have been likely to slip it past him (see point 2).
2. Abortion was illegal in Nevada in 1958-59, without exceptions. It would have taken a substantial bribe either to a street lady or an even more substantial one to a licensed medical practitioner in a very discrete location to make one happen.
3. It’s not clear how much time passes between <PERSON>’s return from the a East Coast and Cuba and his subpoena in D.C., but if <PERSON> had actually aborted intending to leave <PERSON>, wouldn’t it have made more sense for her to leave as soon as he got back? (Unless of course she feared physical restraint - not unreasonable given the house arrest - and D.C. 86
was her first “window of flight.”)
4. Murdering one’s own child to blunt and escape a cold-blooded Machiavellian tyrant is pretty cold-blooded and Machiavellian in its own right. Merely saying that it had happened seems to be a good tactic to provoke a schism, which it did, but I don’t think <PERSON> is anywhere near as cold-heartedly Machiavellian as <PERSON> and even he wouldn’t directly murder one of his own children on such grounds.
5. Further to point 4. her tone and demeanor when she tells the tale ring false, a hint that not only is she lying but also that she’s a less Machiavellian person than <PERSON> and a less convincing liar.
6. I’ve not read any of the books, but I’m told that in one of them <PERSON> had the family doctor killed believing it was he who had performed the abortion and <PERSON>, horrified, confessed remorsefully that she had in fact miscarried but she had feigned having an abortion to hurt <PERSON>. I realize the books are not film-canon and I also understand <PERSON> evolves somewhat differently in the novels versus the films but given the close collaboration between <PERSON> and <PERSON> plus the above evidence this has to be at least a hint as to the narrative intention. 247