Does She Really Think Death Is Better Than Adoption?
18th May 2022
Over at Salon (yeah, I know), Joan Walsh weighed in on the leaked Dobbs opinion. It’s the usual Joan Walsh stuff, but one argument stuck out. She makes it in response to Justice Barrett’s comment, made during her confirmation hearing, that abortion seems less and less necessary given the option of adoption. Walsh’s counter-argument goes like this: Abortion should remain lawful because giving live babies up for adoption can be upsetting to their moms.
My question (if I were Walsh’s editor) would be: “How about you explain to your readers why giving a live daughter up for adoption is more upsetting than killing her?” Walsh does not bother with that question, and her silence on that point is telling. Here’s why: If gestating babies are as inconsequential as pro-choicers like Walsh say they are (not a human; not a life; a clump of cells), then abortion is no more morally consequential than cutting your hair. But I doubt Walsh would ever make the claim that donating one’s cut hair (to be made into wigs for cancer patients, for example) is more upsetting than throwing it in the garbage.
The whole point about abortion is convenience. Anything that makes it less convenient is to be opposed.
UPDATE: The left doesn’t think women can do it all Told you so.