I admittedly don't even understand the logic to this. She got pregnant, supposedly wanted to keep it, but because her state has restrictive abortion laws, she decided to abort it? I just can't make sense of this.
She didn’t say she wanted to keep it, despite what this reading suggests. She says that she *might have* kept it if abortion laws gave her confidence that doctors could adequately treat her. Maybe, like this author, you may not believe her. But that’s what the article says: “If I were to stay pregnant, how would my doctors and I safely navigate the slew of serious pregnancy complications that are more likely with a pregnancy like mine (over 40 and with an IUD in place)”
The same abortion laws that restrict voluntary abortion also restrict the medical care that pregnant women can receive. The author is saying she doesn't want to be put second to her fetus if she faces a medical emergency during pregnancy that could be treated via termination — which, imo, is a critical circumstance to consider when facing a high-risk pregnancy (which geriatric pregnancies are) in a state that bans abortion.
Thank you for articulating this. There's so little empathy on all sides in much discussion of abortion and I don't think that articles like the Argument published do anything to help that.
I first read the article after seeing your tweets. And now after having read your response I went and read it again two more times and then yours once more.
I fundamentally believe you have misread the article and placed undo weight on the title and one sentence. Your criticism is based on two things:
1. She actually wanted to keep it and she only got an abortion because of the pro-life movement.
2. Her writing style is too flippant to take seriously and possibly it makes her a monster.
A plain reading of the article shows two things. She did not want another kid and she was scared to follow through with the pregnancy. Her comment about remaining pregnant was based solely around the idea that--should something happen--she could obtain an abortion later if need. Her fundamental fear, even if statically unlikely, was dying and leaving her ten year old daughter without a mother. So yes, an unwanted high risk pregnancy is absolutely "a disturbing and unwelcome development". That's literally the entire point! I'm not sure why your reaction is more valid than hers. Why hers is merely policial and yours is guided my deep moral philosophy. She put in significant effort not to get pregnant. If the moral lesson you are trying to impart is that any woman with money should not consider abortion, then just say that. You make clear that you don't think abortion should be illegal but you do think that decency and morality should entice this woman to have a high risk pregnancy. Why? It's not clear. It's simply your unstated moral principles.
Leah Libresco Sargent's post about the Georgia law is wholey unconvincing; there are numerous outcomes that are different than a miscarriage that might require an abortion. There are numerous examples of abortions being rejected in states despite them maybe sorta technically being allowed but the laws. One of the main criticisms of the post Roe world is that doctors are afraid to misread the laws because the laws are ambiguous by design.
I also don't think tone policing someone's story has much merit whatsoever. It absolutely does not read like a flippant fun story about getting an abortion. And frankly stating that "it reads like a false flag operation intended to make liberal women look like sociopaths, terminating healthy pregnancies out of spite" is a such a grotesque reading of the story is shocked me. Your tendancy to ascribe meaning to things invented out of whole cloth is exceptionally callous.
You are free to have any reaction you want to this article based on your own history, but I couldn't agree less with your interpretation. This reaponse was unconvincing at best and deliberate bad faith reading at worst. Your engagement with Demsas et al was disappointing to say the least.
“You make clear that you don't think abortion should be illegal but you do think that decency and morality should entice this woman to have a high risk pregnancy.”
I’m afraid I can’t agree that I make this clear; indeed it would be very strange if I did, given that I didn’t write that and it’s not even close to what I believe. The problem, I think, is that this post is a meta-critique of the article as a piece of literature/media, and you’ve mistaken it for a criticism of the author as a person. You’re certainly correct that it doesn’t work as the latter thing, but that’s hardly surprising because it isn’t the latter thing.
Actually, Robert, it's just that I'm right and you're wrong, although I understand your reluctance to acknowledge this given how far out over your skis you got in your original comment (which I suspect you wrote very hastily and in a fit of pique, given the number of spelling and grammatical errors in it.) It's okay to make mistakes, it happens to the best of us. What's not really okay is to sling insults at someone in the comments of her own blog -- and then, when politely corrected, lash out and call her a liar -- and I must ask that you please hold yourself to a higher standard in future replies. Thanks!
I’m also a pro-choice millennial woman who has become uncomfortable with the current liberal discourse on abortion. I do think some on the left have fully lost sight of the ethical dilemma or that some people have genuinely-held pro-life convictions. The “bundle of cells” framing hits different and feels very insensitive when you’re suffering a miscarriage of a very wanted baby or as I look at my earthside babies and think they were once a “bundle of cells”. Anyway, you perfectly articulated my own complicated feelings on the topic that apparently I’m not allowed to feel or express openly if I consider myself a good liberal woman. I’m very sorry to hear about your infertility struggles. Wishing you strength as you navigate through this struggle and pray everything works out for you.
I didn’t have the strong reaction that you did, but I have to agree that the piece was not consistent with someone who might have kept their baby if they lived in a blue state. I’d have much preferred that the author not imply as much. I think I’d even have been more patient with a framing that the abortion laws of Georgia *delayed* the abortion, which seems morally relevant to me too, and much less disingenuous? I’d be curious if that would temper your thoughts here.
I got the feeling that the author couldn't state the obvious--a woman with an IUD has no interest in carrying a child--and hedged to avoid accusations of being unmotherly or uncaring. Which, to state the obvious again, didn't work.
I have to confess that my reaction was "wait, it's only $3000 with travel? that's cheap!" but it is not her fault that I have had more expensive medical encounters.
The purpose of "stories" like that, in that tone, is to get the other tribe members all a-tingle. "I'm so right and they're so wrong and it feels soooooo goooooood." It's a massage, not an argument or an exposition.
You're absolutely right that articles like this won't change any pro-life people's opinions. But the onslaught of articles misrepresenting red states' laws providing for miscarriage and other emergent treatment can definitely persuade both pro-life and stuck-in-the-middle people that there's more propaganda than honesty in the journalistic coverage of this sensitive topic.
My position is closer to Leah Libresco Sargeant's than yours, but I really appreciate people like you and her who insist upon discussing abortion and pregnancy with honesty and care.
I'm so sorry for your personal experience with infertility. Thank you for this piece.
Part of the issue is that women who are willing to say “I needed miscarriage care in a state with a heartbeat bill and got it” are rare online, because you get absolutely dogpiled if you do. When means the only stories that are told are awful ones. Of course those situations are awful and should be addressed, but it’s not the case that every miscarrying woman in a red state goes without care. The terrible cases are the exceptions.
I know a woman who is right this minute weighing her options for miscarriage care in Georgia, and they are literally the same options every woman I've known in every state in the same sad situation has had. I have also been through a pregnancy in a different red state post-Dobbs (fortunately a relatively uneventful one), and my OB care was the same as it had been pre-Dobbs.
There are a lot of people who are too online and don't want to believe these things, though, just as there are many gay people who persist in believing that their marriages are endangered despite lots of evidence to the contrary. It's a tough problem. I don't personally blame the media, as I can see a lot of these people seeking out scary allegations from their own acquaintances online. But the avalanche of poorly reported stories from notable sources like Pro Publica definitely doesn't help.
I'm also a pro-choice person who was left pretty cold by the piece. Taking a generous reading of the pro-life electorate of Georgia, the point of the law is to exchange the welfare of the pregnant woman for the welfare of her fetus, making her life more difficult and more dangerous but the life of her unborn child possible. You can call those values misplaced or argue as an empirical matter that the policy is unwise, but to me it's a legitimate and genuinely difficult tradeoff.
I agree with you that the humor and attempts at wit in the piece fall completely flat. It's giving a tone of, "I am like you, i.e. someone who drinks matcha lattes, but I am surrounded by crazies! Look at all the crazy shit they're putting me through!" To engage with the values of pro-life people, the piece would have to be a sober account of someone who genuinely wanted her pregnancy but concluded that the state laws would prevent her from getting adequate care (there have been a ton of pieces like that published in the last year!). If you're not going to engage, then spare everyone the concern-trolling about how this is actually increasing the number of abortions.
I think you do a good job here articulating your perspective, but frankly you are lacking in reflection about your interaction with Demsas on twitter. You say she "scolded" you for criticizing the article in terms she dislikes, but on twitter you did not actually levy a single criticism against the article, you expressed your revulsion then got increasingly mad that people weren't taking your revulsion as serious criticism. Had you started off with the actual criticisms you have written here, then there would have actually been something for Demsas to respond to.
A good reason to be pro-choice generally, regardless of compelling moral qualms, is to enable women like the anonymous writer (and her fellow travelers) to abort as easily as possible.
(Yes. I’m being glibly provocative and hyperbolic to register the same kind of reaction our author had re the repugnance of that writer, but it’s also true that collectively we are probably better off with her not raising kids. )
18 times. I am so sorry. I have heard you discuss your struggles, but that detail is heart breaking.
I admittedly don't even understand the logic to this. She got pregnant, supposedly wanted to keep it, but because her state has restrictive abortion laws, she decided to abort it? I just can't make sense of this.
Seems like human sacrifice with extra steps.
She didn’t say she wanted to keep it, despite what this reading suggests. She says that she *might have* kept it if abortion laws gave her confidence that doctors could adequately treat her. Maybe, like this author, you may not believe her. But that’s what the article says: “If I were to stay pregnant, how would my doctors and I safely navigate the slew of serious pregnancy complications that are more likely with a pregnancy like mine (over 40 and with an IUD in place)”
"Supposedly wanted to keep it" is doing a shit ton of heavy lifting and isn't borne by a fair reading of the article.
The same abortion laws that restrict voluntary abortion also restrict the medical care that pregnant women can receive. The author is saying she doesn't want to be put second to her fetus if she faces a medical emergency during pregnancy that could be treated via termination — which, imo, is a critical circumstance to consider when facing a high-risk pregnancy (which geriatric pregnancies are) in a state that bans abortion.
"I wasn't going to eat my cake. But because you told me it was okay not to, I decided I would. And it's your fault, you gluttonous piece of shit."
Thank you for articulating this. There's so little empathy on all sides in much discussion of abortion and I don't think that articles like the Argument published do anything to help that.
I first read the article after seeing your tweets. And now after having read your response I went and read it again two more times and then yours once more.
I fundamentally believe you have misread the article and placed undo weight on the title and one sentence. Your criticism is based on two things:
1. She actually wanted to keep it and she only got an abortion because of the pro-life movement.
2. Her writing style is too flippant to take seriously and possibly it makes her a monster.
A plain reading of the article shows two things. She did not want another kid and she was scared to follow through with the pregnancy. Her comment about remaining pregnant was based solely around the idea that--should something happen--she could obtain an abortion later if need. Her fundamental fear, even if statically unlikely, was dying and leaving her ten year old daughter without a mother. So yes, an unwanted high risk pregnancy is absolutely "a disturbing and unwelcome development". That's literally the entire point! I'm not sure why your reaction is more valid than hers. Why hers is merely policial and yours is guided my deep moral philosophy. She put in significant effort not to get pregnant. If the moral lesson you are trying to impart is that any woman with money should not consider abortion, then just say that. You make clear that you don't think abortion should be illegal but you do think that decency and morality should entice this woman to have a high risk pregnancy. Why? It's not clear. It's simply your unstated moral principles.
Leah Libresco Sargent's post about the Georgia law is wholey unconvincing; there are numerous outcomes that are different than a miscarriage that might require an abortion. There are numerous examples of abortions being rejected in states despite them maybe sorta technically being allowed but the laws. One of the main criticisms of the post Roe world is that doctors are afraid to misread the laws because the laws are ambiguous by design.
I also don't think tone policing someone's story has much merit whatsoever. It absolutely does not read like a flippant fun story about getting an abortion. And frankly stating that "it reads like a false flag operation intended to make liberal women look like sociopaths, terminating healthy pregnancies out of spite" is a such a grotesque reading of the story is shocked me. Your tendancy to ascribe meaning to things invented out of whole cloth is exceptionally callous.
You are free to have any reaction you want to this article based on your own history, but I couldn't agree less with your interpretation. This reaponse was unconvincing at best and deliberate bad faith reading at worst. Your engagement with Demsas et al was disappointing to say the least.
“You make clear that you don't think abortion should be illegal but you do think that decency and morality should entice this woman to have a high risk pregnancy.”
I’m afraid I can’t agree that I make this clear; indeed it would be very strange if I did, given that I didn’t write that and it’s not even close to what I believe. The problem, I think, is that this post is a meta-critique of the article as a piece of literature/media, and you’ve mistaken it for a criticism of the author as a person. You’re certainly correct that it doesn’t work as the latter thing, but that’s hardly surprising because it isn’t the latter thing.
This is just wildly dishonest. You cannot write what you did and then disingenuously claim it's mere media criticism.
Actually, Robert, it's just that I'm right and you're wrong, although I understand your reluctance to acknowledge this given how far out over your skis you got in your original comment (which I suspect you wrote very hastily and in a fit of pique, given the number of spelling and grammatical errors in it.) It's okay to make mistakes, it happens to the best of us. What's not really okay is to sling insults at someone in the comments of her own blog -- and then, when politely corrected, lash out and call her a liar -- and I must ask that you please hold yourself to a higher standard in future replies. Thanks!
Okay, I'll bite. So she wanted an abortion and she got an abortion. What's the big deal about the article then?
Seriously? It's all good as long as you can fly somewhere?
So she had to travel out of state? That's the crux of the article?
Yes, if you're pro-life that's probably a great insight.
Is that really newsworthy?
Brilliant analysis mixed with poignant personal testimony.
I also long for the days when Bill Clinton could publicly describe his desire that abortion be "safe legal and rare", especially the rare part.
I’m also a pro-choice millennial woman who has become uncomfortable with the current liberal discourse on abortion. I do think some on the left have fully lost sight of the ethical dilemma or that some people have genuinely-held pro-life convictions. The “bundle of cells” framing hits different and feels very insensitive when you’re suffering a miscarriage of a very wanted baby or as I look at my earthside babies and think they were once a “bundle of cells”. Anyway, you perfectly articulated my own complicated feelings on the topic that apparently I’m not allowed to feel or express openly if I consider myself a good liberal woman. I’m very sorry to hear about your infertility struggles. Wishing you strength as you navigate through this struggle and pray everything works out for you.
I didn’t have the strong reaction that you did, but I have to agree that the piece was not consistent with someone who might have kept their baby if they lived in a blue state. I’d have much preferred that the author not imply as much. I think I’d even have been more patient with a framing that the abortion laws of Georgia *delayed* the abortion, which seems morally relevant to me too, and much less disingenuous? I’d be curious if that would temper your thoughts here.
I got the feeling that the author couldn't state the obvious--a woman with an IUD has no interest in carrying a child--and hedged to avoid accusations of being unmotherly or uncaring. Which, to state the obvious again, didn't work.
I have to confess that my reaction was "wait, it's only $3000 with travel? that's cheap!" but it is not her fault that I have had more expensive medical encounters.
The purpose of "stories" like that, in that tone, is to get the other tribe members all a-tingle. "I'm so right and they're so wrong and it feels soooooo goooooood." It's a massage, not an argument or an exposition.
Which is extra annoying given that Desmas’s stated point of The Argument is to explore the question “How can we get along?”
You're absolutely right that articles like this won't change any pro-life people's opinions. But the onslaught of articles misrepresenting red states' laws providing for miscarriage and other emergent treatment can definitely persuade both pro-life and stuck-in-the-middle people that there's more propaganda than honesty in the journalistic coverage of this sensitive topic.
My position is closer to Leah Libresco Sargeant's than yours, but I really appreciate people like you and her who insist upon discussing abortion and pregnancy with honesty and care.
I'm so sorry for your personal experience with infertility. Thank you for this piece.
Part of the issue is that women who are willing to say “I needed miscarriage care in a state with a heartbeat bill and got it” are rare online, because you get absolutely dogpiled if you do. When means the only stories that are told are awful ones. Of course those situations are awful and should be addressed, but it’s not the case that every miscarrying woman in a red state goes without care. The terrible cases are the exceptions.
I know a woman who is right this minute weighing her options for miscarriage care in Georgia, and they are literally the same options every woman I've known in every state in the same sad situation has had. I have also been through a pregnancy in a different red state post-Dobbs (fortunately a relatively uneventful one), and my OB care was the same as it had been pre-Dobbs.
There are a lot of people who are too online and don't want to believe these things, though, just as there are many gay people who persist in believing that their marriages are endangered despite lots of evidence to the contrary. It's a tough problem. I don't personally blame the media, as I can see a lot of these people seeking out scary allegations from their own acquaintances online. But the avalanche of poorly reported stories from notable sources like Pro Publica definitely doesn't help.
I blame the media. And posters from other countries trying to get clicks. And the clicker. And those monetizing the clicks
Thanks Kat. I love this take.
I'm also a pro-choice person who was left pretty cold by the piece. Taking a generous reading of the pro-life electorate of Georgia, the point of the law is to exchange the welfare of the pregnant woman for the welfare of her fetus, making her life more difficult and more dangerous but the life of her unborn child possible. You can call those values misplaced or argue as an empirical matter that the policy is unwise, but to me it's a legitimate and genuinely difficult tradeoff.
I agree with you that the humor and attempts at wit in the piece fall completely flat. It's giving a tone of, "I am like you, i.e. someone who drinks matcha lattes, but I am surrounded by crazies! Look at all the crazy shit they're putting me through!" To engage with the values of pro-life people, the piece would have to be a sober account of someone who genuinely wanted her pregnancy but concluded that the state laws would prevent her from getting adequate care (there have been a ton of pieces like that published in the last year!). If you're not going to engage, then spare everyone the concern-trolling about how this is actually increasing the number of abortions.
Abortion as virtue signaling is a very bad look.
I think you do a good job here articulating your perspective, but frankly you are lacking in reflection about your interaction with Demsas on twitter. You say she "scolded" you for criticizing the article in terms she dislikes, but on twitter you did not actually levy a single criticism against the article, you expressed your revulsion then got increasingly mad that people weren't taking your revulsion as serious criticism. Had you started off with the actual criticisms you have written here, then there would have actually been something for Demsas to respond to.
I think you’ve fundamentally misunderstood how that interaction played out but I’m just really not interested in relitigating it, sorry!
A good reason to be pro-choice generally, regardless of compelling moral qualms, is to enable women like the anonymous writer (and her fellow travelers) to abort as easily as possible.
(Yes. I’m being glibly provocative and hyperbolic to register the same kind of reaction our author had re the repugnance of that writer, but it’s also true that collectively we are probably better off with her not raising kids. )
"t’s so dishonest, and cynical, and manipulative. It feels like emotional blackmail dressed up as investigative journalism"
Ah, I see you're talking about our beloved legacy media.