To mark the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the New York Times’ parenting blog ran an essay frome a self-proclaimed “pro-choice” “nice mommie” who is silently judging her friends for having abortions.
Christina Loccke can no longer bring herself to support her friends who are having abortions because she wants another baby:
But something changed once I became a mother. Pregnancy went from Scarlet Letter to Holy Grail — something deeply desired and no longer feared. Abortions seemed more something in a campaign platform. What felt most real was the fact that my husband and I wanted another child.
This is a total non sequitur. If she’s pro-choice, she should understand the choice part. She wants another baby, and some of her friends don’t. It’s all good. I’m sure she expects her her friends who are terminating to be happy for her when she gets pregnant. No doubt they will be, because they’re her friends and they want her to have what she wants, not necessarily what they want for themselves.
Perhaps aware of the weakness of her argument, Loccke tries to convince us that other women share her bizarre emotional response:
Somehow, motherhood had slyly changed us. We went from basking in the rights that feminism had afforded us to silently pledging never to exercise them. Nice mommies don’t talk about abortion — it is relegated to the dark and dirty corners of our conscious, only to emerge favorably in the voting booth. Yes, we believe in a woman’s right to choose. No, we don’t actually believe she should use it in the face of women choosing to have their children. This is the feminist mother’s greatest taboo.
She should speak for herself. If nice mommies don’t talk about abortion, how does she know what her friends think?
Loccke is unprincipled to the point of being incoherent. She says she’s pro-choice, and she votes for pro-choice candidates, but she can’t bring herself to be supportive to a friend who’s exercising the very right she claims to support. Why? Because she’s envious. What a small-minded, pinched-hearted, self-centered woman.
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