The Washington Post travels to South Dakota today for a front-page abortion report by Evelyn Nieves, a one-time writer for Mother Jones. Once again, we learn that there are backward red states that actually only have one abortion provider, and only on one day each week. (So much for the notion that liberal media outlets endorse making abortion “safe, legal, and rare.” Apparently rare abortion is a social problem worthy of the front page.) South Dakota is so backward that they’re actually trying to make abortion providers tell patients that they’re carrying a human life. How mean-spirited. (They have so much sympathy for the women driving in for abortions, and none for those humans about to die.)
When I talk to college students, I cite this kind of an article to explain that reporting isn’t “pro-choice,” it’s pro-abortion. When you think something like this is a social good, you complain that it’s not more readily available, cheaper, and easier. When you want more doctors to choose the specialty of abortion “providing,” and want abortions provided in every small town, you’re not just for “choice,” you’re for making that choice as leisurely as possible. If someone argued that smoking should be available in every bar and public office building, they wouldn’t be called “pro-choice,” but “pro-smoking.” The same logic applies to these stories.
The point of the article comes in paragraphs 7 and 8, where they explain that this could be Samuel Alito’s America if he’s allowed on the Supreme Court, and Nancy Keenan of NARAL appears to warn against that horror.