One easy definition of a “progressive” journalism outlet is they see the failure to secure an abortion as a tragedy. Exhibit A is the 3,500-word pro-abortion jeremiad by Time writer Charlotte Alter under the headline “She Wasn't Able to Get an Abortion. Now She's a Mom. Soon She'll Start 7th Grade.”
In Clarksdale, Mississippi, Alter introduces the reader to “Ashley” who had a baby named “Peanut” at 13 and her mother “Regina” didn’t know her daughter had been “raped by a stranger in the yard outside her home.” Then the reader is told these are all fake names to protect the sources of his tale of woe since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Should we be expected to swallow this tale whole, when all names are removed? We’re supposed to feel sad that “Peanut” wasn’t ground into peanut butter.
Dastardly Republicans made an abortion for this 13-year-old virtually impossible. Their doctor said that “the closest abortion provider for Ashley would be in Chicago. At first, Regina thought she and Ashley could drive there. But it’s a nine-hour trip, and Regina would have to take off work. She’d have to pay for gas, food, and a place to stay for a couple of nights, not to mention the cost of the abortion itself. 'I don’t have the funds for all this,' she says. So Ashley did what girls with no other options do: she did nothing.”
Alter underlined that black women are having a “maternal-health crisis,” which is apparently why abortions are the best option. It’s like an immunization against bad “maternal-health outcomes.”
The people who live in the Delta are overwhelmingly Black. The poverty rate is high. The region is an epicenter of America’s ongoing Black maternal-health crisis. Mississippi has the second-highest maternal-mortality rate in the country, with 43 deaths per 100,00 live births, and the Delta has among the worst maternal-healthcare outcomes in the state. Black women in Mississippi are four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as white women. Mississippi’s abortion ban is expected to result in thousands of additional births, often to low-income, high-risk mothers.
This is just another paragraph where unborn babies are treated as a cause of death, not as victims of a violent death.
Time then published a map by the Guttmacher Institute (an arm of Planned Parenthood) ranking the states from “Most Restrictive” to “Most Protective.” It’s sick that “Most Protective” means “best abortion access.” Is a mother considered “protective” when she gets an abortion??
Alter also asserted that the Dobbs decision is depriving red states of young doctors. Emory University researcher Ariana Traub “surveyed almost 500 third- and fourth-year medical students in 2022" and found nearly 90 percent said abortion laws influenced where they planned to apply for residency, Nearly 60 percent said “they were unlikely to apply to any residency programs in states with abortion restrictions.” Because they might need one or two abortions.
The only nod to the pro-life viewpoint came when they briefly let Missisippi's top health official talk about the state's "Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program to provide extra support for new mothers." Time thinks "Healthy Babies" are an optional, right-to-choose thing.
