May 12, 2025
By Alexis Tarkalson
“…to truly be pro-child, you must love abortion.” My feelings upon initially reading these words were frustration and shock that some people actually think and feel this way.
The author, Nikiya Natale, writes a sonnet of sorts to the Ms. Magazine detailing the ways she was really just showing love for her “existing” children by having an abortion. She even goes so far as to call abortion another form of “self-care”, as if it were just putting moisturizer on or choosing the salad over the Big Mac burger.
Her overall message is this: Women who already have children must have rights to abortion so they can more adequately care for and focus on their existing children rather than become overwhelmed by another pregnancy. Again, she writes, “The happiest version of my son’s mom is the one who had an abortion.”
What is she really saying?
Individuals not prone to asking questions or analyzing the semantics of a statement might think, “That makes sense. To more accurately care for children, I need to be pro-abortion so we aren’t just adding to the problem of neglected children.” When the shallows are only as far as you dare to swim, you accept this thought process and move on.
If you are more like me, you scrap the euphemisms and say what she is really meaning. “To truly feel good about yourself not taking responsibility for your actions, you must love the murder of babies in the womb.” When put like that, things are not so rose-colored anymore.
Having an abortion is not some mind-less task one can accomplish while going out to get milk from the grocery store. She wants you to see it that way though, “By having my abortion, I put my son’s needs and feelings at the forefront of my mind yet again, just like I do when picking out an outfit each morning.” It’s not that simple and it is not something you can just bounce back from.
It’s her belief that abortion has made her happier and healthier. But her story is an anecdotal story written to pick at emotional strings and confuse the fence-sitter. Science says differently. Women are affected by abortion emotionally, physically, and mentally. To say otherwise is a lie.
The ideal world for our children
Natale also points out that most women who receive abortions are already mothers with children and writes, “It should come at no surprise that a parent’s decision to have an abortion always factors in the needs of our existing children…These decisions reflect our best judgments to create an ideal world for our existing children.”
Well, the majority of women who receive abortions are also unmarried (86%), so maybe another way to show love and create the ideal world for a child is to get married to their father and create a stable home environment where becoming pregnant is not grounds for the ending of a life. The ideal world for children is a set of parents who value them at every stage of their life. Being an overburdened, single parent should never be justification for the murder of an unborn baby.
We cannot have the best of both worlds. We cannot love children but also rejoice in their termination. The pro-choice community is scraping the bottom of the barrel if these are the lengths they must go to to brand themselves as the “compassionate” ones.
