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December 28, 2021

FiveThirtyEight probably expected very different abortion stories

By Andrea Widburg

FiveThirtyEight, a left-leaning site, put out a request for information.  On Christmas Day, it asked women to send in their abortion stories (and yes, it spoke of women, not birthing people) and provided a form by which they could do so.  We don't know what responses they got from the form, but the responses on Twitter are amazing.  An overwhelming number came from women who did not have an abortion or regretted having one, or from children who are grateful they weren't aborted.  I'll share some with you.

To begin, here's a little more about the FiveThirtyEight request for information about abortion.  The first thing that's odd about it is that it went out on December 25, something that could be considered the world's biggest birthday party.  Considering that Mary and Joseph seemed just to be starting out in life and weren't affluent, they would have been the perfect target of the abortion industry.  (Although the Annunciation would have helped Mary resist.)

The request noted how common abortion is in America while saying that it's harder to get an abortion and that the Supreme Court may make it harder still.  It clearly wants to do a story on suffering women:

Nearly 1 in 4 American women will have an abortion before the age of 45. But over the past decade, access to abortion in America has changed dramatically. There are fewer clinics and more restrictions. And now it seems likely that the Supreme Court will limit the right to abortion even further. As we document the impact of these shifts, we want to include the voices of people who have had abortions in the U.S.

If you've had an abortion and are willing to share your experience with us, please fill out the form below and we may follow up with you to hear more. We're particularly interested in hearing from people who have had abortions over the past 10 years, but we'd love to hear your story even if you had an abortion less recently. Whatever you want to share, we are grateful for your willingness to tell your story.

On Twitter, lots of people responded, but these weren't heart-rending tales of women whose education would have been interrupted with an abortion, or who would have been forced into a youthful marriage, or who were told their baby would be genetically defective, or who had gotten pregnant through rape and therefore got an abortion.  Instead, dozens of people celebrated life with a baby or mourned the decision to have an abortion:

There are many other such tweets.  Each helps reveal the problem with leftists when it comes to enshrining abortion as an ultimate benefit for women.

Frédéric Bastiat's Parable of the Broken Window helps understand the point I want to make.  It tells of a shopkeeper whose shop window gets broken.  Everyone tells him that the money spent to fix it will at least fund others, such as the glazier.  However, says Bastiat:

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.

And here's the key point Bastiat makes of those who say that a broken window helps money circulate: "Your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen."

In much the same way, leftists can see a woman before them, distressed that she is pregnant.  What they're incapable of imagining is the life within her and the possibilities that life brings, both to the child (of course) and to the woman as well.  Perhaps those at FiveThirtyEight who sought abortion information will finally see that which they have not seen: life.

Hat tip: Twitchy.

Image: Pregnant woman with ultrasound.  Piqsels.

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