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The Atlantic....very clearly has a defined editorial outlook when it comes to what they publish on abortion. https://twitter.com/denisewills/status/1194234508565975046
I find that outlook concerning, blinkered, and exploiting "of no party or clique" in favor of a set of the same tired positions, over and over.
THAT SAID, this is a point I have made repeatedly in my own writing: "The argument for abortion, if made honestly, requires many words: It must evoke the recent past, the dire consequences to women of making a very simple medical procedure illegal. (1/2)
...The argument against it doesn’t take even a single word. The argument against it is a picture." This is true. The antis have an easier time, rhetorically, because the photo of an adult woman doesn't compel as in the same way as that of a 12-wk fetus.
Flanagan asks us to admit that "The truth is that the best argument on each side is a damn good one, and until you acknowledge that fact, you aren’t speaking or even thinking honestly about the issue."
The problem here is only one side is advocating, with its very best thinkers, one of whom was briefly hired at The Atlantic, for hanging women who have abortions. Only one side is eliminating rape and incest exceptions. Only one side is eliminating access to birth control.
I find it very telling that she closes with the image of a grieving husband. A man's grief legitimizes the case for abortion. I also find it telling she has not had an abortion, or if she has, is not open about it here.
I was sick after my abortion. No fault of the doctor. Very, very sick. So sick my husband, forty years ago, might have been the man at the end of this piece. Had we listened less to the "best arguments of the other side," since Roe, I might not have been.
it sounds reasonable & nice to be horrified by the "ghoulish" idea that abortion must be meaningfully accessible to all pregnant people until you're the one septic in a hospital bed, i'll tell you that fucking much.
what concerns me abt The Atlantic's editorial outlook is that they tend to publish pieces that are, ostensibly, moderately pro-choice. What they ignore is that the house is on fire and they're arguing about building codes.
i also find their tendency not to publish longform, high-profile pieces like this written *by people who have had abortions* somewhat distressing. but then, jesse singal isn't trans, either. so.
