Jill Filipovic at Feministe turned up a seriously creepy, seriously morally-flawed debated between William Saletan of Slate and Steven Waldman of Beliefnet

The whole thing is so infuriating I’m having trouble coming up with a coherent response. Steven Waldman from Beliefnet suggests paying women some amount of money to not have an abortion — not just because women who continue pregnancies often undergo tremendous financial strain, but as an incentive for her to give the baby up for adoption. Nowhere does he suggest that maybe we should provide economic support for allwomen, before and after birth, so that they can choose to maintain their pregnancies and raise a child if they wish; the whole idea is to bribe women into giving birth so that they’ll give the baby to a nice family.

She said it here.

If you want to reduce terminations of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies, and you’ve got this idea that you’re willing to pay women saddled with such pregnancies to carry them to term instead of having abortions, well… fine! Given that over and over and over women list economic hardship as the main reason for seeking termination, if your goal in life was to reduce those terminations then it makes sense to propose financial assistance to women for whom finances are an obstacle.

But if you’re going to offer financial assistance the assistance offered ought to be enough so that the woman in question, possibly in combination with her partner the pregnancy, can raise her child herself! Unless she really, really wants to surrender the child for adoption… in fact, unless she proposes it herself, those offering financial assistance should be ethically, morally, and preferably legally forbidden from mentioning it.

There are two reasons: first, if all the anti-abortionists are right about psychological “damage” women face after termination, especially if the reason was (usually temporary) inability to financially support a child then imagine how women feel who’ve been forced by finances to, effectively, sell their infant son or daughter! Oh wait, you don’t have to imagine it at all! Just go ask any modestly financially stable woman who earlier in life had been forced to surrender her child how she feels knowing her son or daughter is alive and being cared for by the strangers who once had money when she did not. (For that matter go ask the male partners from such pregnancies how they feel about it.)

The second reason, perhaps more important reason, though, is that abortion-as-solution is still so heavily tied to the idea that women’s worth is based on her own “resale” value to a prospective husband. With the result that adoption is seen as a way “these girls” can start over. (Note: Shulamith Firestone pointed out back in the 1960s, too often the same considerations influence the abortion and contraception debates. There are other reasons for seeking to avoid pregnancy that don’t involve preserving women’s appearance of minty freshness.)

We notice that very economically stable single women, even those who would never consider terminating an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy, ever “surrender” their children for adoption. Nor, for that matter, do we see them suffering extraordinary approbation or stigma for keeping their “fatherless” children. Nor, for that matter, do we even see them suffering that much for lack of partners.

As Jill points out further on in her post, the pro-choice philosophy focuses on supporting women’s choice, not channeling their options in more politically expedient or, especially, more desirable for financially capable childless couples directions.

If Waldman, Saletan and their abortion abatement colleagues were interested in reducing the number of pregnancy terminations then in addition to their (entirely laudable) support for safer, more effective, more easily used, more affordable, and more available contraception they’d also get solidly behind the idea that unplanned, unwanted pregnancy doesn’t ruin women’s “real” utility as economically dependent “companions” and “helpmeets” for men who don’t want “previously owned” wives.

(Signature: composed on a hand-held — pardon any typos.)