While seven S.C. House members were prefiling a bill to expand the state's ultrasound abortion law, a single mother in California was pregnant with octuplets.
While those pro-life S.C. lawmakers were busy thinking of ways to further curtail abortion rights, that single mother had already decided to have herself implanted with embryos left over from previous in-vitro fertilization treatments because she didn't want to destroy "life," according to the Los Angeles Times.
While those lawmakers were garnering support for a proposed law that would require women seeking abortions to be given a list of facilities – including those run by anti-abortion groups – that provide free ultrasounds, that California woman's mother had grown so tired of watching her daughter make irresponsible decisions that she sought counseling to deal with the stress.
On one coast, lawmakers were obsessed with the minutiae of one of society's most perplexing and ethically murky issues.
On the other, a single mother "obsessed with having children," says her mother, illustrates why shoving ultrasounds in a pregnant woman's face is not the answer, and why there simply may be none.
It isn't as easy as electing a pro-life president. The abortion rate during the Roe v. Wade era dropped most precipitously during the administration of a pro-choice president, Bill Clinton. And the push by some pro-choice groups has sometimes put blind ideals ahead of the welfare of children. By advocating the legal exclusion of the father's voice during pregnancy such groups have unwittingly broken paternal bonds that too often remain broken well after birth.
The odd thing about the mother who gave birth to octuplets is that she is a creation of the pro-choice and pro-life movements.
She didn't choose abortion even after finding out seven fetuses were developing inside her, potentially risking each of their lives. (An eighth was discovered during birth.) She saved embryos from the trash heap and from scientific experimentation, just as pro-lifers said should be done.
She was able to make those decisions because a woman should be free to decide what she likes, just as pro-choicers have long argued. In the person of a single mother, pro-lifers and pro-choicers got their way.
The result? Fourteen kids – the octuplets and the California woman's other six children – who will grow up without a father in a nation that is debating what its collective role should be in providing for their welfare.