The New York Times “Vows” section is where newlyweds can publish the news of their marital bliss for all to see and read. Each week, one lucky couple hits the “Vows” jackpot, and their love story gets a multiple page article. On August 30, three pages were devoted to Udonis Haslem, an NBA player for the Miami Heat, and his new wife, Faith Rein. The two were college sweethearts who came from different backgrounds, all of which was of course covered in the wedding announcement. What made their announcement different, though, was the gushing over their choice to have an abortion.
Their first challenge took place the following spring when she became pregnant. It was her junior and his senior year, and he had begun training for the N.B.A. draft. Despite the pregnancy, she was busy with track meets and helping him complete homework. The timing was bad.
“I am not a huge fan of abortion, but we both had sports careers, plus we could not financially handle a baby,” said Mr. Haslem, noting how he struggled with supporting Kedonis, the son he had in high school, who is now 14 and who lives with his mother.
“Udonis appreciated that I was willing to have an abortion,” Ms. Rein said. “I found him caring, supportive, nurturing and all over me to be sure I was O.K. I saw another side of him during that difficult time and fell deeply in love. He had a big heart and was the whole package.”
As Lauren Enriquez pointed out, there was more than a smidgeon of bro-choice sentiment there. After all, Haslem certainly was the one to benefit from the decision to kill their unborn child:
One of the reasons the couple felt it necessary to abort their child is because Rein was busy helping Haslem with his homework. No wonder Udonis was “appreciative” of Faith’s willingness to abort their first child together. Does anyone else smell bro-choice in that sentiment? Once again, abortion boosts men’s liberation and one is hard-pressed to see how it helps women.
The fact that Haslem had a child in high school, and yet still managed to make it to college (and eventually, the NBA) apparently meant nothing. Rather than learning that a child was not a life-ruining career-ender, they took the easy way out.
Unsurprisingly, the couple is being lauded by pro-choice voices. Pro-aborts are having a field day with this wedding announcement, absolutely thrilled that an abortion story would be featured so prominently in the New York Times.
According to Jezebel, this is called “progress”:
On Friday, the Times announced the wedding of Faith Rein and Udonis Haslem, a power forward on the Miami Heat’s championship-nabbing team. After meeting at the University of Florida, Rein and Haslem endured the hardships that most young couples have to endure on their way to a lifetime of lazy weekends on a really comfortable couch in front of some really primo digital cable. They were trying, in other words, to shore up their financial future. Haslem wanted to play for the NBA, but, on his way to eventually achieving that goal, he and Rein almost took a detour deep into parenthood…
These are things that happen, both to couples and single women who just aren’t ready to sacrifice their futures to the altar of devoted parenthood. It’s just a thing that is, and the New York Times openly discussing abortion like this doesn’t make abortion seem like any more or less of a difficult, private decision. It simply shows that it is (or should be, depending on your state legislature and the current state of Planned Parenthood funding) a decision, to be considered or ignored or made or nearly made by people based on their own priorities and not some imaginary standard of adulthood imposed by a pious, anti-choice finger-waggers.
Well, thank goodness they were able to have an abortion and avoid that oh-so-terrible curse of parenthood.
The Frisky called it “commendable”:
Like other couples who have an abortion, they went on to have more kids together at a time when they could actually care for them: their son Josiah was born in 2007 and then another son, Elijah, in 2010. I think it’s really commendable — bold, even — that the couple is so open about their past abortion, knowing that all their friends and family, not to mention Heat fans, will be reading it and possibly judging them. But to me, Haslem and Rein represent a real-world American couple who wanted to plan their family the way they thought was best. And the New York Times — not exactly known for being forward thinking, despite it’s “liberal” reputation — should be commended for openly discussing abortion in the pages of Vows.
You know another way couples can plan their families? By not having sex. There isn’t a magical pregnancy fairy that bestows special baby dust onto couples at random times. It’s understandable that a couple in a committed relationship would want to have sex, and it isn’t necessarily bad that they do. However, it is that decision to have sex that opens the door to the possibility of a child. Pro-aborts like to pretend that it was a random occurrence that was suddenly sprung on them with no notice whatsoever.
Salon called it “significant”:
It’s just eight sentences in a much longer piece, but it’s significant to see such a frank discussion of abortion in a wedding announcement, particularly in a culture that tends to treat the decision to terminate a pregnancy as a political abstraction, rather than a real thing that impacts the real lives of real people.
Of course, abortion advocates would love to see more of this, because it leads to the normalization of abortion. It makes it seem like a regular thing, a rite of passage — the obvious choice when someone finds themselves dealing with an unwanted or inconvenient pregnancy.
And Cosmopolitan went so far as to call them a “brave” couple:
The couples’ openness about discussing it, as well as the Times’ inclusion of it, signifies an interesting new direction for the section, not to mention the shifting public reception of abortions undergone by people who don’t feel ready for parenthood.
Couples like Haslem and Reim, whose pre-nuptial courtship lasted longer than many full-fledged marriages do these days, took steps forward at precisely the time they were ready and made sure that benchmarks in their relationship occurred on their own terms — and that’s great to see in the pages of the Times.
There’s nothing brave about this. Bravery would have been keeping the baby, despite knowing that it would be hard, or giving the child up for adoption. Abortion is the easy way out. And calling a couple brave for talking about how they killed their unborn child — conceived through no fault of his or her own, but through the couple’s own actions — purely because the pregnancy was inconvenient is disgusting. That’s not something that should be applauded or cheered. And pro-aborts know it. It’s why they so often trot out sad, sad stories of women whose children have incurable diseases, or were raped. People who choose to abort their children just out of convenience don’t give anyone the warm-and-fuzzies, despite what pro-aborts want you to think.
