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Wall Street Journal champions woman who aborted baby because she wasn’t ‘ready’


(LifeSiteNews) — The “center-right” Wall Street Journal recently regurgitated pro-abortion talking points and also highlighted a woman who killed her baby for “financial security” reasons.

The article is more like something the New York Times or ProPublica would publish, not a center-right newspaper. In addition to promoting abortion as a matter of convenience, the article did not include even one pro-life comment. This despite the fact that the newspaper has regularly published pro-life comments, and so its journalists have access to thoughtful experts.

“How Abortion Bans Are Affecting Women Where Women Live And Work,” the headline states. One of its writers, Lauren Kusisto, praised former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards as an “abortion-rights powerhouse.” Kusisto, in fact, regularly writes stories from a pro-abortion slant.

The story begins by sharing the story of Alana Tedmon, who left Texas and moved to Pennsylvania following the reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

“The 37-year-old freelance illustrator and her husband moved back to Philadelphia last summer, largely because of the ban,” the newspaper reported. “Then Tedmon got pregnant unexpectedly. She was initially excited, but anxiety about the couple’s financial security ultimately led her to get an abortion—something she was grateful was feasible in the state.”

The newspaper then shares Tedmon’s selfish reason for killing her preborn child. “If we have a child, I want it to be because we’re ready, and not because ‘oops, it just happened,’” she said.

The Wall Street Journal then goes on to cite a paper that claims states that passed abortion restrictions had a one-percent lower population than those that did not.

The paper alleged that the “13 states with abortion bans collectively saw about 146,000 residents leave due to abortion bans” in the first year after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade.

However, a well-respected social scientist has pointed out flaws with the paper. The Journal, apparently more preoccupied with serving as a mouthpiece for the abortion industry than providing an evenhanded perspective on the issue, did not quote any criticisms.

The study is “the latest attempt to claim that pro-life laws cause negative policy outcomes,” Michael New, a professor at Catholic University of America, commented when the study first came out in January.

New, a social scientist who teaches research methods, also pointed out the study “considers data only until the second quarter of 2023, and so considers no data from either 2024 or the last six months of 2023” and does not take into account how different laws against abortion went into effect at different times.

He also said Census Bureau data is more reliable than U.S. Postal Service change-of-address data, which the study relied on for its analysis. Census Bureau data shows many pro-life states increased their population while pro-abortion states, including Illinois and Maryland, lost residents.

As he explained in National Review:

Currently, 16 states either largely protect [nearly] all preborn children or have in effect a heartbeat act that protects the preborn after six weeks’ gestation. Census Bureau data show that in fiscal 2024, 13 of these states saw population increases because of interstate migration. The only states with strong pro-life laws in effect that lost population because of interstate migration were Louisiana and Mississippi. Meanwhile, many states with permissive abortion policies, including California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois, and Maryland, all lost population because of interstate migration in fiscal 2024.

The Wall Street Journal also claimed there is “a decline in applications to medical school residencies in states that have heavily restricted abortion.” It cited a study by the pro-abortion Association of American Medical Colleges.

However, this claim has also been debunked. As Charlotte Lozier Institute points out, the authors of this claim admit “every state saw a decline in residency applications.”

“They credit this, in part, because medical students are being encouraged to submit fewer applications,” Dr. Ingrid Skop previously told the College Fix. “AAMC also admits in their own analyses that they can’t prove motivations and reasons for students applying to specific programs,” Dr. Skop, an OB/GYN, told the Fix last year.

Does it matter if pro-abortion people leave a state?

There is another problem that underlies the Journal article: does it matter if pro-abortion people leave a state?

To begin with, abortion is the direct and intentional killing of an innocent preborn human child. There is nothing that could ever justify intentionally killing a baby through abortion.

But the Journal, and the study it regurgitates uncritically, seem to be implying political leaders need to be concerned about people like Alana Tedmon. But why? A “freelance illustrator,” she apparently made so little money that she thought it justified killing her own child. Of course, money isn’t everything, and her lack of what she considers a good income could never justify abortion.

It is not clear from the article why we need to be concerned why Tedmon and her husband and their zero kids left Texas for Pennsylvania.

In an alternate universe, Texas does not pass laws protecting preborn babies from abortion. Tedmon and her husband get pregnant but still have an abortion, but this time just in Texas, not Pennsylvania.

The problem is the line of thinking relies on ignoring the obvious morality issues at play here. The abortion industry, thanks to compliant media, are never asked to draw the line on when they believe life begins or why babies should be killed so someone’s life won’t be (supposedly) inconvenienced.

After all, readers of the Journal would I assume be shocked if the paper ran a story about how the lives of sex traffickers were made more difficult by state restrictions on sex trafficking or the plight of the crack dealers who find their income upended by a state crackdown on drug dealing.

But with abortion, the media stand by ready not to defend the interests of the innocent human beings, but their selfish parents who kill their babies because they were not “ready.”


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Matt lives in northwest Indiana with his wife and son. He has a B.A. in Political Science with minors in Economics and Catholic Studies from Loyola University, Chicago. He has an M.A. in Political Science and a graduate certificate in Intelligence and National Security from the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He has worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, Turning Point USA and currently is an associate editor for The College Fix.


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