The New York Times op-ed page has come under fire in recent weeks for hiring climate change denier Bret Stephens as an op-ed columnist and urging readers to say something nice about President Trump. But today it’s one of the section’s contributors, not its regular columnists, who is raising the internet’s ire.
Today’s Times features a column by Lori Szala on “The Problem With Linking Abortion and Economics.” Szala writes that a woman wanting an abortion is like “an animal” which “wants to gnaw off its own leg.” She rejects the notion that “women on the margins need abortion so that they can scramble up the economic ladder without children holding them back.”
“Abortion is society’s easy way out,” she writes.
Szala defends this argument by sharing her own story—she got pregnant in her senior year of high school and planned to abort the baby, but cancelled the appointment after talking with a friend. She then left school to work full time, worked her way up the ladder at an investment firm, married and had two more children.
This was the first problem many readers had with Szala’s argument—her experience isn’t economically feasible for many women.
https://twitter.com/brunch_grump/status/861960837073952770
https://twitter.com/Maximus_Prime/status/861953767910113280
How is an anecdote about one person's experience a valid op-ed? Can I write one about being raised by a teen mom and how fucked up it was?
— Jenna 🐞 (@RillaCuthbert) May 9, 2017
Szala then urges other women to work with “organizations like mine” to find jobs and housing or enter substance abuse treatment programs while pregnant.
But as many readers pointed out, the organization Szala refers to is far from impartial when it comes to abortion.
Szala is the national director of client services at Human Coalition, a Texas-based organization which aims to protect “image-bearers of God Himself” and to “do all we can to remove the stain of abortion from America.” Its website includes tips on “how to stop any pro-choice argument in its tracks” and floats the debunked claim that Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue and baby body parts.
The Times reveals Szala’s affiliation with Human Coalition in her bio, but it says nothing about the organization’s work, which rubbed many readers the wrong way.
Giving the Human Coalition a massive platform is dehumanizing, patronizing and inaccurate
— KnowYourEnemy (@jasoncparrish) May 9, 2017
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/861953350115500032
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/861954173042139136
If you are going to publish a piece that argues against the fundamental right of bodily autonomy at least note the author stands to profit
— Jessica Mason Pieklo (@Hegemommy) May 9, 2017
So bang up job to the paper of record showing zero editorial transparency and a total lack of understanding of how the constitution works
— Jessica Mason Pieklo (@Hegemommy) May 9, 2017
The Times has not yet responded to an Observer request for comment.
Maybe Szala should go work for The Human Fund instead.
