In one breath, Forbes contributor Chitra Sundaram bemoans how “no real discussion occurs online or offline” when it comes to abortion policy. In the next, she unwittingly betrays her own culpability in the sad state of our national dialogue with a tirade about pro-lifers’ alleged heartlessness:

The silent masses, much as Margaret Sanger, a pioneer in Women’s reproductive rights and one of the founders of Planned Parenthood found during her travails,  remain ignored.  They live and die on the fringes of society, in pockets of dire poverty and inner city tenements, even in an ultra-rich country like ours.  Yet they might as well not exist as far as politicians, and commentators are concerned.  If poor women get pregnant, it must be because they are sluts.  And the fact that they can’t afford to have a child simply means that they shouldn’t have sex!  And the possibility that they might be living in overtly or covertly abusive situations matters little to the ideological pundit.  Finally, if the unwanted child is to be forced upon a woman or family, the State of Arizona, facing similar budget deficits to other states has cut into the very programs that might help ease the financial strain on such families.

Much could be said about how pro-choice states actually don’t do better than pro-life ones in reducing abortion rates or preventing unintended pregnancy, or which social programs actually help the needy and which ones simply waste money and foster dependence on government. Here, though, let’s focus on the author’s visceral aversion to frank discussion about sexual responsibility.

Hyperbolic “slut” descriptor aside, the underlying point – that poor women (other than rape victims) get pregnant because they knowingly chose to do something that potentially results in pregnancy – is self-evidently true, as is the commonsense advice that not having sex is the only foolproof way to avoid pregnancy.