I think we are entering a new phase in the abortion debate. I think the pro-choice camp is going to become a lot less squeamish—and a lot more honest. They’ll stop pretending that the babies they want to abort suddenly become precious little bundles of joy simply because their mothers failed to have them killed. I expect they’ll get used to the idea of openly wishing that some children were dead.

That’s bad enough. Yet it is only the beginning.

Again, there is no “expiration date” on the pro-choice argument. Let us say you accept the principle of abortion: that it is sometimes better for mothers to kill their children. If so, you must regret that some children are allowed to be born. That doesn’t change when the child is one day old, or a month old, or a year old, or ten years old, or twenty, or fifty, or eighty…

The Times thinks that Giselle would be better off if the Texas judge had allowed her to kill her children. And I’m sure she is grateful for their support. But what if Giselle’s own mother had wanted an abortion? Then Giselle’s own life is something regrettable. Her happiness is irrelevant. It is the fifth step in a cruel, utilitarian formula—but that formula went wrong on the fourth step. Giselle’s children shouldn’t exist, and neither should she.

It was always going to end this way.