Reddit Outrage Exposes the Hypocrisy Behind Abortion’s “Empowering” Narrative

While we’ve seen significant pro-life victories in recent years, the abortion industry remains relentless in its destructive war on the unborn.

And like any war built on injustice, it thrives on lies and propaganda.

One of the abortion lobby’s favorite lies is this: Abortion is empowering.

Young women hear it constantly: “You’ll never get through college with a baby. A child will hold you back in your career. Abortion will empower you to go further in life.”

They’re told that abortion unlocks their potential—that killing their own preborn child is the only path to a successful, meaningful life.

But let’s be honest: Telling a woman she can’t achieve her dreams unless she destroys her child isn’t empowerment. It’s bondage.

It’s a bait-and-switch designed to convince women that motherhood is the end of their futures instead of the beginning of something extraordinary.

Instead of offering compassion and support, the abortion industry tells women they must run from both the responsibilities and joys of having a child because they couldn’t possibly handle it.

How’s that for “empowerment”?

Yet there’s an even deeper hypocrisy lurking beneath this deadly lie—one that almost anyone can recognize.

A recently published article has reawakened discussion of a somewhat infamous Reddit post.

Back in 2015, an anonymous poster took to the social media site to share how he and his wife were struggling to adjust to their newborn daughter. While the original post has since been deleted, another post on Reddit summarizes it along with related updates from the same account.

In essence, the husband admitted his wife did everything she could to avoid caring for their daughter. She pushed the responsibilities onto her husband or live-in mother, preferring her lab technician job over the “mundane” tasks of motherhood. She even refused to pick up or soothe the crying baby unless she was crying for “real” reasons, which the husband explained were hunger or a diaper change.

Eventually, the couple had a shocking conversation resulting in their mutually agreeing to give up their three-month-old daughter for adoption. Not because of medical problems. Not because of financial instability. But simply because they decided they preferred life without a child – like returning a pair of jeans that didn’t quite fit.

Just a few weeks later, the same poster followed up with another post on a legal-advice forum asking how to give up their own daughter for adoption.

Unsurprisingly, controversy erupted. A few commenters defended the couple, arguing it would be better for the child to be raised in a home where she’d be wanted and loved.

But the overwhelming reaction was horror and disgust at the couple’s cold, transactional attitude.

One commenter wrote, “This dude sounds like he has zero emotion at all. Basically treated the abandonment of their child as a transactional exchange between two parties.”

Another said, “These people sound like robots, or aliens trying out human life. Who in their right mind creates a whole sentient life, does a few months of work to raise them, and then just says ‘eh it’s not for us?’”

Yet another wrote, “I genuinely think that I’ve been more emotionally attached to houseplants than this couple is to their kid.”

Even on Reddit—a platform hardly known for conservative values—most users recognized the monstrous cruelty of abandoning one’s own child simply because parenting was inconvenient.

But here’s the glaring hypocrisy:

The selfish and callous attitude of these parents is exactly the same kind of mentality used to justify the vast majority of all abortions. And the same society that rightly condemns parents for giving up a child because it’s inconvenient will, in the same breath, cheer a woman ending her baby’s life for precisely the same reason.

How can it be monstrous to give a child up for adoption—but “empowering” to kill that same child in the womb?

If convenience justifies ending a human life, then shouldn’t every comment have praised this couple’s “empowered” choice? But no one does—because deep down, even those who champion abortion rights know the truth: Every human life has immeasurable value.

Children—born or preborn—are not disposable. They’re not accessories to be discarded when life gets difficult.

So no, abortion is not empowering. If it were truly acceptable to destroy a human life for the sake of convenience, there should be little outcry over parents abandoning a child for the same reason.

Instead, there’s outrage—because society instinctively knows that human life is sacred and cannot simply be discarded.

At the ACLJ, we’ve been fighting abortion’s lies for 35 years. And we will keep fighting—in courtrooms, in legislatures, and in the culture—to defend the rights of the preborn and uphold the true empowerment of women everywhere.

And if you or someone you know is facing an unplanned pregnancy and needs support or information about life-affirming options, visit our Choice Begins Here website and learn more on our Pregnancy Resource Center resources page. Help, hope, and real empowerment are available.

Because real empowerment cherishes life. It doesn’t destroy it.