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Yesterday the Catholic blogger Amy Welborn offered some really worthwhile reflections on this piece. She did not like it as well as you did. Here's what she said:

What is always, consistently and invariably missing from this kind of reflections is any kind of moral sensibility. There is no essential understanding of right or wrong expressed (although it's hard to believe it's not felt at some level) - it is all about what is right for us, right now, in our lives. The baby's life literally has no inherent value. There is no admitting of what "not having the baby" actually means in real life, in real time, in real actions.
This is the missing piece, this is the bridge that those committed have to cross - the rhetorical work that abortion advocates have done over the past four decades has worked and worked well. Undoing that work and doing our own is the task - of example, of teaching, of love.
And, even though some don't like to hear it - of law as well. The law speaks loudly, and right now we know exactly what it says. That matters.

What is always, consistently and invariably missing from this kind of reflections is any kind of moral sensibility. There is no essential understanding of right or wrong expressed (although it's hard to believe it's not felt at some level)

Wow, talk about literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Amy Welborn must have one of the tinniest ears in the Western world!

The mother-to-be didn't put her moral sensibility into "religious speak" or the kind of right-and-wrong language that apparently will appease dogmatic Catholic demands. But the piece is literally pregnant with moral sensibility! What's more important, it was actually published in the NYT, where it has a very good chance of influencing a lot more liberal minds that have been brainwashed by the "pro-choice speak" of the writer's husband. It will save babies' lives!

The author of the piece clearly knows right from wrong on an unspoken but obvious level. And that perception will now reach many more like her, coming as it does from a "culturally acceptable" point of view. We will win this war one mind and one baby at a time, not by forming our usual "purist" circular firing squad.

I happen to be agnostic when it comes to divine influence. I'm not wishy-washy: I just don't have so much arrogance as to believe I can know the Great Mystery. Nor do I believe any other mere mortal can, not the Pope nor any other religious leader. What's much more important to me is living a moral and ethical life and espousing positive life-affirming values. That I try to do. If Amy Welborn doesn't like my position, or the author's, she can tend her own Holy water.

You (and Amy Welborn) are correct about the lack of anything that sounds like moral reflection in this article. She's not asking "Is this right?" but rather "Does this feel right, meaning what I really want right now?"

However. Allow me to make a confession.

Over the last 3 nights I've been having a most ego-deflating experience: namely, before bed, I've been reading my diary from 1971, when I was 19 years old.

Man, you talk about humiliating. I am appalled at what can only inaccurately be called my "thought" processes. The truth is, I was like a tiny boat drifting from impulse to impulse, occasional sped along or swirled about by some big gust of emotion. And appalling self-centered, oblivious to other people's point of view (especially my parents') and convinced I was the smartest (and most moral!) creature God ever made.

The only reason why I didn't have an abortion (or two) back then is that I was apparently subfertile somehow, and never got pregnant.

I had no damn excuse, either, because I can from excellent Catholic schooling where we were taught all the good stuff about virtues, the Sacraments, the Saints, the pure Love of God and Neighbor for Christ's sake.

But my brain was a seive. I had that impossible combination, moral retardation plus impenetrable self-righteousness.

Anyhow my point is this. God has mercy, and people who are well below par morally eventually get some sense: by hard knocks, by good counsel. by the Holy Spirit acknowledged or unacknowledged.

Pray for this gal and her jerkimer husband. They did the right thing. God is leading them to the Light.

i think it’s so weird that the father was concerned that the taxis in Mexico have no seat belts, but he was willing to kill his baby... and her thought of “what kind of mother would i be if i could not provide my child with financial security, health care, blah-blah-blah?” she didn’t consider, “what kind of mother would i be if i aborted my baby?” this is all very strange to me...