"If you don't kill an unborn baby, it might suffer trauma later in life" is one heck of a novel argument in favor of abortion rights, but you have to give "Democratic strategist" Elizabeth Spiers credit for not mincing words:

In my experience, some on the right believe that the trauma adoption inflicts is a consequence of irresponsibility. But unexpected pregnancy is not a de facto function of bad decision making. It can be a failure of contraception, the product of a rape, a mistaken belief that a woman is infertile. There is no justifiable reason to inflict harm on women and the babies they might produce in any of these situations, regardless of judgment.

The trauma doesn't just affect mothers, either. Researchers have a term for what children who are adopted, even as infants, may suffer from later in life: relinquishment trauma. The premise is that babies bond with their mothers in utero and become familiar with their behaviors. When their first caretaker is not the biological mother, they register the difference and the stress of it has lasting effects.

Live look of people reading this unbelievably absurd rhetoric printed in a real, actual newspaper:

I mean, yes, stipulated: Adoption can bring with it a significant amount of issues. It's not perfect. Nothing is.

But...I mean...is the trauma as bad as being killed? Is "relinquishment trauma" literally worse than violent death?

I can't believe we have to ask that, even rhetorically. But for real: If Ms. Spiers looked at a poor young child suffering from some form of adoption-related trauma, would her response be to click her tongue, fold her arms, and say, "It'd be better off if that kid were dead?"

Seriously...how has such illogical, brutal, heartless, anti-human poison come to be a regular part of our political discourse? How did we get here?