Lee Bockhorn, associate editor

LAST SUNDAY, the New York Times Magazine published a remarkably chilling essay entitled "Family Planning." Penned by an anonymous father--let's call him Mr. X--it described his family's efforts to convince his pregnant 15-year-old daughter, against her own better instincts, to have an abortion.

Doubtless, the Times published it as a shining example of how families should persuade pregnant teens that abortion is preferable to bringing an "unwanted" child into the world. But in many respects, the essay actually serves as a damning rebuttal of arguments commonly made by true believers in abortion-on-demand.

According to Mr. X, his younger daughter has been a challenge for many years. Unlike his well-behaved eldest daughter, the young one "smokes cigarettes and marijuana and doesn't care who knows," among other things. Mr. X hypothesizes that this behavior is a response to some sort of identity crisis--in contrast to the goody-two-shoes older daughter, the 15-year-old "feels she has to carve out her own identity by doing what she pleases."

After learning she was pregnant, the girl said she wanted to keep the child, and promised she would be a good mother. In response to this, Mr. X and his wife "freaked, and not just because of our dashed aspirations for this girl. We were too old to want to raise another baby--and we felt sure the raising would fall to us."

The belligerent selfishness of this statement is nothing less than breathtaking. Upon hearing that their daughter, faced with the difficult circumstance of a teenage pregnancy, nevertheless courageously desired

Faced with this, then, as Mr. X goes on to describe, the family staged an "intervention," inviting 15 female relatives and friends to the house to exhort the girl to have an abortion. Having still failed to change her mind, Mr. and Mrs. X then took her to a counseling session at Planned Parenthood. When they returned home, the parents asked the daughter what she was going to do. "I don't have a choice," she replied. She went on to have the abortion.

With those five simple words, "I don't have a choice," "Family Planning" effectively exposes the sham of "women's autonomy" as an argument for unfettered abortion on demand. Mr. X sniffs at the parental consent laws of his "Bible-belt state," presumably because they infringe upon such autonomy--the ability of any woman, even a minor, to make her own decision about bringing a child into the world. But in fact, his real concern is not to protect such autonomy; otherwise, why expend so much effort convincing the girl that keeping the baby will place such an undue burden on all those around her? When the woman's autonomous choice proves inconvenient for others, suddenly their reservations demand recognition. Earlier, Mr. X stated with resignation that he no longer grounded his daughter to stop her pot-smoking, because she had realized that "there was no way we could forcibly make her do anything she didn't want to do." But this doubt about his parental ability (and obligation) to alter his daughter's bad choices flew out the window when it became necessary to force her to abandon her silly desire to have her baby.