Much scrutinized now – Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s phrasing in his draft of the upcoming Roe v. Wade decision: “…domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life.” This is about the product of forced, full-term pregnancies if Roe v. Wade is overturned. We accept moves towards more domestically-produced steel and more domestically-produced solar panels. Those are commodities in a business world, and all might benefit. But, babies? Slave babies were profitable commodities in America ‘s early centuries.

Good friends, when young marrieds, adopted two children (children now in their 60s). First was a girl with such badly crossed eyes she was considered unadoptable, so was in foster care. Husband went to that house to adopt a puppy. Went home with the puppy and told his wife about the needy little girl, no longer a toddler. Wife said, “Operations can remedy her eyes!” They adopted her, returned for the older-than-she foster child boy, already like a sibling to their adopted daughter. They paid for eye surgeries. Daughter’s eyes normalized, not just for looks. For a good life. Those kids were loved.

Justice John Roberts has adopted kids, as does Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Do they and others think only in terms of perfect babies, as in looked-for-then-favored, the way a car by model, year, color, and warranty is wanted and bought? Heartless, applied to babies and the girls and women forced to produce them. Alito’s language shows him tone-deaf. However, helpfully, his wording reveals a big flaw in overturning Roe v. Wade.