A podcast listener recently alerted me to a particularly hideous post on a Reddit forum for the so-called “Child Free” community. Those familiar with this camp, whether on Reddit or other social media sites, will not be overly surprised to learn that one of its members had something rotten and loathsome to say. This is what the “Child Free” folks do. They sit around all day heaping scorn on parents and children, hoping that their contempt will mask the overwhelming loneliness and despair they feel. Everything you read on a “Child Free” forum will be some degree of repugnant. But even by those standards, this one is pretty bad.

A woman who goes by the username 4amcurfew posted the following while on the way to kill her children:

“I am on my way to Planned Parenthood to purge the two parasites that somehow implanted into my uterus despite me being on the pill. I can’t f***ing wait to stop being nauseous and throwing up and being unable to keep water down. I can’t wait to be rid of this hyperemesis gravidarum that destroyed my Christmas and ruined my [New Year’s Eve] and is ruining my life. I can’t f***ing wait to be done with the anxiety of knowing these things are in my uterus and knowing that I will not have to birth dribbling horror goblins, will not have disgusting leaking [breasts], will not go home from the hospital in a nappy and with a sitched [sic] up vagina, I will not have post-partum depression or be left disfigured with stretch-marks. My relationship with my [significant other] will not be ruined. I am dedicating this double fetus purge to the anti-choice movement because no matter how hard you try, you will not force us to be your handmaids. HAPPY 2020!”

Hundreds of comments follow, and all are rapturous in their applause and encouragement. Many use the same degrading nicknames for babies — “goblin” seems to be a favorite — and they assure this mother that murdering her own children will earn her a life of luxury and joy. Of course, if any of them were living joyful lives, they wouldn’t be on Reddit authoring lengthy screeds against babies. The truth is that they are all crushingly miserable. And it is a misery made worse by the fact that they know they deserve it and have earned it over a lifetime of obsessive self-centeredness.

When confronted with this ghoulishness, it is tempting to dismiss it as “just the internet” and “not real life.” But that is only a lie we tell ourselves because we don’t like what the internet tells us about ourselves. These are actual human beings writing these things, thinking these things, doing these things. If we heard them in a Starbucks bragging about killing their “goblin” children, we wouldn’t think of waving it off as “just Starbucks” and “not real life.” The things people say in Starbucks are obviously a part of real life. Just as the things people say on Reddit, and Twitter, and YouTube, etc., are all a part of real life.

This woman’s post, and the reactions to it, are indicative of more than just the culture on Reddit. They are indicative of our culture — and more specifically, are indicative of the pro-abortion movement at large. It may be true that most women who get abortions aren’t quite as cavalier about it, but the abortion industry does encourage women to feel exactly this way about their children.

Through abortion and for the sake of abortion, children are literally dehumanized in this country and treated as parasites who “somehow” implant themselves into the uteruses of unsuspecting women. The entire pro-abortion movement is built squarely on this premise. There is nothing on that Reddit thread with which any pro-abortion person would or could fundamentally disagree. It’s just that usually they aren’t so explicit in their motivations or so openly bloodthirsty in expressing them. But the internet has provided them a forum to safely take off the mask and reveal the monster underneath. We should look, and learn, and remember.