Abortion Activist Says People Should Be Able to Steal from Retailers

Abortion activist Jessica Valenti, who writes “about abortion every day,” went on a furious rant on Tuesday, after discovering her local Rite Aid locks up high-theft items like diapers. “This is the baby aisle at my local Rite Aid. We’re in a country that wants to force women into childbirth and then lock up diapers.”

Screenshot from Valenti’s Twitter.

Firstly, abortion is “forced” childbirth, just to a dead baby, after being met with lethal “force.” If a woman is pregnant, the natural progression is for the baby to come out. Opting to not kill that baby, isn’t force. If not allowing violent aggression is “force,” then just about all laws are an act of “force.”

Secondly, anyone in retail will tell you that items in a glass case or locked down with some sort of security item, are high-theft items the company can’t afford to continually lose. Back when I worked at Target, I had to lock up razor blades, electric razors, and electric toothbrushes. Spider-wrapping items were never fun, and I’d rather live in a world where customers don’t steal. In 2022, Target is blaming “organized retail crime” for a $400M loss in profits. Back when I worked at Micro Center, we had to put ram in lock boxes and keep higher-capacity flash drives in backrooms. I didn’t enjoy having to go in the back room to look for small flash drives and miss a potentially big client walking through my section (since it was commission based), but I also didn’t like filling out theft reports at the end of the night.

But Valenti doesn’t seem to grasp the issue in the manner of “it’s immoral to steal.” She thinks locking up diapers is just a negative reflection of the country. “It really is such a perfect encapsulation of American motherhood. On a more practical level: How about you just let people steal the f**king diapers if they need them? I would hope that ensuring babies don’t sit in their own filth is a universal value. Law enforcement (esp in NYC) would like us to believe that there are roving gangs of shoplifters who are interested in diapers for reasons beyond keeping babies clean. It’s disgusting. I’d be curious to know if diapers are locked up in other parts of NYC. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my local Rite Aid happens to be the closest one to a public housing development.”

Many commenters on Twitter responded to Valenti’s naivety. People who steal don’t always need to steal. Many people steal at the moment as a crime of opportunity. Crime is also organized. Many people steal to resell items. There has been organized crime in Chicago, LA, and retailers are closing up shops in San Francisco. Back in January, the NYPD said shoplifting levels like this haven’t been seen like this for nearly 30 years.

And if thieves continuously steal diapers from stores, mothers who need them won’t have them. And why should mothers who need diapers pay if thieves are allowed to steal them? Why should Rite Aid carry diapers at all if they’re morally obligated to lose money? If it’s immoral to charge money for diapers, why should Pampers and Huggies receive a profit at all? And where does it end? Should low-income mothers be able to break into the houses of affluent mothers to steal their diapers, along with whatever else they can fleece for cash? Raising babies is expensive. Do you know how many diapers women can buy with your TV, iPhone, or computer?

Speaking of universal values, isn’t protecting one’s property a universal value for anyone who isn’t a communist? If it’s not profitable for businesses to be open, they will leave communities, and then those communities won’t have the items they so desperately need. Theft is selfish.

Charity is kind, and Valenti is welcome to donate diapers or a sizable portion of her income to mothers in need. She has over 300K followers on Twitter and is more than welcome to uplift pregnancy crisis centers and churches that provide diapers to mothers. Hopefully, the exposure won’t end up with them being firebombed or targeted by the likes of Senator Elizabeth Warren.

There’s also government assistance for those who qualify. You might not be able to purchase diapers with those funds, but you can offset the cost by using WIC on other purchases. Some mothers are also opting to get rid of the luxury of disposables and turning to reusable cloth diapers to save money.

It is curious that abortion supporters like Valenti believes society has a moral obligation to women who choose not to end the lives of their children, yet they believe women have no moral obligation to not brutally kill their child in the womb for nine months.

If you need to purchase diapers locked behind a glass case, be grateful the employees took the time to protect the item your baby needs from nefarious opportunists. And if you know a woman who can’t afford diapers, whip out your debit card and be charitable. You’re not a good person because you want a multiple-million dollar company to lose millions in theft every year,