Vogue featured four mothers on separate covers for its January issue, highlighting a pro-family narrative that’s surprising to see from a New York-based fashion magazine.
“This month,” a caption on the website says, “Vogue celebrates four fearless creative forces, role models, and mothers with a quartet of covers.”
The mothers each have careers in different industries, from rapper Cardi B and fashion designer Stella McCartney to director Greta Gerwig and model Ashley Graham.
One of these women, however, is not a mother in the most common sense. She’s still waiting to give birth.
The headline in Vogue’s profile of Graham refers to her “becoming a new mom,” and the photo shows her in a gorgeous golden gown that shows off her baby bump. Graham’s baby boy is due next month.
As Graham spoke to Vogue about what it’s like to be pregnant and prepare to give birth for the first time, it’s clear that to her, the baby inside her womb is already a human being. Talking about her pregnancy, Graham said:
While advocates of abortion often rely on the argument that a baby isn’t a baby until it leaves the womb, expectant mothers tell a different story. Graham knows that she’s carrying around a human being and because she’s decided that, Vogue takes her at her word. If only it didn’t take the mother’s approval for us to see all unborn children this way.
Graham made a poignant case for the dignity of unborn human beings, and in the pages of Vogue, that’s no small thing. Her perspective is made all the more powerful because it’s not an argument. It’s an image.
As Caitlin Flanagan writes for the Atlantic, “The argument for abortion, if made honestly, requires many words: It must evoke the recent past, the dire consequences to women of making a very simple medical procedure illegal. The argument against it doesn’t take even a single word. The argument against it is a picture.”
The case for life can come from a picture, such as an ultrasound photo or a genuine sense that the being inside of an expectant mother is his own unique entity. He’s already a child, and she’s already a mom.
