"Now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island

"Now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise." Those were the words of Manhattanite Amy Richards, in an article in The New York Times Magazine, about her unexpected pregnancy--with triplets.

The unmarried Richards asked her doctor, "Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?" Indeed, it was. Two of them were "selectively reduced" and Richards later gave birth to a boy, making it possible for her to avoid the suburbs and wholesale clubs. Whew. But the outrageousness of this piece goes beyond a woman's callousness. There's also the magazine's lack of disclosure: The piece appeared as an "as told to" job and had no identifier for Richards. But Richards is not just any single New Yorker; she is a prominent feminist activist, the co-author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, a paid employee of Gloria Steinem, associated with Planned Parenthood ... you get the picture. The Times, which eventually blamed the nondisclosure on editing, at first claimed it was unfamiliar with her easily accessible bio--an implausible assertion in the age of Google. A creepy ending to a creepy story.

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