William Saletan is an American writer for The Bulwark. Background and education Saletan, a Jewish native of La Porte, Texas, graduated from Swarthmore College in 1987. Journalism Abortion and contraception Saletan has written extensively about abortion, arguing that it should be legal but should also be avoided, if possible, through the use of contraception. In 2004, he wrote that "the fetus is a distinct human entity deserving of legal consideration." However, he distinguished this from "personhood," which he said might not be conferred until viability. In 2009, he opposed new laws against abortion, claiming that they would lead to "hypocrisy, deceit, interrogations, [and] amateur home surgery." He rejected the proposition that abortion was equivalent to murder, and he concluded that "the person best situated to make the right decision is the pregnant woman." But he also called abortion "the destruction of a developing human being. For that reason, the less we do it, the better." In later years, Saletan turned his attention to contraception. In 2009, he wrote, "A culture of life requires an ethic of contraception. Birth control isn’t a sin ... It’s a loving, conscientious way to prevent the conception of a child you can’t bear to raise and don’t want to abort." In 2015, he advocated for long-acting reversible contraceptives as a way to reduce the prevalence of abortions. He advised opponents of abortion rights: "You can wait till a woman is unhappily pregnant and then try to thwart her will, or you can work with her before she’s pregnant—when she doesn’t want an abortion any more than you do—to avert that crisis." Homosexuality and marriage Saletan has argued that homosexuality is morally equivalent to heterosexuality but that committed sexual relationships are morally preferable to casual sexual relationships. In 2003, he wrote, "I’m a lifestyle conservative and an orientation liberal. The way I see it, stable families are good, homosexuality isn’t a choice, and therefore, gay marriage should be not just permitted but encouraged." In a subsequent article entitled, "It’s the Commitment, Stupid," he advised conservatives to accept same-sex marriage because "if you want family values, the simplest thing to do is to let people form families." In 2013, Saletan criticized what he described as a double standard. He asserted that some conservatives opposed same-sex marriage on the grounds that same-sex couples could not conceive children together, but that they did not apply that rule to infertile