Twenty years ago I was contracting in DC at that five-sided building. One of the strangest things I encountered there, among a number of strange social behaviors, was that the well-heeled young professionals were putting off marriage indefinitely, and instead charting a single life trajectory, but also adopting children.
Marriage takes an effort. Finding a spouse takes an effort. These people, I saw, were too selfish and afraid of failure to make the effort.
Sad.
I live in nova and work in dc, I know precisely the types you are referring to. I do not believe Laura fits that description. She was committed to someone she was to marry. He callously jilted her while she was undergoing chemotherapy. She appears not to have met anyone else to make a life with. Knowing she is a faithful Catholic to whom her faith is important, it’s likely that after prayerful consideration she’s felt led to do this. You presume selfish shallow motivations. Taking what we know of her life, ideology, devotion to religious precepts, I see her motivations differently. Let God be the judge.