I thought a bit about how much of my life to mention in this comment, not least because I'm talking about my intersection with others' lives, but... to a first approximation I have been asked a similar question to the one LW asked her friend, and I gave the mostly-opposite mostly-yes answer. (To a first approximation. A lot of the details are different.) So I'm not coming at this from a particularly childfree perspective. (I'm more childless than childfree anyway, but again, complicated.) Although, that said, childfree people are besieged by society concerning their personal choices regarding children, and that should have stopped long agot.

For me, the thing is...

being flat told by a best friend I trusted that they would rather see my kid in foster care/with estranged family than take them in would hurt

has LW's friend actually or effectively said this to LW? I had said in the first version of my earlier comment that there's a range between abandoning the bereaved child and immediately assuming all the responsibilities of a parent, both proximate and ultimate. I don't think that LW's friend's refusal to do the latter actually constitutes the statement you've postulated here, or rather, that it has to. And I really don't think any of us were endorsing that statement.

(Also, as Lilysea points out, a willing volunteer foster parent could possibly be a better caretaker than an unequipped and resentful family friend. We can't guarantee, of course. )