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The GOP’s Empathy Challenge
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Another Perspective
Let’s Pay Women Not to Abort
The conditions are ripe in America for such an experiment.
After 40 years of abortion virtually on demand, we’re still looking for ways to significantly reduce the number of abortions. New ideas are needed, and here’s an intriguing one: let’s pay abortion-minded women to give birth.
Lack of finances is the reason women cite most often for aborting. According to a 2004 Guttmacher Institute survey, 74% of 1,200 abortion patients said they were aborting because having a child would interfere with their education, work or ability to care for dependents and 73% because they could not afford a baby.
Paying abortion-minded women to give birth is not a new idea. In 2010, Italy’s Lombardy region began providing $5,500 a year to poor women who changed their minds about having an abortion for economic reasons.
Texas State Senator Dan Patrick made a similar proposal in 2007. He suggested offering women at abortion centers $500 to bring their pregnancies to term, but with the requirement that they give up their babies for adoption. Patrick’s bill didn’t make it out of committee.
The conditions are ripe in America for such an experiment. There is a surplus of families wanting to adopt, and, because of legal abortion, a deficit of available children.
America’s birth rate is also dropping, and some experts are warning of an impending demographic crisis.
Genuine advocates of choice really couldn’t object. After all, the payment option would simply offer pregnant women one more choice, while in no way diminishing a woman’s right to abort.
In fact, such a plan might help pregnant women follow through on the choice many say they’d prefer to make, to give birth. The latest Pew Research Center poll finds that just 10 percent of women find abortion “morally acceptable.”
And as I cited above, three-quarters of women who abort identify their finances as the main reason for their decision. If the financial hurdle is lowered, perhaps many more women would bring their babies to term.
Of course, there would be a danger that women could “game” the system. Perhaps some pregnant women with no intention of aborting would claim they want to abort simply to collect a check. The amount paid would have to be large enough for abortion-minded women to choose life but not so large that they’d try it again.
Other questions include: Would participating women be required to give their babies up for adoption? How large of a payment would be needed to save lives? Would it be a lump sum or payments over the course of the child’s life?
If a participating woman gives up her baby for adoption, perhaps the payment she receives could come from donations from the adopting parents. As it is, families sometimes pay tens of thousands of dollars to adopt children, often from overseas.
In Italy, the payouts stopped after about one year, which doesn’t seem like much help. According to the U.S. government, the cost of raising a child is $235,000, or about $13,000 a year for 18 years. That’s a lot of money, and a more reasonable payment might be around $5,000. But then again, can we really put a price on life?
Other countries support new mothers much better than we do. Despite liberal abortion laws, Germany has an abortion rate one-third that of the U.S. Working women there get 14 weeks of paid maternity leave, a child allowance from the state while the child is in school, and other benefits we don’t offer here.
Sure, we could assist poor women by giving them larger child tax credits or doing other things through the tax code. But something tells me the promise of a large check would have a bigger impact on abortion rates.
About the Author
Daniel Allott is a writer in Washington, D.C.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (70) | Leave a comment
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drudge ette obama| 1.23.13 @ 6:36AM
Sort of like a welfare subsidy or gun immunity day? Do you think people will get pregnant on purpose just to get the money. Perhaps this is just the boost that the middle class needs. Will there be a bumper sticker: Nonaborted Baby On Board?
Stan Redmond| 1.23.13 @ 10:31PM
There are welfare queens that do have more babies for profit. I am witness to this in my rental propertis. We already pay single moms of bastard children a great deal of money to not abort their babies. The thing keeping the abortion popular is the price of convenience. There are a lot of selfish women who will conceive children and abort them for the sake of cenvenience.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:08AM
I don't know where you live, but nationally you are lying. Welfare payments are pitiful.
John2| 1.27.13 @ 4:07PM
Welfare mommies are pitiful. The payments are excessive.
There, at least you heard it once in your life. Now go back into your fog if you must.
Appleby| 1.23.13 @ 7:01AM
This is a non-starter; have-a-baby-get-a-cheque has proved to be a gateway to government dependency not only for the life of the girl, but for the life of her baby -- if it's a girl, it'll be pregnant by the age of 14; if it's a boy, it'll be dead in a shootout or in prison by 20, and will have scattered more Government Babies broadcast before he's isolated from wimmin forever. There are already charities that provide women of any religion or no religion all the help they need in order to either rear their babies or place them for adoption. The Sisters of Life is the one I work with. They will provide a woman or girl with everything she needs, from a listening ear to a job. And there are men in the organization who will provide counseling and assistance to the fathers of those babies, as well, because lots of them need it as much or more than the mothers. What we really need is to put daycare centres in ever junior high and high school and require every student to spend two hours a day looking after babies and toddlers. Once they understand what an exhausting task this is and that the baby is there FOREVER, perhaps then they can be taught How To Not Get Pregnant...which I admit is a novel idea, and probably militates against their right to have unlimited sex with no consequences forever, which is probably in the Constitution somewhere or other. But it'd be cheaper than going back to rewarding the girls for figuring out how to put tab A in slot B.
PolishKnight| 1.23.13 @ 9:57AM
They've tried this teenage parenting exercise before, Appleby, and I'm not sure it's worked. Perhaps because the teenage mothers likely to go on welfare ALREADY ARE familiar with babies from their own household. Welfare mothers typically have a new baby every 5 years or so to requalify for benefits.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:12AM
Do they? Since the 5 year limit is lifetime that makes no sense.
Since that means a woman would have 5 or 6 children, not at all typical of welfare recipients, it do believe your facts are not facts.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:10AM
Since the real growth in unwed motherhood is in the over 25 group, your thesis is weak. Since teen pregnancies have dropped over the years, your thesis is nonsense.
The author's thinking is much closer to the reality.
Joellen| 1.23.13 @ 7:03AM
There are plenty of groups out there that offer assistance whether it's financial, spiritual or emotional, to Mothers in need, like Helping Hands, Rachels Needs, The Salvation Army, Family Matters, etc.
Most churches this past weekend did Spiritual Adoptions, which for the next nine months, we pray specifically for a child that she or he not be aborted. In October there will be baby showers throughout the US that will supply many of the facilities I mentioned above; and the truth is these groups are constantly provided throughout the year.
See, although the left likes to talk, the right actually does help those in need, so that eventually they have the capability to take care of themselves. Every survey shows that Conservatives are much more generous with THEIR OWN money than liberals in actual donations - no surprise to most folks.
With all due respect, why dont we try something really new and bring MORALITY back into the picture.
How about we bring GOD HIMSELF back into our world, and the commandment that HE gave us, "thou shall not kill".
How about we start valuing the preciousness of the gift of life; its no concincidence that once Roe vs Wade came into effect, everything, including Life has been devalued to well, where we are today; aborting/murdering over 55 million babies in the wombs, was just the start.
It really is time that we do everything we can to destroy the "relativity" generation that the left did so well in implementing.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:14AM
You share the weakness of believing that the small amount churches give is enough to make a difference. In a period when churches and food pantries are scratching to come up with enough to feed the hungry and house the homeless, there is not enough to make a difference.
Nancy in NC| 1.23.13 @ 7:17AM
Leave it to a man to come up with such a harebrained idea. Perhaps this might have worked before abortion made such a foothold into our society. Considering the number of abortions I would assume many use it for birth control, and the left as convinced so many it's their right to kill another for their convenience. NY has just instigated a law that would make late term (third trimester) abortion easier to obtain.
How effective would this type of coercion really be? And what might be the unintended consequences? Does anyone think a woman who would be interested in this type of arrangement stop drinking or doping for 9 months to insure a healthy infant?
Joellen has a much better idea; now if we could only implement it.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:16AM
Your contempt for the poor is so obvious. You got just about all of it wrong. Try learning something about the subject.
BTW, since when is offering payment "coercion"?
Doctor Right| 1.23.13 @ 7:30AM
We already pay women to not abort; it's called welfare.
The best way to stop abortions is to stop unwanted pregnancies, and the best way to do that is to disincentivize people who don't want children from having sex (if not married), or to use birth control.
And the best way to achieve that objective is to STOP paying welfare. Period.
Once women realize that the Government will not be their nanny, they'll start to change their behavior. That's because when push comes to shove, everyone thinks with their wallets.
And don't get the impression I'm soft on men who create lots of babies with lots of different women. States should institutionalize severe financial penalties for the wandering Baby-Daddy's, and disincentivize them, too.
PolishKnight| 1.23.13 @ 9:17AM
Doctor Right, the states already have "institutionalized" severe financial penalties for baby daddies. In addition, it also provides several financial penalties for normal fathers who marry as well. For many working and middle class men, it's lose-lose either way while the broke baby daddies who have nothing to lose see no reason not to have 2 dozen kids from different women.
In addition, while it's easy to talk about eliminating welfare it's hard to sell an alternative. Do conservatives want to see women and children out on the streets starving? Are they going to put the children into orphanages? (Quite frankly, it's been shown at this point that the kids are not much worse off.)
The fundamental problem is that the state can't guarantee "equality" for women (not the double quotes) in the workplace AND expect men to live up to 1950's breadwinner roles. So now wages are deflated across the board.
Doctor Right| 1.23.13 @ 12:55PM
No one wants to throw women and children into the streets.
Like all do-gooder social programs that need to eliminated, welfare will have to be phased-out over time.
And your point about wages is well-taken.
PolishKnight| 1.23.13 @ 3:14PM
I hate the "phase out" approach which sounds too much like John McCain "moderation". How exactly does that work? By kicking only a FEW women and children out onto the street? In the meantime, the funding itself encourages women to breed so if it's not "phased out" or replaced, then it can only go in one direction: grow. It's like trying to "phase out" socialism via tax cuts. Howz that working out?
The ugly reality is that back in the bad old days, women couldn't all get high paid fun jobs AND simultaneously marry men to quit jobs if they weren't having fun. Some people who couldn't get the best jobs didn't get what they wanted. This was considered unfair so we replaced that with the welfare state where everyone now has to work except for welfare recipients who raise children in squalor with government subsitute husbands.
Putting the old system back means back to being unfair (not to say the existing system is fair) but it will mean crushing a lot of notions of feminine entitlement.
Stan Redmond| 1.23.13 @ 10:35PM
You know... I am sick of the sympathy for people who chose to make bad decisions. Yes. Poverty should be uncomfortable and shaming. Women and children of poverty will not be thrown on the street with private charities. There they have to work for charity. When it stops being so fricking provitable and comfortable poverty and illegitimate children will continue to multiply at great profit.
Appleby| 1.24.13 @ 9:44AM
On a 20/20 episode once on this subject, I recall seeing a young woman with five small children by five different men, weeping that "I made a mistake," and the fully unsympathetic interviewer correcting her, "No ma'am, YOU MADE FIVE MISTAKES."
I also saw a young woman on EWTN the other night, on a program about Rachel's Vineyard (the Catholic church program for women who have had abortions) who had aborted three babies she "caught" from her long-term "boyfriend". Clearly she took a long time to figure out what was causing it, but it was a stint of working for Planned Parenthood and having to identify body parts of the 'clump of tissue' to be sure the whole baby was aborted that finally woke her up to what she was doing. Although she admitted that she had seen the ultrasound of the first pregnancy and recognized it as a baby, it didn't stop her from continuing her behaviour. Except that I am Catholic, I might suggest that we pay women like this, who cannot control their sexual behaviour and apparently cannot be taught, to be sterilized.
Jacob McCandles| 1.23.13 @ 11:17AM
Pay them for each Depo placement. As long as they remain child-free (and financially unable to care for a child) they get the money. If they lift themselves out of poverty and can demonstrate that, they are out of the program.
Occam's Tool| 1.23.13 @ 3:45PM
Germany is in much worse shape than we are: birth rate per woman 1.3.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:17AM
That's because when push comes to shove, everyone thinks with their wallets.
Obviously you do. So, to those who think like you abortion is a proper response.
GobBluthe| 1.23.13 @ 7:46AM
Stupid idea. Let liberals abort. We should be paying liberals to get more abortions. Liberals make horrible parents and they raise criminals. It isn't worth $5500 to me for some Obama voter and America hater to give birth to a rat.
I am sensing a change, ever so slight, when it comes to rightwing views of abortion. Over at FR, I see some former prolife posters taking a more prochoice nuanced position.
Doctor Right| 1.23.13 @ 7:48AM
Unborn children are NOT liberals.
Buck Ofama| 1.23.13 @ 3:06PM
@Doctor Dope:
Go back to jacking off. Then go back to sleep.
John Navratil| 1.23.13 @ 3:29PM
Doctor Right,
According to the CDC, abortion rates are generally higher in blue states rather than red states. The CDC does not record the party affiliation of the woman seeking an abortion.
Ironic, really.
Still I take your point that the innocent are not political.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:18AM
Unwed motherhood is higher in red states. Ironic, isn't it?
7-08| 1.23.13 @ 8:03AM
Let me take a crack at this one. I have no idea what a medical abortion costs, one of the girls I raised (I am not their biological father) is batting five hundred; three children, three abortions. Relax, G_d performed those abortions and yes, he does that – we call them spontaneous and they cost quite a bit.
Now I also paid to raise one of those kids for five years till she re-married. The abortions cost much less than raising a child, this is the only thing Planned Parenthood and G_d have in common with me, I fund both – G_d (willingly) and Planned Parenthood (unwillingly.)
Throwing money at this is not going to change anyone’s mind. You people have the same take on freedom as Obama does on economics (take from the rich/free and give to the poor/entitled). Here is a news flash, the women of child bearing age (and G_d) are the ones who will decide, this is an issue about freedom and it is pretty well established you do not have a place at the table.
Jacob McCandles| 1.23.13 @ 11:19AM
"Abortion should be available but rare." Why exactly should it be rare? What's the problem with it?
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:20AM
Even the pregnant women who abort would, almost always, prefer an alternative.
c. j. acworth| 1.23.13 @ 8:50AM
As a fellow who never married or had kids, let me ask a question from the perspective of one on the outside looking in. Are we all reducing kids to mere commodities? Something to be bought and sold, owned when convienient, discarded when not? How many women (and couples) wait until they can "afford" a child, only to find out that too much time has gone by, and they should've waited on something else, like the fancy house or the newest car instead? My dad always said "Boy, you can never afford kids". And how many times have I heard some commentator go on about the deficit in Social Security being caused by not enough new workers to pay taxes to support the retirees? I've heard lots of happy parents go on about their kids, even though they couldn't "afford" them (read, had to give up some luxuries for their sake). And of all the reasons I've been given to have kids, not once has someone told me they did it to save the Great Society. It usually had to do with things like love for the spouse, belief in the future, things trancendent rather than transient. Maybe we've lost the trancendent, so we're losing kids, too.
Buck Ofama| 1.23.13 @ 3:08PM
>Are we all reducing kids to mere commodities? Something to be bought and sold, owned when convienient, discarded when not?
They already are commodities, insofar as it is similar to parking your kid in front of the video game machine all weekend, when you ought to be taking the kid outside and doing some useful parent/kid activity.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:22AM
As the father of three, and hav+ing adopted two of them, and a pro-life Catholic, I can say you hit it closer than anyone else I have seen in these forums.
As I like to say, abortion did not bring us a culture of death, the culture of death brought us abortion.
holmegm| 1.23.13 @ 9:29AM
"Perhaps some pregnant women with no intention of aborting would claim they want to abort simply to collect a check. "
Perhaps?!?
Have you ever *met* the underclass?
JD| 1.23.13 @ 3:43PM
Even people who aren't pregnant would claim such a thing. Things can be faked.
Get "pregnant", claim check, "miscarriage", repeat.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:23AM
It's hard to fool a doctor about being pregnant.
sickofit5| 1.23.13 @ 10:08AM
Don't we already do this? It's called welfare. The more babies you have the more you get. The problem is they only get the money if there is no daddy around.
PolishKnight| 1.23.13 @ 10:38AM
The ironically conservative solution to that problem, sickofit5, was to assess child-support against the father to pay back the state. In other words, making the men into indentured servants for children they don't have full custody or access to.
This only worked on men with traditional W2 taxable income driving away normal, reliable men from lower class women and men without taxable income (gang bangers) had a field day. And that's the status quo. Brought to us by conservatives. Note: I have far more in common with conservatives than leftists but this is a problem the conservatives need to own.
Buck Ofama| 1.23.13 @ 3:10PM
@PolockKnight:
" Note: I have far more in common with conservatives than leftists but this is a problem the conservatives need to own."
So, your solution is: __
PolishKnight| 1.23.13 @ 3:19PM
So starting out with a cheap slur is useful how? (Polack is actually a proper Polish word so using it as a slur is kind of stupid. You Amerikan you!)
Ok, seriously... my solution is not ideal but is workable: state provided daycare and even orphanages where necessary and the parents who can be tracked down, both of them, with financial assessments in EQUAL amounts to pay the taxpayer back every dime. No welfare check for one and a bill for the other. Get it?
If a girl sleeps with a loser in order to get knocked up and he's broke and goes to jail, she still pays the social worker half to look after her kids while she toils 16 hours a day to pay the bill. That should curb their enthusiasm to have kids out of wedlock.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:25AM
IOW, you want slavery as the antidote to unwed pregnancy.
JD| 1.23.13 @ 3:38PM
I never supported an idea like this, so I do not own it.
Nor does conservatism own it, for it is not a conservative idea.
Specific "conservatives" might own it if they, in past fits of Leftism, helped make it happen. But my blue car isn't red just because I call it red, nor is a Leftist idea "conservative" just because a self-styled "conservative" advanced it.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:27AM
You support the causes behind the problem. You support low wages for the working class, you support lack of medical care for large numbers of Americans, you support keeping a large underclass to hold down wages for the working class.
You support that because you are a conservative. If you are not a conservative, disregard, that doesn't apply to you.
JD| 1.23.13 @ 11:31AM
Thank you to this author for illustrating the difference between Leftism and the Right.
While most Leftists, in their great dishonesty, will suggest that we have different GOALS (with ours being evil), the truth is that our goals, at a high level, are very similar. It's our METHODS that differ.
Even in the case of abortion, it's not a different goal; it's simply different understanding of the personhood of the unborn that distinguishes us.
Leftists often commit the fallacy of calling "conservative" those who use Left-wing methods to achieve goals that are different from the goals of American Leftists. For example, oppressive Middle Eastern governments use unquestionably left-wing methods of control and central management to run their countries, but the American Left expends considerable effort to convince the world that they are somehow "far-right". That both their goals and their methods are opposite those of the American Right does not stop the American Left from trying to make this association; they simply consider everyone who is not them to be the Right. Doing so helps them hate the Right and helps them persuade others to hate the Right.
Which brings us to this author. He proposes using an unquestionably left-wing tactic to advance the goal of reducing abortions. He probably doesn't think he's being Leftist because of his goal, but he most definitely is. But true to form, many people won't understand that.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:30AM
"they simply consider everyone who is not them to be the Right. Doing so helps them hate the Right and helps them persuade others to hate the Right."
Substitute left for right in that an you got it.
pigdog| 1.23.13 @ 11:34AM
"We could keep the government out of it entirely. Perhaps a rich, enterprising pro-life activist could fund a pilot study at a pregnancy center to see if this proposal is viable."
Conduct the study outside an abortion clinic. Setup a table and a sign: "Cash for your fetus--dead or alive." If the carrying female is a blue-eyed blond, explain to her the adoption market, and how "expenses" are reimbursed. If the carrying female is a member of an under-served community, administer a drug test. Explain to her that the adoption market was already working against her fetus, and that the situation will be far worse should she deliver a crack-baby. But, there is a market for fetal tissue, and if Blondie can receive cash for a healthy full-term fetus, women not so fortunate should at least be able to receive the scrap value of their fetuses. And they can take comfort in the fact that mother and fetus are helping the advancement of medical science and cosmetics. And if the abortus is female, depending on gestational age, the ovaries might help a sterile woman to someday have a baby.
I appreciate Mr. Allott's market oriented thinking, but I fear where it might lead.
JD| 1.23.13 @ 2:44PM
To call Allott's proposal "market-oriented" is to call ObamaCare "market-oriented."
The Left, in its dishonesty, sells us Leftism with the label "market-oriented", and has succeeded in deluding the public to such an extent that even many who call themselves "conservative" buy into the Left's "logic".
Seek| 1.23.13 @ 12:04PM
In a sense, we already bribe expectant mothers to carry their offspring to term: the $1,000 per child tax credit; the child care tax credit; and lower thresholds of taxation for single-mother households (as opposed to single females without minor children). About the last thing we need is to plunge our nation further into debt with another bounty. Sentiment rather than practicality is what drives Allott's proposal.
JD| 1.23.13 @ 2:46PM
Rare agreement, "Seek".
Subsidized activity is a bad idea, regardless of the activity. As others have stated, this particular proposal is especially prone to abuse, as women could claim to be considering abortion for every pregnancy, or even fake pregnancies, in order to claim the handout.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:32AM
Yet babies keep dying.
Find another answer is you don't like his.
Hardcard| 1.23.13 @ 2:21PM
Abide by the Ten Commandments.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:33AM
Doesn't save the babies of those who don't.
JD| 1.23.13 @ 2:56PM
The market ALWAYS exists, because people ALWAYS make choices. There is no such thing as the elimination of the market. Government may fine, imprison, or kill you for making choices that it dislikes. Those are the only tools that have ever been at its disposal. The Left uses this fact to sell every aspect of its agenda as being "market-based", as though there is some other further Leftism that would eliminate the market. There isn't. Even Soviet Russia had markets - they were just "black" markets.
There is no difference between the fine for speeding and the tax credit for buying a hybrid. Both impose a cost on those who don't do what the government wants relative to those who do. If government announced that everyone who bought a non-hybrid would be charged with a crime and pay a fine, though, the public would riot. But by casting their action as a "tax credit" for hybrid buyers, government achieves exactly the same result, and the public does not riot. In fact, the public considers this a "free market solution", applauds it, and viciously condemns those who oppose it.
This contradiction is the result of decades of left-wing distortion of basic common sense. Despite the public's nominal conservatism, voters eat up Leftism that is misrepresented as conservatism. The furthest reaches of Leftism can be attained in this way, but the public will still think that it is "center-right", and condemn rightward moves as "extreme."
We must make them see the truth.
cicero| 1.23.13 @ 2:59PM
How to put the genie back in teh bottle? Let me count the ways. Except non will work, unless this society reinstitutes the concepts of right, wrong, responsibility, and shame. I fear we are a long way off.
Buck Ofama| 1.23.13 @ 3:05PM
Idiotic article. Makes as much sense as paying nappy-headed breeders for every new fatherless crumb snatcher. Sure, let's pay them to not fvck. They'll gladly tayk dat gubmin muny, get fvcked anyway, then collect a new gubmin chek fo dat new crum snatcher. ya das mayk goot sence nomuh sayin???????????????
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:35AM
Why did you find racist words in which to express that?
You so destroy the credibility of the right, and the American Spectator.
g wayne| 1.23.13 @ 3:52PM
I think a lot of you miss the point. This is about women that would otherwise chose abortion not the welfare moms. The key would be the money along with an agreement to place the child for adoption. My wife and I could not have kids so we adopted 7 years ago at a cost of nearly $26k. We didn't think we could again but just recently have adopted a 2 year old at a bargain of about 16k. Hard to come up with that kind of money on one salary. There is a huge demand for infants. We waited over a year for our first son, and know others that are waiting now. This is why many go overseas. There is no lack of willing and able families available to adopt. The birth mother of our first son decided to abort, but waited too long and ended up bringing him to term. A month earlier and he would have ended up as medical waste. He is a bright, outgoing and energetic 7 year old that brings joy to everyone he is around. I wish every pregnant mother considering abortion would meet him and hear his story. More than a few might reconsider. If you want to help I encourage you to support your local Crisis Pregnancy Center, adoption providers like Bethany Christian Services, or adoption assistance programs such as the ABBA Fund.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:41AM
"The key would be the money along with an agreement to place the child for adoption. "
No it would not. Turning pregnant poor women into baby factories for the better off is a bad idea.
"My wife and I could not have kids so we adopted 7 years ago at a cost of nearly $26k. We didn't think we could again but just recently have adopted a 2 year old at a bargain of about 16k. Hard to come up with that kind of money on one salary."
I went through the same thing. Yes, it's hard to come up with the money on one salary, so think how hard it is to come up with the money to support a child with an even lower salary.
" There is a huge demand for infants. We waited over a year for our first son, and know others that are waiting now."
No, there is not a huge demand. You had to wait because there is a small number of children available. There are not a million waiting families every year, not a million families in line every year.
Adoption is not the answer, salaries high enough to support a family is the answer.
" This is why many go overseas. There is no lack of willing and able families available to adopt. "
And millions of babies overseas die for lack of a family. Adopting here means a baby dies there. Adoption is not the solution to the US abortion problem, higher salaries for the working class is.
John Navratil| 1.23.13 @ 4:34PM
Let's think about this from the perspective of the pregnant woman. If she values the life, but cannot afford it, services exist to help her through. Are there enough? I don't know!
Is she doesn't value the life, a check to carry to term may be an incentive to do so, or it may be a moral hazard. I would expect the only way to reduce the moral hazard is through in-kind support and a modest stipend paid throughout the pregnancy and contingent on healthy behaviour. But this really is animal husbandry, isn't it.
Given the number of abortions per year, the cynic in me expects few takers. Let's see, I can keep this baby, quit drinking, take care of myself, give the baby up after doing all that work, and my boyfriend picks up with someone else, or I can bee-bop on down to Planned Parenthood and put everything back as it was.
I don't see the win with this plan. But I've been wrong before.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 11:50AM
" If she values the life, but cannot afford it, services exist to help her through. Are there enough? I don't know!"
She doesn't need services, she needs an income high enough to support a child. With the median income in this country somewhere around $26k/yr that's fully 1/2 the population of this country that doesn't have such an income.
Preferable incomes will rise overall to an extent that will allow family formation and married couple parents.
"I would expect the only way to reduce the moral hazard is through in-kind support and a modest stipend paid throughout the pregnancy and contingent on healthy behaviour."
No, your entire theory is based on women being indifferent to their unborn child. The stats in the article argue against that.
" Let's see, I can keep this baby, quit drinking, take care of myself, give the baby up after doing all that work, and my boyfriend picks up with someone else, or I can bee-bop on down to Planned Parenthood and put everything back as it was."
And you have contempt for the women involved. Such contempt that you would kill a plan that could just drastically reduce the problem.
"I don't see the win with this plan. But I've been wrong before.
And you are again. I don't see this as the winning plan, but I see it as a realization that punishment and control, which the right loves so much, is not the answer. Jobs are the answer, as they are to almost all problems in this country.
C Bowen | 1.23.13 @ 5:48PM
Pretty sad effort of an article--are women with 6 babies from 5 different dads proof of it enough?
Something interesting would be subsidizing sterilization of women seeking abortions--at least that would be interesting.
hrgfue | 1.23.13 @ 10:58PM
2013 Happy New Year
Appleby| 1.24.13 @ 9:45AM
It kills babies.
fwb| 1.24.13 @ 1:44PM
We've been trying to STOP this for years. Abortion is terrible but no more terrible than making people dependent on the government for life.
Welfare moms have multiple babies in order to get more "free" money from the system. It would be better to pay these women to get neutered.
Decades ago an ob-gyn I know of would refuse pain medication to unwed mothers having babies. He would offer to "fix" the problem permanently if they would sign on the line. Then when the child was born he legally tied the woman's tubes and voila, no more illegitimate babies. It is time to shame people for having out of wedlock children. It is an evil perpetrated on the child to not have a male and female parent.
C Bowen | 1.24.13 @ 4:51PM
Good post.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 12:32PM
"Abortion is terrible but no more terrible than making people dependent on the government for life."
So, maybe you want to subsidize abortion?
Yes, it is worse. However, before the welfare reform fraud of the Clinton era 90% of welfare mothers got off welfare on their own. That's before the limits were imposed. The reality is, if there are enough jobs then welfare becomes a minor issue. If there are not enough jobs welfare becomes survival.
"Welfare moms have multiple babies in order to get more "free" money from the system. It would be better to pay these women to get neutered."
Everything you say is based on mythology and hate. Most unwed mothers today are over 25, and few are on welfare. The poor mother is more likely to get an abortion, if she can.
"Decades ago an ob-gyn I know of would refuse pain medication to unwed mothers having babies. He would offer to "fix" the problem permanently if they would sign on the line. "
That OB-Gyn should have lost his license and probably gone to prison.
It is time to shame people for having out of wedlock children. It is an evil perpetrated on the child to not have a male and female parent."
Your self righteousness reveals your true nature, and kills babies.
Kevin Brent | 1.24.13 @ 6:07PM
We already pay women not to abort. It's called ADC, Assistance for Dependent Children. AKA, welfare. The only condition is that they not be married. So, Barack Obama, can be yo baby daddy.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 12:35PM
It is the right wing, today the republican party, who are responsible for that.
Oh, and you are so far behind reality it's amazing. ADC went out decades ago. It was followed by AFDC and now TANF.
The payments are so low they are a disgrace to this country, and there is a 5 year limit, which is a lifetime limit.
IOW, Republican reforms kill babies.
gray man| 1.24.13 @ 6:57PM
Women are already paid to not abort.
Bob From District 9| 1.25.13 @ 12:36PM
No, they are encouraged to abort by the lack of financial resources to have a baby.