Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 5:42am

Cheaper to Kill Them?

Punishment

 

 

Hattip to Guy Benson at Hot Air.  An argument that has been part of the pro-abort playbook since Roe is that abortion reduces welfare costs:

The CBO has also concluded that aborting babies at 20 weeks or later in pregnancy saves money for the government-run federal-state Medicaid system. The CBO made these determinations when doing its official “Cost Estimate” of a federal bill that would prohibit abortions at 20 weeks or later into pregnancy (except in cases of reported rape, incest against a minor or to save the life of the mother).  “Because the costs of about 40 percent of all births are paid for by the Medicaid program, CBO estimates that federal spending for Medicaid will rise to the extent that enacting H.R. 1797 results in additional births and deliveries relative to current law,” says CBO. “H.R. 1790 would result in increased spending for Medicaid,” says CBO. “Since a portion of Medicaid is paid for by state governments, CBO estimates that state spending on the program would increase by about $170 million over the 2014-2023 period.

Go here to read the rest.  When the late Congressman Henry Hyde first proposed the Hyde Amendment one of his adversaries in the House made precisely this argument.  Hyde freely conceded the point with a devastating:  “It is always cheaper to kill them.”  Bravo Mr. Hyde, but I wonder.  Nothing is ever cost free in this vale of tears and producing a society where one-quarter of our kids are slain each year in utero has not put us on the path of fiscal responsibility, quite the reverse.  What abortion does say about our society, along with many other terrible things, is that we are a culture that will even kill our offspring if we can be spared  from the consequences of our actions.  The abortion mindset does not exist in a vacuum.  The flight from consequences, duty and responsibilities, all those hard parts of life that can ennoble ourselves and our civilization, is a widespread reaction today in many spheres of life, which is why we are bankrupt, morally and fiscally, as a nation.  Live for the moment means that someone down the road is going to have a hard time, usually the ones we should love and protect.  One individual doing this is a disgrace;  an entire society doing it is a disaster.

 

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c matt
c matt
Wednesday, July 10, AD 2013 8:25am

Of course, that is only looking at one side of the ledger. How many of those aborted babies would have also become taxpayers, consumers and producers?

Nancy
Wednesday, July 10, AD 2013 9:20am

c matt, so true. One day recently, the women I work with were being rather critical of my children and the number of my grandchildren. I was tired of hearing it so I said, “My grandchildren will be paying for your social security.” (number 16 will be born in February.) Haven’t heard about it since–at least to my face :).

trackback
Wednesday, July 10, AD 2013 11:31am

[…] – Ryan Eggenberger, Ignt Tdy We Can’t All Be Good Cooks – Tammy Ruiz, Catholic Stand Cheaper to Kill Them? – Donald R. McClarey JD, The American Catholic Internat’l Court Dismisses S. N. A. […]

Kyle Miller
Kyle Miller
Wednesday, July 10, AD 2013 1:15pm

c matt, Two of the biggest examples of choosing life over abortion and the rewards it reaps are Steve Jobs and Dave Thomas. Both adopted and created very successful and large companies employing thousands… who pay taxes too.

c matt
c matt
Wednesday, July 10, AD 2013 2:08pm

Just to be clear (so far it seems everyone understood my point well), even if it were cheaper, that would in no way justify it. I don’t want anyone assuming I would only look at this issue from a material perspective – I just wanted to directly address the inaccurate assumption made by the “cheaper to kill” advocates.

Don the Kiwi
Don the Kiwi
Wednesday, July 10, AD 2013 3:11pm

Abortion – and contraception – are putting our societies on a path to poverty. All societies up till the present one recognised that our wealth – familial and societal – is in our children. Going back to Abraham and beyond, a man’s wealth and stature was gauged by his sons and daughters.
Our secular society has become so vacuous and self centred that they do not look far enough forward to ask the question embodied in c.matt’s comment.

Nancy
Wednesday, July 10, AD 2013 4:01pm

Abortion-and contraception-are rejection of fatherhood, especially the Fatherhood of God. Women who believe in the first lies uttered in Eden are victims of a “control” mentality: control of life from its beginning to its end. With that said, it is very hard for them to trust in a loving Father who knows their every breath. Not only women, but men, too, suffer from this affliction. How can we turn back? One of my pet beliefs is to have children. A “large” family sets a good example for others on many levels. From last Sunday’s gospel: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few: so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest…”

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, July 11, AD 2013 3:44am

Following the fall of China to the Communists, Hong Kong was flooded with hundreds of thousands of refugees. A UN official declared that it could only survive through massive Western aid and the resettlement of refugees elsewhere and the British grimly entitled the lead chapter in their annual Hong Kong yearbook, “A Problem of People.” In 1954, the government estimated the “carrying capacity” of the colony as 1.4 million people.

In 2002, with a population of 7 million, Hong Kong was one of the most dynamic economies in Asia. As a local businessman explained, people have two hands, but only one mouth.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, July 11, AD 2013 11:16am

Amen, Don: “The flight from consequences, duty and responsibilities…. that can ennoble ourselves and our civilization, is a widespread reaction today …. we are bankrupt, morally and fiscally, as a nation…”

God help us. The lack of love… narcissism, lack of empathy, utilitarian approach to life; people are commodities. The people rebel against what-?
The sense of honor is lacking but people are filled with angry pride. Given everything they need, appetites satiated, they become neurotic demanders. People dive into revolution for it’s own sake… not thinking or caring of consequences, because consequences are THEN, this revolution that so thrills the self is NOW

Foxfier
Admin
Thursday, July 11, AD 2013 11:25am

c matt says:
Wednesday, July 10, 2013 A.D. at 2:08pm (Edit)
Just to be clear (so far it seems everyone understood my point well), even if it were cheaper, that would in no way justify it. I don’t want anyone assuming I would only look at this issue from a material perspective – I just wanted to directly address the inaccurate assumption made by the “cheaper to kill” advocates.

On one hand, I can see responding as if “how expensive are these folks?” may play into the idea that we should look at folks economically; on the other– it’s such a crazy stupid thing to see each life as only a cost that it should be pointed out that it’s not true.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, July 11, AD 2013 11:53am

I guess people are rebelling against the sickness and sadness and feeling of meaninglessness But they still want to race the philosophies that brought us the sickness, sadness and meaninglessness
The rebellion is blind

Mary De Voe
Monday, July 15, AD 2013 6:43am

“Abortion-and contraception-are rejection of fatherhood, especially the Fatherhood of God. ”
Roe v. Wade rejected any claim a father had for his constitutional posterity, who, father and son, have an endowed unalienable right to life. The rejection of the Fatherhood of God in the creation of the human soul, in eternal life for the human being, in the will to live for the newly conceived and in peace on earth for men of good will is the rendering of love, and the imposition of atheism. The newly conceived, morally and legally innocent soul endowed with sovereign personhood from the first moment of existence is the standard of Justice for our nation and for all humanity. Human existence is the criterion for the objective ordering of human rights. (Suarez)

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