Friday, March 18, 2005

Babies: The "Pro-Life" Plan To Fix Social Security

The Senate voted 53-47 on mostly party lines against "Pro-life" Minority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) Putting Prevention First Bill. Pro-choice groups supported the bill and NARAL issued an open letter to the "Pro-Life" community asking for the opportunity to work together to pass this bill and decrease the number of unintended pregnancies (the single-most significant variable that impacts the number of abortions performed each year). As expected, the call was largely ignored which begs the question "what is the real agenda of the 'pro-life' movement"?

Judd Gregg (R-NH), chairman of the budget committee, was against the amendment because is blocked funding to largely ineffective abstinence-only sex education programs. He also said the program "would increase the cost of insurance & create more uninsured individuals". I guess, in contrast, families and children on welfare and medical assistance would decrease the cost of insurance and healthcare or is he advocating abortion (even when abortion isn't something the parents would want to consider) as a cost effective measure to lower premium rates?

The"Prolifers" who post to the Bush vs Choice blog had quite a bit to say about how morally appropriate the defeat of the bill was on this thread. There were the standard most contraceptive agents are abortifacients arguments [emphasis added]:

"We keep forgetting that most forms of contraception (pills) and especially the morning after pill are in fact abortificients, by causing very early abortions. Thinking that increasing funding for early abortion drugs would cause less abortions is ridculous."

Posted by: RJ | March 18, 2005 11:44 AM


and the "I shouldn't pay for someone else to prevent pregnancy when they insist on having sex" (especially when Natural Family Planning and abstinence are free and condoms are pretty cheap) and arguments in agreement with Senator Gregg's concern about increase insurance premiums (from some people who say they'll willingly pay to subsidize pre/post-natal care and even child-care costs - so money can't really be the issue, can it?). By and large, exdem had the most insightful post on the issue [empahsis added]:

"I would much rather pay twice the taxes I pay and have them go to support little kids and their parents. Did you know that the European economy is about to crash because the folks there are not having enough babies? The only reason the States has population replacement numbers is because of immigration. Italy and Germany now are paying couples to have babies because their populations are aging to the extent that in 10 years much of these two countries is expected to be a geriatric ghetto - there will not be enough unretired tax payers to support those that are retired and to pay the countries' bills."

Posted by: Exdem | March 18, 2005 08:35 PM


This makes it sound very much like the goal is not just banning abortion because it's (in their opinion) murder, but to ensure more babies are born to ensure our country's economic growth. A ban on abortion with subsequent increase in pregnancies that cannot legally be terminated is part of the "Pro-Life" movement's plan to fix Social Security and save our country. This experiment was done by Nicolae Ceacescu in Romania between 1966 and 1984; it didn't work out well for the women of that country or the children born of the policies.

Apparently the more babies you have, the more patriotic you are.


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4 comments:

DLW said...

I agree completely that the real issue is partisan politics.

That is why I think the debate has to be reframed and prolifers made aware of the extent they have been snow-balled by their leaders.

dlw

DLW said...

Oh and I replied to you and PT.

dlw

Ol Cranky said...

They've swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker they don't want to see they've bought into partisan lies. They're like the wife who knows her husband is having an affair but won't let the knowledge register because that means it's not real.

DLW said...

You may be right.

The pietistic roots of the evangelical Christianity that took root in the US stemmed from religious groups that emerged in reaction against state churches and had no experience with state-craft.

The anti-intellectualism from the Fundamentalist-Modernist schism in the US has made many of them unwilling to learn from others about this sort of thing and so they've generally neglected questions of culture and allowed themselves to become culturally captivated.

There was a conference surrounding the book, "The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience" where several church historians went through the stuff that led us to where we are today. I took notes and posted about them if you're interested.

dlw