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
Apparently the more babies you have, the more patriotic you are.
Tags:abortion;contraception;health insurance;social security
4 comments:
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
Oh and I replied to you and PT.
dlw
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.
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
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