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Monday, October 20, 2008

Return of the welfare queens

ANONYMOUS SAID:

So you think that showing that poor women are more likely to have abortions proves that programs aimed at reducing poverty would not decrease abortions? For the record, I never said that welfare states reduce the abortion rate. I said that a broad social safety net, access to contraception, and universal health care that covers the staggering costs of pre and post natal care reduce abortions.

Of course women on welfare in this country will be more likely to abort their children! They're the people who suffer most from poverty, and can least afford more children! No welfare recipient in this country is getting the kind of support that would reduce abortions. In fact, I'd argue that our welfare system encourages abortion since in nearly every state the amount of cash benefits per child decreases with every additional child.

When there's not access to contraception, there's little to no safety net, and poor people don't have access to absurdly expensive pre-natal and post-natal care, more women facing unexpected pregnancies will choose abortion.

Because it's not just prenatal and postnatal costs that contribute to the decision to have an abortion. It's the overall cost of raising a child. That price is offset by programs that insure an income, housing, childcare, health care, etc.

She'll have free access to health care, free access to child care, and if she's working, a year of fully paid maternity leave.


i) So Anonymous doesn’t believe in welfare. He just believes in free contraception, free prenatal care, free postnatal care, free health care, free housing, free maternity leave, and free income for poor woman.

ii) Organizations like NOW, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood don’t agree with him that poverty contributes to higher abortion rates. To the contrary, they complain that poverty reduces abortion rates by reducing access to affordable abortion “services.”

iii) Apropos (ii), if the liberals come to power, universal healthcare will subsidize abortion on demand. Hence, that will raise rather than lower the abortion rate.

iv) I also reject his moral extortion, according to which we must subsidize promiscuity lest promiscuous men and women murder their kids. Should we decriminalize murder and bribe potential killers not to commit murder if we give them enough goodies in return? That’s not the proper way to deter homicide.

v) Finally, do you notice anyone missing from his description? He speaks of poor single mothers. Hmm. Where are the fathers?

Indeed, it’s a well-known fact that welfare renders the father financially expendable. So the “solution” which he proposes would perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

My position is not that the Supreme Court strategy only saves a few, while the social net strategy saves many. My position is that the Supreme Court strategy doesn't save ANY, while the social net strategy would save many.

That’s a lie! This is what you initially said:

However, I agree with Reppert that simply mindlessly trying to end abortion by overturning Rowe vs Wade is a spectacularly stupid and utterly failed strategy. It would only turn matters over to the states, and most states outside of the South would keep the practice legal.

So you originally admitted that overturning Roe v. Wade would save lives. You simply limited its effect to Southern states.

Can you name a single abortion that has been prevented by electing Republican presidents in the hopes that, some time during their term, they'll be able to appoint a conservative judge?

Organizations like NOW, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood blame Bush for preventing many abortions by reinstating the “gag” order and cutting off Federal funds for abortion overseas.

I believe that a social safety net can start saving lives NOW. I believe that universal health care can start saving lives NOW. I believe Barack Obama's health care plan will save more unborn children in his first year of office than McCain's supreme court strategy would save if he was president for 8 years.

i) You need to show that Obama’s health care plan is financially sustainable. I don’t share your gullible optimism. And I’m not alone:

http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2008/05/first-year-results-in-massachusetts.html

ii) Even if it were, it would include funding for abortion, which would raise the rate of abortion.

iii) Your position boils down to this: Obama’s health care plan would have to offset all of the additional abortions which result for his aggressive abortion policy.

Some of the highest abortion rates in the world are in South America, where abortion is illegal, but poverty is rampant. And some of the lowest abortion rates in the world are in Western Europe, where abortion is legal, but poverty is rare. I leave it up to you whether you'll draw the obvious conclusion.

Of course this disregards the fact that in Catholic countries frown on contraception as well as abortion.

I'm not for teaching Christian ethics in schools, at least not as a required course, but I think our schools can and should teach sexual ethics that people of all faiths and no faiths would generally agree on.

Yes, let’s have public sex ed courses with a curriculum which the Goth, the atheist, the feminist, the Wahhabist, the skinhead, the sodomite, the skirt chaser, the transgender, the pious Catholic, and the Hassidic Jew can all agree on.

12 comments:

  1. Really, do we need a new post every time you want to respond to me? Can't we keep this discussion in one place? Just a suggestion; it's your blog.

    i) What actually happened was this. My original comment was that a European style welfare state reduces the number of abortions. You fallaciously assumed that all welfare systems are created equal, and thus responded with the non-sequitor that my position was false, since women on American-style welfare are more likely to have abortions. I responded by reminding you that American-style welfare isn't the same as European-style welfare, and is in fact encourages abortion, and so of course wouldn't have the same effect. And to this, you now give us the non-sequitor that I don't believe in welfare.

    Awesome.

    ii) Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and NOW are wrong. They're obviously wrong, since poor women have disproportionately more abortions than middle class or rich women. The very links you provided us with yesterday prove that.

    iii) If subsidizing abortions raises the abortion rate, then why is it that Western Europe, where abortion is subsidized, has half the abortion rate of the US, where it currently is not subsidized? And has one third or one fourth the abortion rate of places like Brazil, where abortion is not subsidized? Facts are stubborn things.

    iv) Look. This charge is absurd. No one is talking about cutting women a check for not having an abortion. Women wont' be profiting from having children. They won't have more money at the end of the month because they decided to have a child. Anyway you slice it, they'll have less. What I'm advocating is giving them enough support to greatly remove the financial incentive to have an abortion.

    I think what this really boils down to is that Republicans don't want their taxes raised, even if that means the death of millions of babies. And you want to lecture me on moral priorities?

    v) If that's true, then why is our poverty rate higher than that of Western Europe?

    Again, facts are stubborn things.

    You said:

    "So you originally admitted that overturning Roe v. Wade would save lives."

    I said no such thing. Just because I think only Southern states would outlaw abortion doesn't mean I think that will save lives. (Aren't you a philosopher? You should be better at this.)

    I don't believe that overturning Wade would save any lives. I think abortion would just migrate to more liberal states. And I think it will create an abortion black market in the states where abortion is illegal. I don't believe there will be a net saving of lives.

    "Organizations like NOW, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood blame Bush for preventing many abortions by reinstituting the “gag” order and cutting off Federal funds for abortion overseas."

    If you consider NOW, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood infallible sources on these issues, that's your problem. I don't.

    To your new set of numbered arguments:

    i) Europe has sustained much more generous health care systems. I don't see why we can't.

    ii) Again, if funding for abortion raises the rate of abortion, why doesn't it raise the rate of abortion in Western Europe?

    Do you have any evidence that funding abortion raises the abortion rate?

    iii) My argument is this: Obama is a step in the right direction towards giving the US a European Style Welfare state. Among other moral virtues I think makes such a state a desirable goal is the fact that it will be far more efficient in reducing the number of abortions than overturning Roe, which is the only strategy Republicans pursue electorally.

    "Of course this disregards the fact that in Catholic countries frown on contraception as well as abortion. "

    I could use the US as an example. Poor, protestant women, with access to contraception, have abortions at 10 times the rate of middle class women, according the statistics in an article you and members of your blog provided just yesterday!

    "Yes, let’s have public sex ed courses with a curriculum which the Goth, the atheist, the feminist, the Wahhabist, the skinhead, the sodomite, the skirt chaser, the transgender, the pious Catholic, and the Hassidic Jew can all agree on."

    I don't think any of the people you mention want their children having promiscuous, unprotected sex. And even if some do, most don't.

    What do you propose? Just forcing all those people submit their children to your 5-point Calvinist theology? I'm advocating something that's practical, and Constitutional, and could possibly be implemented. It would be nice if everybody in this country was a Christian, and the Constitution didn't disallow the establishment of a state religion. That's not how it is, and I don't want the perfect to become the enemy of the good.

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  2. Facts are stubborn things:

    http://janechastain.com/2007/09/27/the-dirty-little-secret-about-europes-teen-pregnancy-rates/

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  3. I don't know what you want me to say. This Doctor Laura wannabe makes undocumented, unreferenced attacks on how some European states supposedly fudge their teenage pregnancy rates, and I'm supposed to completely discount the findings an international body like the WHO on abortion statistics?

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  4. Um, I saw several references to documentation in there.
    Maybe you should try READING it.

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  5. Do your European stats include medically induced abortions (i.e. RU486)?

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  6. anonymous said...

    “If you consider NOW, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood infallible sources on these issues, that's your problem. I don't.”

    So now you have to take the position that both prolife and proabortion sources are unreliable.

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  7. anonymous said...

    “I think what this really boils down to is that Republicans don't want their taxes raised, even if that means the death of millions of babies. And you want to lecture me on moral priorities?”

    i) Obama is going to raise our taxes? I’m disillusioned!

    Didn’t he promise to cut the tax rate for anyone with an annual income under $250K? Cut taxes for 95% of taxpayers?

    Are you now admitting that he lied to us?

    ii) I think what this really boils down to is that you don’t believe mothers and fathers should be required by law to feed and clothe their own kids. And you want to lecture me on moral priorities?

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  8. "Do your European stats include medically induced abortions (i.e. RU486)?"

    I can't tell. I've been relying on two WHO studies, one from 1999 and one from 2007. The 199 study was conducted before RU486 was available in most of Western Europe, and still, the Western European abortion rate was half ours. I'll also point out that 11 states in America don't report RU486 abortions. So our stats are also underreported.

    The only thing we know for sure is, before RU486, Western Europe still had an abortion rate that was half that of our own, so it doesn't seem reasonable to blame the fact that this is still the case on unreported RU486 abortions, particularly when we also have unreported RU486 abortions.

    "So now you have to take the position that both prolife and proabortion sources are unreliable."

    Nonsense. I simply don't accept your repeated (and utterly fallacious) arguments from authority based on what NOW or Planned Parenthood say.

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  9. ANONYMOUS SAID:

    "I've been relying on two WHO studies, one from 1999 and one from 2007."

    "Nonsense. I simply don't accept your repeated (and utterly fallacious) arguments from authority based on what NOW or Planned Parenthood say."

    I see. An argument from authority is invalid if the sources undercut your position, but an argument from authority is valid if the sources (WHO) allegedly support your position.

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  10. ANONYMOUS SAID:

    “I could use the US as an example. Poor, protestant women, with access to contraception, have abortions at 10 times the rate of middle class women, according the statistics in an article you and members of your blog provided just yesterday!”

    But you’ve repeatedly argued that we should support Obama because his healthcare program would supply contraceptives to poor women, and lack of access to contraceptives is a major reason that poor women have higher rates of abortion. Are you now reversing yourself?

    I guess that facts are stubborn things unless they contradict your position, at which point they become very pliable.

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  11. ANONYMOUS SAID:

    “I said no such thing. Just because I think only Southern states would outlaw abortion doesn't mean I think that will save lives. (Aren't you a philosopher? You should be better at this.)__I don't believe that overturning Wade would save any lives. I think abortion would just migrate to more liberal states.”

    How would that happen as long as the "Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act" is in force?

    Of course, if Obama is elected thanks to voters like you, then that would be repealed.

    “And I think it will create an abortion black market in the states where abortion is illegal. I don't believe there will be a net saving of lives.”

    By that strained logic, laws never deter behavior. Are you an anarchist?

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  12. read this first

    http://american-platform.com/america/2008/10/20/the-mccain-health-care-plan-more-power-to-families/

    ReplyDelete