Originally Posted by
Amanda
The biggest hypocrisy of all in my mind is not people who are pro-choice yet anti-death penalty....nor is it those who are pro-death penalty but pro-life on abortion. It's those who claim to be "pro-life" but anti taxes. The culture warriors, who are all too often the same crowd constantly complaining about being overtaxed, appear to be clueless on the financial ramifications of enforced childbirth. Suffice it to say that the cost of government would swell significantly. Let's just take a quick look at a couple of the ways in which the "give me my money back" crowd would have to open up their wallets if they got what they asked for and criminalized abortion....
1. The cost of prohibition. Prohibitions never work. As long as the demand for a good or service prevails, the supply will simply fall into a black market. That was the case with bootleggers in the 1910's, foreign cartels with narcotics as a result of the current "war on drugs", and lawless pimps taking advantage of teenage runaways because of our prohibition against prostitution. Before the Roe vs. Wade ruling, it was also the case with abortion as back-alley abortionists did primitive work on women seeking to terminate a pregnancy. Such a culture will resurface if abortion is made illegal. Even for those who claim not to care if abortions retreat to the black market in the wake of a legal prohibition, your pocketbook will care. A whole new slough of vice police officers will need to be hired nationwide to enforce the laws against the newly-invented criminals....more bureaucrats will have to be hired at courthouses and probation offices to process the new criminals.....and more prisons will have to be built to lock up the back-alley abortion providers and the would-be mothers seeking their services. Bottom line....somebody has to pay for this massive expansion of government....something not being considered by the "it's my money" crowd as they clamor to infiltrate the courts with judges that would overthrow Roe vs. Wade.
2. Huge new social service costs. Forget about the whole disingenuous "welfare mama" argument and just focus on the simple fact that women who would otherwise be having abortions would be less likely to be good mothers. Whatever socioeconomic background these women come from, they'd be far more likely to be substance abusers during their pregnancy, and thus give birth to children with medical and intellectual deficiencies. Alcoholic and drug-addicted mothers that would have otherwise had abortions will bring about a population boom of needy children and will require a huge surge in public spending to finance a lifetime of special education and extensive health care treatment. Again, these expenses will have to covered, at least in part, by the same people who think they're overtaxed now!
I can't accept the idea that "pro-life" ends when the umbilical cord is cut, but I sense many of the penny-pinching, tax-hating ideologues on the front lines of the abortion war believe their commitment ends once the child passes through mama's loins. I am personally opposed to abortion myself, but could only support the criminalization of abortion if I thought our society was mature enough to deal with the consequences. In no way am I confident that in today's gluttonous and avaricious "it's my money" climate that the loudest voices in the anti-abortion movement would be willing to put their money where their mouth is. Bottom line....be careful what you wish for, "pro-lifers". It just might come true.
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