WHY
CAN'T WE LOVE THEM BOTH
by Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke
CHAPTER 43
TAX
FUNDED ABORTIONS
This has been rather definitively answered in the U.S. A large
majority of citizens do not want to pay for welfare abortions. With almost no exceptions,
every poll with unbiased wording has confirmed this time after time. Most of the
investigations of this issue were done in the ’70s and ’80s when there were dire
predictions of women dying if such abortions were not paid for.
What happened when public funding of abortions was cut off?
There was an excellent example. In 1977, the federal
government of the U.S. paid for 295,000 welfare abortions. In 1978, it only paid for 2,000
abortions because the Hyde Amendment had cut off the funding. The U.S. government’s
chief pro-abortion biostatistician, Dr. Willard Cates, predicted "a total of 77
excess deaths to women" who would turn to illegal abortions, plus five additional
deaths due to delay of abortions into the later weeks of pregnancy. Petitti & Cates, "Restricting Medicaid Funds: Projection of Excess
Mortality," Amer. Jour. Public Health, vol. 67, no. 9, Sept. 1977, pp. 860-862
In fact, his projection proved to be completely unfounded. An
article by the same department, which later surveyed 13 states and the District of
Columbia, revealed, "No increase in abortion related complications was observed. . .
. No abortion deaths related to either legal or illegal abortions were detected, [and
there was] no difference between institutions in funded and non-funded states."
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC, U.S. Dept. HEW, vol.
28, no. 4, Feb. 2, 1979
A later attempt to link three deaths as
"abortion funding related" was shown not to be related to the funding cut off at
all. Total maternal abortion deaths were actually lower than before the cutoff in 1976.
Further, when welfare funds for elective abortion are cut off, there is a reduction in the
total number of abor-tions, but also of live births. Apparently, conceptions decreased
when the welfare state eliminated free abortions as a birth control measure. J. Kasun, "Cut Off Of Abortion Funds Doesn’t Deliver
Welfare Babies," Wall Street Journal, Dec. 30, 1986
But poor women want this
help.
Not as much as rich people. In 1984, the strongly pro-abortion
University of North Carolina polled its state to find that only 32% favored tax funding.
An important finding was that 43% of the college-educated favored such government
"assistance," while only 17% of those with less than a high-school eduction
concurred. Also, 36% of men favored assistance, but only 28% of women. So, those who would
receive the "benefit" of tax-funded abortions wanted them the least. One might
conclude that the elitist social planners see this as a way of reducing poverty —
killing the unborn children of the poor.
From a strictly economic standpoint, isn’t it cheaper to abort than to
have another person on welfare?
Planned Parenthood did one of the definitive studies
on this which showed that at the time of the study there were welfare costs of $13,900 for
each first birth to a teenager (married and unmarried), and $8,400 for each first birth to
her if she was 20 years or older. Compare this with the average of nearly $50,000 each
will ultimately pay in taxes as an adult. M. Burt,
"Public Cost of Teen Childbearing," Family Planning Perspective, vol. 18,
no. 5, Sept. 1986
The average time a family stays on welfare
in the U.S. is 27 months, not 18 years. When we peel away the outer layer of the rhetoric,
what we find is a callous cost-benefit analysis of solving poverty by killing the unborn
children of the poor.
This continues to happen. In 1982, Michigan for
instance, only 14.7% of pregnancies of non-welfare mothers were aborted. This clearly
suggests coercion when we realize that the minority classes who make up a large share of
the welfare people are more against abortion than are the while middle and upper classes. Ibid
It isn’t the poor who want abortions. It’s
the rich who want abortions for the poor.
WHY CAN'T WE LOVE THEM BOTH
About Life Issues
Life Issues Home Page
How Can I Support Life
Issues Institute?
|
