Abortions are expensive, so taxpayers should fund them
by Kelli
Abortions are expensive. A first trimester abortion costs an average of $470. A second trimester abortion at 20 weeks costs an average of $1,500.
So what do you do if you can’t afford an abortion and you definitely can’t afford a baby?
If you happen to be one of the 12 million women who depend on Medicaid and other federal insurance programs, you are pretty screwed, thanks to the Hyde Amendment….
In the name of abortion rights, human rights and reproductive justice, it is time to repeal Hyde. Reproductive rights activists often focus on abortion’s legality and physical accessibility — where women can receive abortion care and how far along into a pregnancy the procedure is legal; but the fight for safe and legal abortion means nothing if it isn’t accessible to everyone.
I shouldn’t have to mention that providing coverage for abortion care leads to better economic outcomes for both the women who have abortions and for the institutions that would otherwise have to provide childcare service.
But, for some readers and most politicians, these nuances are what matter most for their public support of repealing Hyde. Sadly, the value of a woman’s life, autonomy and dignity aren’t always enough to influence policy. Often in a political context we see financial outcomes superseding socially just policy. Hyde is neither a socially just policy nor an economically sound one.
I currently have $342 in my savings account. If I didn’t admit that having less than $470 makes me nervous, I would be lying.
Like I said, abortions are expensive. But so is the cost of injustice.
So, happy anniversary, Hyde. Here’s to another year of classism, sexism, and broad-based discrimination lovingly provided by the United States government.
*This article refers to abortion care patients solely as women, but not all people who have abortions identify as women.
~ Carly Manes, discussing why she believes every woman deserves to have a “free” abortion, The Michigan Daily, September 29
[Graphic via NARAL Pro-Choice America]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Uhh…
“So what do you do if you can’t afford an abortion and you definitely can’t afford a baby?”
You get your expenses paid for the next nine months by a couple who DESPERATELY wants to adopt.
Another brilliant opportunist makes 2.50 per word off the backs of women in crisis. Thanks “The Michigan Daily,” for allowing abortion to be “rewarded” to already exploited women in crisis, who actually really need choices, not “The Choice”.
How about stop giving women a product of despair, but a hand to hold while taking on a responsibility we will ALL benefit from; a new human life, which this country desperately needs.
The vast majority of abortions are an elective procedure — not for the treatment of a disease or defect. The Hyde Amendment already makes exceptions for cases of rape, incest, or maternal life.
“In the name of abortion rights, human rights and reproductive justice, it is time to repeal Hyde.” What about in the name of the child’s human rights?
Talk about economic outcomes. Doesn’t providing a childcare service mean that you employ people who might not otherwise have a job? More people working is a huge economic stimulus.
In addition to adoptive couples who are willing to help birthmoms with medical and other expenses, pregnancy resource centers step up to the plate.
Well I cant speak for other states but Cleveland already does pay! Abortions are done on Medicaid and plenty of women I know get plan B on their welfare. Also when a friend of mine was getting ssi benifits for her kids ( father killed himself ) she used the government $ to pay for hers.
Also of all of my abortion stories in the archives not one woman aborted for her health. It just wasnt a good time. CHOICE. I want to wait for marriage or I want to finish college. My bf and I are breaking up….worse yet you could be like Vanessa ( AJs) girlfriend and sign an abortion contract. Am I the only one who finds that bizarre? They werent using protection so he couldnt even try the rhythm method? He just kept ejaculating in her? If thats the case then he used her body as a place to put his sperm deposit. It was bound to happen. I cant pin it all on the man. If she was that much of a dim bulb to go for that then they deserved each other! She was no victim although her abortion almost killed her and I really cant muster up much sympathy for her. Heres a tip..Stop Signing Abortion Contracts! Then she moved on to Shaquille O Neil and is penning a tell all book.
And Vanessa just like Merritt…get some self esteem. Find a single man and stop dating married men ( Shaq ) and men who ask you to sign abortion contracts. Unless you just have be on the arm of a superstar to get attention. And Merrit stop trying to get pregnant from abusers.
Im sorry but after these guys get their way they discard you. You were another notch on the belt. Instead of saying no to sex you bent over backwards to please him! And unless you live in a cave you ought to know how men talk about women who are easy. I know. I used to be the same way. There is hope to change…I have. Im not saying play games but do play hard to get. Wait for marriage because not many men will marry a woman who waits a few weeks ( or not even ) to have sex. There is no challenge and men tend to hang on to a challenge.
And one last story to tell. I once heard a woman on the phone to her friend. She was sitting close to me so I couldnt help but hear. She complained “Girl he hasnt called or made contact at all. Not for a week.” She started to cry. When she hung up I asked “Whats wrong are you okay”? She wiped away tears and we had a conversation. She said a guy had dumped her after sex. I asked her how long she made him wait. She gave me a funny look and said “I didnt make him wait at all.” Then she asked if I thought he would call. I looked at her and said “Probably not.”
It’s estimated that the Hyde Amendment has saved over a million lives. That’s one out of every ~319 Americans. If it were a pure statistical matter, we’d expect at least one member of Congress to have been saved by Hyde. But of course, Hyde doesn’t save the lives of the rich and powerful; it saves the lives of the poor, disenfranchised, and (yes I’m going there) black and brown. That’s what makes Hyde so vulnerable to attack. We need to put the people whose lives were saved by Hyde front and center.
The trouble, of course, is that few mothers would ever say “I would have aborted if Medicaid had been willing to pay for it,” because most mothers in that situation come to love their kids and that’s a hurtful revelation. But we could go about it in a statistical way: “How many friends do you have on Facebook? X of them would be dead if it hadn’t been for this law…”
We can use our taxpayer dollars to save lives, or we can use our dollars to kill people.
Carly Manes wants to us taxpayer dollars to kill children…. mostly targeting the dark-skinned children, who are already killed at a higher rate than white children.
Our welfare programs are generous toward families with children. Our charity programs offer complete and total care for mothers who choose adoption.
We are not compelled by any moral standard to participate in the killing of children. No matter how badly Carly Manes wants to kill her child, she has no standing to compel us to pay for it. We have made better choices.
Ive heard mean ppl say they would rather pay for abortions than support “welfare suckers”…. yes we have people who abuse the system. Ik a girl who has 8 kids on welfare. We cant deny it exists but I also had a friend who was on welfare when i met her and went to nursing scool and got off. Whatever happened to welfare reform? Ive been on welfare when times got tough but then I went back to work and payed back in. Womens lib has broken up the family unit so its no longer unusual to meet a girl with several kids from different men.
On behalf of the state of Michigan, I apologize for the existence of the University of Michigan, on several levels.
Also if a man doesnt want a baby can he opt out of child support?
I like that pic of Bader Ginsberg best.
Free abortions. Think about what that will look like. Take away the procreation aspect of sexual intercourse, and you’re left with the recreational aspects of it. Like hockey, basketball or bowling. Throw everyone into a mosh pit and bang around at will. No winners, no losers. Everyone plays on someone else’s dime here. Community-sponsored rec sex. Wait a minute, you say you want to keep the baby? Let’s check the rule book. Nope. No can do. Off you go to the abortmill. If you’re going to play the game, you have to stick to the rules.
“…providing coverage for abortion care leads to better economic outcomes for both the women who have abortions and for the institutions that would otherwise have to provide childcare service.”
Economic outcome for the baby, however, not so much. But of course no one is ridiculous enough to argue that being dead is being better than growing up disadvantaged…
“Hyde doesn’t save the lives of the rich and powerful; it saves the lives of the poor, disenfranchised, and (yes I’m going there) black and brown. That’s what makes Hyde so vulnerable to attack.”
This. The other side sees Hyde as an oppression on those groups, while we see it as a way of making sure that we as taxpayers aren’t paying for their extermination.
From the quote: “I shouldn’t have to mention that providing coverage for abortion care leads to better economic outcomes for both the women who have abortions and for the institutions that would otherwise have to provide childcare service.”
Does it really lead to better economic outcomes? Has this been statistically proven that women who abort somehow are “better off” than those who don’t, or somehow work their way out of poverty thanks to the abortion?
The last line is puzzling to me, too. “That would otherwise have to provide childcare service.” Uh… what’s wrong with providing childcare? It sounds like this woman is saying that these children would be a drain on society, so kill them now.
That argument sounds familiar. It’s the same old eugenics, wrapped up in a deceptive little package.
Poor choices make one POOR.
No one knows better that one cannot afford whatever. If one writes a check that is going to bounce or charge something on a card that one cannot pay off, that is not smart. Do not even go window shopping if you cannot afford things. Make better use of your time.
Sad that so many just. have. to. have. sex. no. matter. what.
Birth control has a failure rate and even condoms do not stop all STDs/STIs.
Makes one wonder what the schools are teaching. Not much biology or finance. See this story:
5th biggest school district in US to teach 5YO’s masturbation, homosexuality – See more at: http://www.news965.com/news/news/local/5th-biggest-school-district-us-teach-5yos-masturba/nhS8T/#sthash.n89gKrfU.dpuf 5th biggest school district in US to teach 5YO’s masturbation, homosexuality
Not going to learn very much about reading, writing and arithmetic if your mind is on what is between your legs.
You know what? A lot of people can’t afford their cancer treatments, either. They end up with HUGE bills even after insurance.
If killing someone (abortion) warrants taxpayer dollars, surely saving someone should warrant them as well.
Good grief. I can’t even…
Heather: worse yet you could be like Vanessa ( AJs) girlfriend and sign an abortion contract. Am I the only one who finds that bizarre?
Yes and no, Heather. It hasn’t come up on Jill’s blog too much, but once in a while you hear of such an agreement.
On another message board, a lawyer said that often, such contracts would be held to be unenforceable, as the man is not ‘at risk’ as the woman is – apparently that can have some effect as to the validity of a contract.
It was stupid not to use contraception, but it’s easy to see the desire to have things straight between both people, from the get-go.
What I don’t get is this kooky, demonic idea that we honor, respect, enfranchise and empower women by affirming their right to kill their unborn babies.How, exactly, does ending your child’s life increase your agency as a person? And what is abortion freeing you up to do, exactly?
If you need to have a sex and pregnancy contract with someone, you are sleeping with the wrong person, and for all the wrong reasons.
Nothing wrong with getting stuff straight with the other person. Once in a while we see a story about some guy whose wife or girlfriend had an abortion, and he’s all bummed-out. Well, would have been better to have settled things on the basis of, “What if…” beforehand.
The last line:
“*This article refers to abortion care patients solely as women, but not all people who have abortions identify as women.”
Are people really getting this confused about reality?
— Only women have abortions. To be precise, only pregnant women have abortions; only mothers can have abortions.
It is not relevant to the conversation, if the woman suffers some confusion or delusion as to her gender and “self-identification.”
We are talking about a woman who desires are very personal lifestyle procedure, and demands that strangers among the public should pay for it.
Yes Del, biology is just another oppressive force that must be broken to achieve an egalitarian society. When you cast down God, something necessarily must take His place, usually it’s just “you.”
“It just wasnt a good time.”
Like I said, the rationale for many abortions can be reduced down to twelve simple words “I just don’t want to be bothered with a kid right now.”
I wonder if abortions could be made cheaper if the abortionists would take a cut (no pun intended) in their pay? I have never seen or heard of a poor abortionist. I refuse to call these creeps abortion “doctors” mainly because it doesn’t make sense. A “heart doctor” treats ailing hearts. An eye doctor deals with eye diseases. What the heck does an abortion “doctor” treat or cure?
We are talking about a woman who desires are very personal lifestyle procedure, and demands that strangers among the public should pay for it.
Yes, what’s this all about? I am not a lawyer, but I thought Roe was all about the right to privacy. Yet we have women filling books about their very private-betwee-a-woman-and-her-god abortion decisions for absolute strangers to read. Why do you want to share such a personal, private information? And why do you expect ME, the taxpayer, to PAY for your very personal, private decisions???
Everything old is new again. Good grief these were the same arguments being used when the Hyde Amendment first came into being in the 1970s.
“…but not all people who have abortions identify as women”
OK, I give up.
Ive never heard of an abortion contract before Vanessa and AJ. Thats just tragic!
I suppose there have been, of sorts, historical precedents for a type of “abortion contract” between the culture at large and mothers at large within that culture. One such contract killing of the born infant occurred in pre-Columbian Mexico. The witch doctor would place his obsidian knife before a certain altar in the central playa and within a few minutes a woman would appear with her child wrapped carefully in her finest blanket to be killed upon that altar. The jump in thinking from pre-birth human sacrifice of children and post-birth sacrifice of human children is a very slight adjustment in human imagination.
“Imagination governs the world.”
~Napoleon Bonaparte~
OH these bleeding heart pro-aborts. If women “need” free abortions then why don’t your clinics start offering them for FREE? I mean, us workers at CPC’s do everything for FREE so why can’t you??
Because you don’t care about helping women. You care about MONEY. That is all you care about. Every dead baby is hundreds of dollars in your pocket.
Your body your choice your dead baby…YOU pay for it! And how does an abortion contract go? Jeepers ” Vanessa I wanna have sex with you and all but I dont want no kid. Could you please sign this contract to kill our kid so I can have reckless sex with you”? Vanessa “Oh sure AJ I will do anything to sleep with you and be your girl for a while. Gimme the baby killing papers and I will sign.” Then she turns up pregnant and he says “Not my kid she gets around.” She aborts and almost died. He never even says “get well.” Must be true love and Vanessa dear you have no defense!
Phillymiss: “It just wasnt a good time.”
Perhaps, but that was an GREAT game between the Eagles and the Steelers…. Hahahahhahaaaa WOO HOO! (Love it when the Steelers lose!)
Oops, Buccaneers… have another beer, Doug…. :P
Well Caresourse is a welfare insurance here and you can get an abortion on it for free!
They say Vanessa wanted her baby. Its called walking away and saying See ya in court!
I used to be a nurse on a cancer floor. But dontcha know the more ppl we kill due to overpopulaton the less cancer patients we shall have.. what ive weve aborted the person who could cure cancer??
Typo what IF?
The more people there are, the more minds that exist to ponder the problems that exist. The more people who will then take the opportunity to solve problems, and the more problems that will then be solved, including problems that in the past were considered unsolvable.
It only takes one person to make a major leap in thinking, to change this technique to solve that particular problem. It’s every “why” that’s always been asked before, and never answered before, that makes humans who we are. Someone answers the “Why” with “What if,” and then sees the problem’s solution in a new way never seen before that advances human endeavor.
We are problem-solving creatures. Thinking of people as being in themselves problems to be eliminated without giving them their chance at solving the particular problems of their time is not advancing humanity. It is retreating from who we are as humans.
Fathers should have equal say as to whether or not a pregnancy is terminated. The woman’s veto power comes in her ability to say no to intercourse. If she consents and gets pregnant then she is ‘responsible to carry the baby to term.
Dont get me wrong…abortionists arent reducing prices but the women get free abortions birth control and Plan B on Caresource. The abortionist still gets full price for the abortion.
“So what do you do if you can’t afford an abortion and you definitely can’t afford a baby?”
Pop a self-control pill as needed.
Look, nothing stops anyone from paying for a poor woman’s abortion. You feel that strongly about it, cough up the money. Simple as that. Whether you’re a wealthy celebrity, a multimillionaire, or a middle class person “concerned” about the poor. Put your money where your mouth is.
Prax…love it! I ran Preterm through my search engine. ( a Cleveland abortion clinic ) and I asked the search engine if they take welfare insurance. It says Preterm…a clean comfortable clinic. Quotes abortion prices and says bring your Medicaid card or CareSource card…and one more..cant recall BUT they are all welfare insurance. So women in Cleveland Ohio can and do get free abortions BC and Plan B. WE pay for it!
Isnt it nice to know that we have to flip the bill for that Oh so private “abortion is between a woman and her doctor ” cra*? Then the $$ exchange should be between a woman and her doctor. Her OWN $$$$$.
Also some post abortive women or PC men say “Well we have to pay for welfare kids when we dont want to.” Id rather pay for a child to live and become a productive member of society. Killing solves nothing.
George Clooney just spent 15 million on his wedding. Think of all the abortions you could buy for 15 million!!
(wait. did I just pull a heather??)
Courtnay..i dont get what you mean by that. Care to explain? I dont like loony cloony so what are you talking about? Hes married so goodie gumdrops for him. Imagine how many PCC could use that $ but he will just dave the whales.
Sorry whales. And Courtnay if you are trying to be a smart %#££ss im NOT the one.;)
Save the whales. Say courtnay werent you the one who came here talkin all that baby killer stuff when someone instucted you to say all women were victims? Then you went with it. Whats wrong? Cant think for yourself? And why would you say something so stupid? Thats seriously not funny!
Thanks for thumbs guys! All women are victims of abortion.. omg did I just pull a courtnay???? You were so brow beaten you backed down you spineless jellyfish!!!!
Heather, slow down. I was merely referring to your oft mentions of celebrity culture when you are making your points. I promise, that’s all.
I TRY to think for myself.
Im sorry courtnay. I owe you an apology. Its been a bad day. I tthough you were making fun of me. Im sorry.
Ik you can think for yourself. I jumped to conclusions.
No worries.Hope your day gets better!