Question for the pro-life crowd...

[Direckshun]

I've been reading a lot about abortion this week, particularly a lot from the pro-life perspective about right to life and all that jazz. I've been doing a lot of reflection on the topic, so I was hoping I could get some earnest reflection back from you.

I am pro-choice, of course, but I see the logic of the pro-life argument, even as I disagree with it.

One major issue I've with the pro-life crowd, however, is that this crowd almost always tends to be particularly conservative and anti-government. Which, to my mind, creates a practical issue with your position.

Now, I know what you're thinking, and no, I'm not going where you think -- I don't like argument often made by pro-choicers that "conservatives are supposed to be the small government party, yet here they are supporting governmental power over every woman's medical decision" because, while I think that's a fair point, I think you could easily argue that most people have exceptions to their ideologies; that's just the way people work. It's a complex world, and exceptions reign -- if I'm a hardcore conservative, I think it's still reasonable for me to support a ban on abortion due to the intensity and importance of the issue, even if it might conflict with my otherwise stout anti-government views. So I don't adopt that argument.

Here's my big hang-up with the conservative pro-life position:

A conservative pro-lifer simultaneously believes that:

(1.) Life is sacrosanct, and must be protected and preserved, and

(2.) government should either

(a.) provide as little or minimal economic assistance and relief to the people as possible, or
(b.) not be in the business of providing economic relief and services to people at all. (This is more of a libertarian position.)

To me, this perspective says simply: every soul with a chance to be born must be born, but once you're born, you're on your own.

Most fetuses who are aborted for non-medical reasons are most likely being aborted because their potential families do not want them for personal or even economic reasons. I'm not excusing this, but it is what it is. Forcing them to be born with an abortion ban puts them in these shit situations, and it's going to lead to a greater possibility of poor education, poverty, and crime than those who are born to families that actually wanted them.

Other times, they'll be effectively orphaned as the families who don't want them leave them in the street or put them up for adoption. Some will be adopted, but adopting is an insanely hard practice (and it should be -- you don't want to risk exploitation of these children), it's expensive, and it's nowhere remotely close to the rate of the children available for adoption -- and that's right now, without an abortion ban.

There's also the education perspective, for instance. As it stands now, most conservatives would probably side with getting rid of the Department of Education and embracing fully private schools. That puts innocent children whose only crime was to come out of the wrong vagina at an even greater disadvantage when it comes to being the properly-adjusted productive soul that pro-lifers believe every soul should be.

So my question to the conservative pro-lifers among us:

Assuming we ever achieve your dream of an abortion ban, are there policies that YOU PERSONALLY SUPPORT to provide aid to children who have been born under the ban that otherwise wouldn't have?

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful answers.

I know this is an abortion thread, but my hope is that this thread can be reflective and respectful, even as we might start to disagree.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by ClevelandBronco

As far as I can tell, D, you're basically asking me how much I'd be willing to pay to get you to stop murdering babies.

You have me all wrong. All wrong.

To say nothing of a dirt-low assessment of my character.

That's disappointing, considering the source.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by DementedLogic

Yes.

Once upon a time, the abortion rate was near zero, the government did not provide welfare programs, and children were not dying in the streets.

Link?

[DementedLogic]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Link?

FDR signed the Social Security Act in 1935. This is what started government economic assistance for children. Prior to 1935, the abortion rate was almost zero.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/poli...tedstates.html

Attached is a graph of child fatality rates over a period of time that encompasses 1935. I doubt you can locate 1935 on this graph, showing that there is no correlation between government economic assistance for children and child fatality rate.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by DementedLogic

FDR signed the Social Security Act in 1935. This is what started government economic assistance for children. Prior to 1935, the abortion rate was almost zero.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/poli...tedstates.html

Attached is a graph of child fatality rates over a period of time that encompasses 1935. I doubt you can locate 1935 on this graph, showing that there is no correlation between government economic assistance for children and child fatality rate.

I don't quite understand the specific argument you're making.

Are you suggesting that decreasing the amount of aid we give children would translate to fewer children dying in the streets?

[RNR]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

You have me all wrong. All wrong.

To say nothing of a dirt-low assessment of my character.

That's disappointing, considering the source.

I thought he high balled your online character. I have no idea how you are in real life, but the cartoon you play here is just what you want it to be...a shitbag. wait I just played your game didn't I~

[DementedLogic]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I don't quite understand the specific argument you're making.

Are you suggesting that decreasing the amount of aid we give children would translate to fewer children dying in the streets?

You seem to not understand how people can be pro-life but not support welfare programs. In order to have that confusion, you must believe that welfare programs decrease child fatality rates. I'm showing you that you are wrong. If you were right, you would be able to look at the graph I posted, and pin-point the creation of the welfare state in 1935.

You also asked me to provide links that show that children weren't dying in the streets before welfare came along and abortion was virtually non-existent. I provided links that showed that neither welfare nor abortion have affected child fatality rates.

Conclusion: It is extremely easy to reconcile being pro-life with being against welfare. They are independent topics. Your attempt to combine them into 1 issue didn't work.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Brock

You are right, they were working in mines and shoe factories.

Which was better than begging on the streets for food. Eventually, parents were able to take them out of those places and put them in school as incomes rose—all of which happened before such things were outlawed by the Federal govt. The Federal govt is usually behind the curve.

[Brock]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

Which was better than begging on the streets for food. Eventually, parents were able to take them out of those places and put them in school as incomes rose—all of which happened before such things were outlawed by the Federal govt. The Federal govt is usually behind the curve.

I suggest you do a little more reading. These kids were "orphans". They're the same kids who now number in the hundreds of thousands in our current foster systems.

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Riddle me this.

Why do so many who support abortion argue so hard against executing murdering, criminal assholes with no value to society?

I don't believe in abortion personally, but if you want to do it, it's your conscience and your soul, not mine. I also strongly believe if you have a tax payer funded abortion, even one time it should come with a mandatory sterilization. If you have 2 under any circumstances...same thing.

I also think any man who fathers children with 2 or more women out of wedlock should get snipped.

Not me I am pro-death (pro-choice, pro-capital punishment, pro-assisted suicide).

I am curious why conservatives are so against assisted suicide for terminally ill people that want to die.

[KILLER_CLOWN]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Well, pro-life would be somebody who would prefer a ban on abortion written into law. There might be some disagreement over whether there would be medical exceptions, but there it is.

A conservative is outlined in (2a.) and (2b.) in the OP.

We already have laws against murder, just need to enforce it and stop tap dancing around killing innocents.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Brock

I suggest you do a little more reading. These kids were "orphans". They're the same kids who now number in the hundreds of thousands in our current foster systems.

Reading of what? History of child labor or this thread?

I was responding to your Post #58 which was in response to Demented Logic's post in this thread.
I still think it fits that context and your point about children working in factories.