The hoopla over the recent budget cuts to Planned Parenthood got me to thinking about several things. Why the hypocrisy and how do we stop abortions? No, not stop as in legal outlaw it, but stop as in cut down the occurance. My idea, sell the babies. No, not in the way you think.
Read more after the jump.
Hypocrisy
The hypocrisies are glaring. The first and foremost is the argument that women need access to abortions at Planned Parenthood because they need the choice. Well, last time I checked the statistics, less than 1% of pregnancy cases are from rape and incest. This means 99% are by way of voluntary sex. In modern America, do you really mean to tell me there are women who don't know they can get pregnant by unprotected sex? I know there are accidents. I got pregnant while on the depo. But these cases also number less than a percent in instances where protection was used. So we are now looking at approximately 2% of the population that could justifiably be in an abortion situation. The other 98%? They chose to have sex unprotected. I am all for multitudes of sex education, double what we have now, in classrooms. Really though, what person doesn't know how you get pregnant who actually consents to sex? So you make the choice to have sex in the first place.
The second hypocrisy is the argument that Planned Parenthood needs to perform abortions because women haven't had access to contraceptives. Okay, so what this argument boils down to is that A) a woman didn't know she could get birth control at Planned Parenthood, B) she DID know she could get an abortion there (or a referral in which PP gets a kickback), or C) that all this money the government gives to Planned Parenthood for educational purposes isn't working anyway. Curious, no?
A third major hypocrisy is the people pointing to this lovely 2009 chart that shows Planned Parenthood's services only are in the 3% range for abortions, leaving the rest of the services aside. Breast Cancer screenings, we found out, are referred out because PP "misspoke" when they lied about performing mammograms. There is a caveat, abortion is expensive. PP has not released a detailed operation budget. I know all about Title X. It's been thrown in my face constantly for this argument. However, if I give you 100 pennies, tell you to keep one penny separate but put it in the same bank account, how do you do that logically? If PP is so flush with private donors that they don't touch government money for abortion services, why can they not provide the other services with donor money? The other problem in all this, is abortions cost on average $500. A referral for a mammogram realistically take say 20 minutes of the doctors time. This costs say $50. A doctor can line up abortions to perform as many as 100 in one day in a Ford assembly line.
The last major hypocrisy - Congress is eying putting these lovely pictures of wasting away humans, blackened organs and so on on a pack of cigarettes. It's supposed to be a deterrent. While these sit on store shelves mortifying our kids, being funded by the government, PP has stumped for not allowing Congress to require anything for abortions by way of testing or dating. I think it's a very good idea for an ultrasound before abortion. Why are some Democrats for the cigarette pictures, but against a blurry ultrasound to date the pregnancy for proper record keeping? This would eliminate shady doctors who perform late term abortions (Graphic, highlight to read comment: by jamming scissors in the back of a baby's skull and some babies are born alive to be stabbed outside the womb or left in a medical bag to suffocate and die in a private room) by forcing doctors to keep records, give dating to pregnancies to help with statistics and education - the benefits are endless.
How do we solve it?
Sell the babies of course! Okay, not like, walk down Wal-Mart aisles and pick out your little cherub. However, just imagine this and stay with me. Adoptions in this country are difficult for healthy children. They range anywhere from $25k to upwards of $50k. (You can't convince me we aren't selling them already at that cost anyhow.) Many mothers who get abortions are low income. Because of the cost and advancements in fertility treatments, more are opting for IVF and medications. This is increasing the amount of people more than relieving abortion rates. People are having more twins and triplets. I had a set of twins naturally so we are out there, but every other woman I met in my path of doctor visits had either IVF or taken drugs like Clomid.
So if we can solve "supply and demand" to put it crudely, adoption costs could go down too, leaving more families to adopt singles instead of treatments for multiples. Thereby also reducing medical costs for insurance and government aid. Ironically, if we could have afforded adoption at the time, because I wanted a girl, I would have adopted one. Instead, we went traditional (though natural) and I ended up with two anyway.
How do we do this? We offer cold, hard cash. To mothers who are considering abortion, provide information on a new program aimed at helping these women and help families who want to adopt. The payout? $5000 to be paid by the adopting family (with an additional $2000 paid by the adopting family to the program). The conditions?
Weekly drug tests - the baby must stay healthy
Free medical care including, if necessary, transportation to a medical facility
Obtain a GED or high school diploma during pregnancy or within 3 months or forfeit $1000
Attend a 6 week job training seminar, free of charge or forfeit another $1000
Meet with a college counselor or forfeit another $1000
Norplant, Mirena or comparable IUD left in for a minimum of 3 years - majority of women who have multiple abortions have their second within 1 year of their first, it would also allow the women time for career and/or jobs (if it's found to be removed before the 3 year time frame, a hold on tax returns for $1000 would be implemented)
All forfeitures go to the state programs to fund the rest of the program.
The options?
Group living facility for other pregnant woman with a nurse on staff to answer questions at any time, with a therapist on staff to help through the adoption process and a social worker visiting to discuss adoption issues - women choosing not to live here would also go here for their counseling.
This setup gives low income women skills, education, job training, contraception and cash to improve their situations and prevent other unwanted pregnancies. It gives families who want children desperately a chance at parenting without mortgage their homes or paying more than what a couple of brand new cars are worth. And it could just possibly slow down population growth by keeping those who want to adopt but can't out of fertility treatments, lowering multiple births.
3 comments:
I'm not appalled in the least by this idea. It's true, with the exorbitant cost of adopting a child right now, we are already in the business of selling babies every day regardless of how it's sugar coated.
In my mind there are a few things that would have to be ironed out though.. what happens when the pregnant woman decides that she wants to keep the baby? she may develop some semblance of humanity along the way and decide that she just can't let it happen. Could there be laws to prevent such a thing from happening? I know exchanging money initially would be something.. but when we are talking about human life here, I'm guessing that there would be someone running to her rescue to help her keep that child if she did change her mind. They probably wouldn't give much credence to the fact that she wanted to kill the child a few months earlier.
The almighty dollar speaks very loudly to some women, and this might possibly draw them in, however (and it's taken me a long time to wrap my mind around this fact) there are large numbers of women who chose to abort babies as a method of birth control. These women don't want to be pregnant because of the damage their body will incur, or the damage their relationship might incur, or because it may hinder any future relationship from happening for those who have had a one night stand type of pregnancy oops that lead to the abortion. I have to wonder how much money it would take to change their minds about the whole thing.
I don't know.. the idea has merit for sure. I'm definitely listening..
Hmm, interesting questions Sharon. Hadn't thought about a couple of them. I suppose if she decides on keeping the baby, we could give a support system, still make requirements on drug testing postpartum, job training, etc. and sign a contract stating all this. The family that paid to adopt would be at the head of the line and their money would still apply so they don't lose anything like the current adoption system allows when a mother changes her mind.
Possibly maybe give them through 7 months to make the final determination and at that point in time they cannot change their minds? Though this would probably anger some civil rights and the ALCU would be ready to pounce, it could be rooted in the argument of the point you made, that they were going to kill the baby anyway and at the legal signing, the mother must be explained clearly (in terminology a 2nd grader could understand, no legalese) she is losing her rights in exchange for the cash and must adhere to the above requirements, including contraception? The question would be then, I suppose, what would be the penalties for the woman who keeps her baby, but doesn't follow guidelines. *ponders*
I realize, unfortunately, this wouldn't stop all abortions. I just wonder how much it would really cut down on them both by way of the first adoption and the required contraception in either case of adoption or repeated abortions.
Either way too, even if the mother does back out, put contraception in, keeping her from another abortion and/or another child so quickly.
Truth be told there is probably some version of this idea already on the black market sans the really intelligent things like drug testing, work preparation, and counseling. It's just too bad that it can't be legal and moderated for good and healthy outcomes rather than ugly, scary ones.
Post a Comment