There is no right to have an abortion

You do have a valid point that some tax money goes to cover abortions for cases like rape and health issues, but reasonable people do not generally object to that. Usually the objection is to tax money going to elective abortions (which many people do not realize is blocked by the Hyde amendment). The 24% number is significantly higher than anything I have EVER seen, so I suspect the author has engaged in some creative bookkeeping to get a number that would make the Affordable Care Act look as bad as possible (that being his particular bias).

 

Read post #667 & #668 instead of just cherry picking comments and ignoring everything else

 

Even if what you assume happens it will be challenged under the equal protection clause, self-defence and right to consent .. which has been ample shown to support elective abortions.

 

That reminds me (since you express a concern about our tax burden)... Have you taken the time to look at a pro-life website and get the number of abortions they estimate from a prior year, calculate the percentage of those people who get taxpayer assistance, and multiply by the cost of raising a child? What do you think it would add up to?

 

It's difficult to say because having children seems to make people live significantly longer. With the current rate of increase in health care costs, it seems prudent to do what you can to live healthier.
http://www.economist.com/news/scien...62-having-children-prolongs-life-pro-creation

 

Your site just says that among people who could not have children on their own (presumably because of some pre-existing health problem) those who were healthy enough for IVF to be successful were more likely to live longer and those for whom IVF failed were more likely to die early. There is no evidence to suggest that this applies to people who have NOT had such bad health problems it interfered with fertility.

Maybe we should do the math on those abortion statistics. I will start with a pro-life site ( http://www.abortionno.org/abortion-facts/ ) since you probably trust them more than you would trust any site I would pick. They say (for the UNITED STATES):
"Number of abortions per year: 1.21 million (2005)"
Is that number acceptable to you, or would you like to use a different (more realistic) source?

 

Bolding above, mine.

Good post and that poster has been shown several times how erroneous and misleading his own link was.....he just refuses to see facts...

 

Thanks... I was puzzled at first to see that the abortionno site only had statistics for 2005. Why didn't they use more recent numbers? Because (like most pro-life sites) they do NOT want to admit that the numbers are going DOWN while abortion is still legal. So bclark, in case you want to use a lower number, Guttmacher Institute reports 1.06 million abortions in the US in for the year 2011.

 

Just recapping:

Since you have not offered an alternative site for the number of abortions in a given year, I will assume you agree that 1.06 million abortions in the US for the year 2011 is close enough for this calculation. This is based on:
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states
(The Guttmacher Institute).

We can assume that some number of these women were living below the poverty level, and thus would be using taxpayer funds to support the child (if it had not been aborted). I offer the following evidence from The Guttmacher Institute:
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states
wherein it states:
"Forty-two percent of women obtaining abortions have incomes below 100% of the federal poverty level ($10,830 for a single woman with no children)."

This tells us that if abortion had been banned in 2011 there would have been 1.06 million more children born that year, and 42% of those children would have been born to women living below the federal poverty level. Additional tax money would have been needed to support these children:

1.06 million children * 0.42 = 445,200 children born in 2011 in need of taxpayer assistance

From http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/tools/CRC_Calculator/ (USDA) I find a cost of $11,623 per year for a child born in 2011.

445,200 children * $11,623 per year = $5,174,559,600 per year for extra children born into poverty in the US.

That is over $5 Billion per year for the extra children born in 2011 (if abortion had been banned).

If we assume abortion was banned in 2011 you will have an ADDITIONAL wave of children born each year (add $5 billion per year) and those children born in 2011 will still cost at least $5 billion EACH year until they are 18 years old. The sequence goes like this:
2011 $5 billion (wave 1)
2012 $5 billion (wave 2) + $5 billion (wave 1)
2013 $5 billion (wave 3) + $10 billion (prior waves)
2014 $5 billion (wave 4) + $15 billion (prior waves)
... etc ...

On the other hand, that same Forbes article you cited (http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapot...n-taxpayers-paying-for-abortion/#6c523fa97709) says an abortion costs $397-$854 (and our tax money covers no more than 25% of that cost even with Conover's exaggerated bookkeeping methods). If we assume a rough estimate of $600 per abortion and tax money covers $150 of that cost, a rough estimate of the cost to taxpayers in 2011 would be:

1.06 million abortions * $150 = $159 million cumulative (federal and state) tax dollars for 2011 with no additional annual costs

Note that this "cost to the taxpayer" for an abortion uses Conover's exaggerated numbers to illustrate the point that even in the worst possible scenario, the taxpayer suffers more from a ban on abortion. I believe the actual costs paid by federal and state government are significantly lower.

Legal abortion costs taxpayers LESS THAN $159 Million per year
NO abortions would cost taxpayers $5 BILLION per year and INCREASE by $5 BILLION each year for each wave of children being supported.

Are you sure you want to raise the issue of how much tax money goes toward abortions?

 

So every poor child that would have been aborted would just be a deadbeat? Never pay a dime in taxes? Just confirming that's what you are saying.

 

Yeah, it's funny, pro-choicers act like the most radical right-wing conservatives when it comes to abortion.

 

No... You expressed concern over the price taxpayers might be paying toward abortions and I pointed out that, under your plan to end abortions, taxpayers would pay much more to support unwanted children born into poverty. Do you have evidence to refute the calculations that I offered?

I did not address what might happen to those children after the first wave reaches the age of 16-18 years old. Do you plan to use them as child labor to offset the tax burden?

 

It really doesn't matter because abortion is legal in the U.S. and will always be so.

AA

 

I do not object to helping people who are trying to dig themselves out of poverty, but it is hypocritical to ban abortions based on burden to the taxpayer (as the numbers illustrate). Between you and me, I do not believe the tax burden is the real reason bclark wants to ban abortions.

 

No - who pays the bill until they start to pay their way - but there is a ton of research showing how poverty begets poverty and how this is intensified by unwanted pregnancy

Mind you you can always move to one of the countries that ban abortion all together like many African nations or Latin American nations.................... hang on - are they not the poorer nations?

 

You mean third world countries like Ireland that ban abortion? (And the world is flooded with red-heads too).

 

Or wanted pregnancy too. This same argument you are using has the potential to be used in favor of forced abortion too.

So again, the point you brought up further exemplifies that the most compelling arguments in favor of abortion are not really about right to choice, confirming the original thesis of the OP.

 

The thesis of the OP was destroyed throughout the thread.


Your argument has the potential to be used in favor of forced abortion too.

 

If true, that is a national tragedy.

 

As you wisely noted "This same argument you are using has the potential to be used in favor of forced abortion too."

That is a powerful argument AGAINST fanatics who would use the government to force their will on pregnant women. It would be very easy for the next group of fanatics (perhaps a new "Tea Party" concerned only with lowering taxes) to say "You all agreed the government has the right to control the womb, so now it is in the best interests of the country to limit family size."

However, this was NOT an argument that was advanced by pro-choice here. It was a response to the pro-life argument that abortion creates a tax burden.

The most compelling argument in favor of a woman's right to have an abortion is that she is the only sentient person directly involved in the pregnancy and the is the ONLY person bearing the physical cost of the pregnancy, so she is the ONLY person who has earned the right to decide to continue or abort the pregnancy.

By what logic have you earned the right to make that decision for her?

 

Although no one likes the idea of abortion....in many cases it is absolutely necessary.

AA

 

Oh noo no no. There are plenty of people that like abortions. Killing children should never be called necessary.

 

Actually she has the abortion to kill her own child.

 

Your are delusional.

AA

 

The fetus is not a child yet... and you failed to answer the question... By what logic have you earned the right to make that decision for her?

If you fail to answer, you concede that you do not have the right to override the pregnant woman's right to decide what happens to her body.