Texas legislator proposes $500 to stop abortions...what are your thoughts?

Question

Texas legislator proposes $500 to stop abortions
- A Texas legislator has proposed that pregnant women considering abortion be offered $500 not to end their pregnancies.
Republican State Sen. Dan Patrick, who also is a conservative radio talk show host, said on Friday the money might convince the women to go ahead and have babies, then give them up for adoption.
He said during a legislative conference in New Braunfels, 45 miles south of Austin, there were 75,000 abortions in Texas last year.
"If this incentive would give pause and change the mind of 5 percent of those woman, that's 3,000 lives. That's almost as many people as we've lost in Iraq," Patrick said.
Patrick has filed legislation to make the payment state law, but the legislature has not yet voted on it.
His proposal calls for giving any woman going to an abortion clinic the $500 option, to be paid no more than 30 days after the baby is born and given up for adoption.
Critics say the proposal would violate Texas and

federal laws against buying babies, which Patrick rejected as "the typical ridiculous criticism."

Heather Paffe, political director of Planned Parenthood of Texas, said Patrick's proposal "is very cynical and insulting to women and their families."

"It's insulting to think women would make that kind of decision so easily," she said

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070324/od_nm/texas_abortion1_dc;_ylt=Ai8bf.xytkCDhY_r9ZEgjo7tiBIF

It's not $500 to keep it after they give birth, it's $500 when the put the child up for adoption.

Answer 1

If a woman would go ahead with accepting $500 to carry a child to term that she doesn't want, its going to cost a whole lot more to the state to take care of the baby once its born and even if its given up for adoption, the costs of investigation of the adoptive parents, the court costs, and paperwork are far in excess of that. Even if you charge the adoptive parents for costs, you won't recover the money the state must lay out for an abandoned child.
If the $500 will make her change her mind, well, that assumes she had no reason in the first place, so either she is an amoral idiot, or too stupid to know anything more than getting her hands on $500 for drugs, and babies damaged by drugs or alcohol aren't readily adopted so that means a lifelong dependency on the state for them. Costing us much more than a $250 abortion.
It may or may not be against Texas law, but it does call into question the idea that any and all life must be sacrosanct. Fetal alcohol syndrome and ancephaly (born without parts of their brains or parts of the skull)and the additional horrors that can be inflicted on the innocent infant afflicted by an uncaring mother, will only end up costing and costing and costing as we try to take care of the infants that will only grow in size not ability or intelligence.
As with so much of the anti-abortion movement, there is little discussion of what happens when that innocent is severely defective and the effects that will have on our already stressed health care system, in their world all babies and pink and white and ready for desperate new families, like some sort of good-fairy-stork. In their world its all good, in the real world its not.

Answer 2

This is right wing political oatmeal meant to feed his constituency. Most Republicans are not conservatives, just the most vocal part of the party and certainly the religious right. But the Republican Party's success in the past decade has been because it is better at being moderate than the Dems have. Bush is not a conservative President, he is a very much a moderate. He has not made the sweeping right wing changes that the radical right wanted and that includes abortion. The First Lady openly supports choice. Right wing Republicans, on a national basis and not just some jerkwater district, would think that $500.00 is not even a drop in the hat to raising a child for 18-21 years on the public dole. The only people who take $500.00 to carry a baby would be a crackhead who would deliver a damaged baby that would need care for its entire life. Those are not the people his constitutents feel comfortable with but its talk radio and those airways are dominated by right wingers. This wild political flag he is flying has not more merit than when the left wing talks about impeaching Bush for this or that. Its stupid talk and appeals to stupid people. Won't ever happen.

Answer 3

If I were a woman I would be insulted by such an offer. First it assumes I'm stupid enough not to figure out the difference between five hundred in cash after the baby is born and the thousands that having the child cost me. Second it assumes that money would even be a factor in the decision I had to make. Offer the child a secure future, college education and medical treatment for life at no cost to mom and perhaps it would, but five hundred would do what? Pay one month rent? I don't believe most women are willing to sell thier children under any circumstances and in the final analysis isn't the state offering to buy a baby?

Answer 4

In a purely academic (value neutral) analysis it's too late. The damage is done. Thanks to the Pill and Roe v. Wade Generation X is one of the smallest in American history. As Baby Boomers try to retire they will find that the ant cannot support the elephant. Get ready for it mom... The person who takes care of your geriatric butt will not speak English (at least not as a first language). How do you feel about immigration now?!?

Anyway... I think that the most dangerous thing in the world is passion without understanding. Passion is what makes a guy strap a bomb to his chest and take a one way ride on a crowded bus. How can a man (in this case Dan Patrick) be so arrogant as to assume that he understands anything about pregnancy (planned or otherwise)? How can he further assume that the financial equivalent of two weeks rent will be a significant factor in such a complicated decision?

Here's the thing. I am FIRMLY in the choose life camp. I could no more have cut off a leg than snuffed out any of my three children. But I understand that I can't possibly understand. This is a decision best left to women.

Answer 5

The National-Union believes that if abortions have a toll tax to stop the process then women will go back to practicing unsafe abortions. It would be better if the clinic was ordered to show women all the negative health effects because it would save more lives. Most women that have abortions do not understand all the health problems that come from abortions. If clinics do not have a written agreement explaining this to patients then the clinic should be fined by the government or shut-down from a pattern, http://www.voteprimous.com

Answer 6

Knowing welfare people like I do, I imagine 99.9% of those checks would end up in the Texas housing projects where folks pay like 29 bucks for rent. No, I don't agree. No money for bad decisions. They can already get free health care during the pregnancy now pay them to give up the baby? Money is not the reason they have abortions.

Answer 7

Just another way for the "conservatives" to try to run someones life and make decisions for people that are adults and perfectly capable of making decisions theirselves


I've got a good idea

Why don't we make it a law
Anyone who protests abortion must be put on the short list for adopting crack babies and other at risk children that are in the system for adoption NOW

I think the abortion issue would be nearly obsolete then!!!

Answer 8

That is just about the most idiotic, short-sighted, retarded, and off base thing I have ever heard of.

How about this - Senator Dan Patrick gives the women who take the $500 the money to birth the child, and then pay the welfare when the mother up and decides to keep the baby. (Why should the taxpayers pay for his moronic idea!)

Answer 9

I would have to agree that it is an insulting offer to the women, and it puts a dollar value on the lives of children.

Abortion is rarely, if ever, a financial decision. And a woman's legal right should never be bought...

Answer 10

Thats pretty stupid.

Obviously this idiot doesn't realize that 500 bucks isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of birthing a child.