“Personal responsibility is a great thing to tout and all, but it’s not like we can just throw our arms up in the air when someone who can’t afford to pay for health costs associated with pregnancy and childbirth ends up choosing to carry and unplanned pregnancy to term and yell “PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, LADY!” as she goes into labor in a bus shelter. I mean, that’s barbaric. Ignoring the health needs of low income women won’t make them go away — it will just make things more complicated and expensive. We need to either work with reality — “People have sex, and sometimes that sex results in pregnancy;” or work against it — “Women who can’t afford babies or who don’t want to become parents just shouldn’t have sex ever.” Sex is a biological process. It’s not a toll road or a yacht or membership in Augusta. It’s not just a thing that people will do only after they’re sure they can afford every possible consequence of it.”
[women / economics / politics]
No matter whose side you’re on or who you’ll vote for in the next election, it’s important to realize that birth control and abortion actually affect our economy. To what extent? As Jezebel points out, taxpayers foot the bill for unplanned pregnancies: “$12B per year at the federal level and tens of millions per year at the state level, especially in places like Oklahoma where low-cost birth control is scarce and abortion is heavily restricted.” A great article that makes you really think about the economic affect of pro-life vs. pro-choice decisions.
