Heartless: NC legislative panel debates costs of aborting babies versus saving them

WRAL reports on an eye-popping “debate” that happened on a NC legislative panel today involving the costs associated with HB-854, a pro-life bill that would require counseling, ultrasounds, and a 24 hour waiting period before abortions are performed (via @StevenErtelt):

Raleigh, N.C. β€” North Carolina lawmakers debated Thursday about whether the projected costs for additional requirements before an abortion is performed are worth it.

House Bill 854 “Abortion–Women’s Right to Know,” sponsored by Republican Reps. Ruth Samuelson and Patricia McElraft, would require that doctors provide counseling, an ultrasound and a 24-hour waiting period before performing an abortion.

Legislative fiscal staff estimated the bill would result in nearly 2,900 more births a year, based on results from a similar law in Mississippi. Those births could cost the state approximately $7 million a year in Medicaid cost, staffers estimated.

Supporters of the bill said fewer abortions and more births are worth that cost.

“To me, it is incredible that we would even debate the idea that somehow we can improve the fiscal impact of this state by not allowing children to be born,” Rep. Burt Jones, an independent from Rockingham, said. “I’m a fiscal conservative, but if we’ve got to pay a little more money in this state because more children have the right to be born, then so be it.”

Opponents of the bill said it’s not necessary to force women making an emotional decision through a longer process.

“Most women have thought about having an abortion. It’s not something that I would think that they would take lightly,” Rep. Beverly Earle, D-Mecklenburg, said. “I think it’s a true insult to women to imply or say that they don’t know what they’re doing.”

This is your standard liberal feminist cop-out. The goal is to make people believe that pro-lifers consider women who are going to have an abortion ‘too stupid’ to know what’s going to happen when they go in for an abortion. It’s not really that pro-lifers consider women who are considering having an abortion ‘stupid’; it’s more along the lines of wanting to make sure she’s fully informed and not partially informed. And, to turn Ms. Earle’s argument around on her, if women “know what they’re doing” when they go in for an abortion, why the need to have counseling for it at all? Just go in, get it done, get it over with, and get back to life minus the little ‘inconvenience’ – right? No need for Planned Parenthood or any other abortion provider to waste their precious money on something women apparently already are fully informed about – correct?

Furthermore, if Ms. Earle really wanted to let loose on a group of people who treated women as if they were too stupid to know what they’re doing, then she should look no further than her fellow pro-aborts, who shamelessly try to “win” the debate on the public funding of “family planning clinics” on the grounds that poor women won’t have access to birth control if those clinics no longer get taxpayer money. Of course, she and other liberal feminists like her would never admit such truths because of the following inconvenient facts:

  1. Birth control is available over the counter at your local Walgreen’s and – for that matter – your local corner convenience store: It’s called condoms. Drug stores and convenience stores are in poor neighborhoods just like they are everywhere else.
  2. Eliminating taxpayer funding for these clinics would *not* mean the clinics would go broke. It would force the likes of Planned Parenthood to divvy up their funds differently, where ‘tough’ choices would have to be made and a balance would have to be modified when it comes how much money they devote to their non-abortion services versus how much they devote to “abortion care” (now, there’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one!). In other words, Planned Parenthood, in order to provide “health services” for low income women, might have to decrease the amount of money spent on abortions and put more of that money into other services they provide.

This has been the argument conservatives have been making all along: That even though federal tax dollars can’t legally be used to pay for abortions, that tax money DOES free up the private money donated to the clinics for use in the termination of unborn children.

But why bother with pesky things like the facts when emotion-based, fact-challenged “pro-woman” rants like this one are so much easier?

How ironic it was that Rep. Earle, who clearly isn’t fully informed on the issue herself, was the one passionately arguing that women shouldn’t be treated as if they “don’t know what they are doing.” Can’t make this stuff up …

Comments are closed.