Dear Jasper John,
Is Gerard Nadal of Lifenews.com kidding when he says the it “one of the greatest lies and slurs” regarding pro-lifers is that they only care about the baby until it is born, The recent budgets proposed by supposedly pro-life Republicans and Tea Partiers demonstrate how little they care about children after they are born. The moral blindness of these men and women can not be exaggerated – under their policies our national treasure was given to the greediest people in the country, who then proceeded to gamble it away with stupid investments, start unwarranted wars and employ unwise social policies. Now they have the colossal gall to refuse to raise taxes on the wealthy and drastically cut the income and benefits of families trying to raise children in a very difficult economy.
He claims that “responsibility for raising the child resides with the parents, not society”. If this is true it is certainly also true that the parents should decide whether they should have the child or not. If parents know in advance they can not afford a child why should a government with no responsibility for the child have any say in the matter?
I do not accept this narrow view of governmental responsibility and I am willing to pay taxes to support any needy child via governmental programs. Every effort should be made to reduce the number of abortions by supplying medical care, nutrition and a decent place to live, Making life as miserable as possible for women and then using draconian laws to force them to carry babies to term seems a senseless policy.
Sincerely yours,
Donald M Stebbins
BS 1961
[JR: (1) Well I doubt any one involved in this discussion is kidding. I think that glumping all the things into the pot confuses the issue. Both the D's and the R's have really screwed up. Wars -- undeclared and unpaid for -- are a giant mistake. Spending is out of control. And, imho, "tax the rich" is immoral, ineffective, and inefficient. Rich people are people; not targets of plunder. They aren't going to stand around and be robbed; they have options. (2) We have four generations of "welfare farmers". We have 52% takers with 48% earners. We have Gooferment taking over "charity" which should be the province of voluntary organizations. They will do it better, and at a lower overall cost. (3) Well, it's not about anyone's "acceptance". There is not enough wealth to pour into the Gooferment ratholes to sustain it. It's generally guesstimated that sending a dollar to the Gooferment results in less than 50¢ to a service. Direct charity to, for example, the Salvation Army, only has a dime of overhead. And, they are much more effective. A little L libertarian doesn't want to force anyone to do anything. We've demonstrated that Gooferment "charity" doesn't work. Just out of curiosity, so why can't we try something different?]
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