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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata slogan of the day State funding of abortions is, however, a completely different matter. The pro-choicers say it’s a matter of choice. Let it stay that way, then, without forcing people who oppose infanticide to fund it.
– Tomas Kohl
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Quite so, TeeKay
It gets even more alarming as the left legitimizes public pre-natal care on the one hand and public funding of abortions on the other. It is either one or the other in terms of the State. This leads to the situation where a particular woman is entitled to my money in developing her child and can help herself to more of the same when she decides she wants to do away with a simple mass of cells. Her value judgements rule over my property and I’m to sit idly by keeping my judgements to myself. I’m all in favor of said woman to do as she chooses, funded with her own resources.
Two points.
1. I will be happy to dispense will public funding of abortion when everyone is ready to dispense with ALL publicly-funded health care.
2. I cannot think of a delicate way to put this, so here it is, full-strength: Public funding of abortion is a way for productive individuals to protect themselves from yet more extensive picking of their pockets.
Well ‘none’…
1. I would be delighted to see the end of ‘publicly’ (meaning tax) funded healthcare.
2. I have do not understand what point you are trying to make in your second point. Taxpayers are ‘productive people’ and by forcing them to pay for medical services for other people, it is they who are having their ‘pockets picked’.
1. I would be delighted to see the end of ‘publicly’ (meaning tax) funded healthcare.
There’s a huge problem with this idea: Infectious diseases. Infectious disease is a public problem, not a private one.
I think I understand none. (Though there are days when I seem to understand nothing…)
The point in 2 is that:
(a) The users of state-funded abortion are disproportionately those who are in any case a charge on the state and whose children can be relied upon to be too.
Imagine yourself as woman who wants a termination. If you are independent, you’ll go private, because state-funded services are slower and the whole process will be more unpleasant than it need be. And possibly unreliable. In parts of Britain, historically Birmingham and Glasgow in particular, it can be difficult to get a National Health abortion.
(b) From the taxpayer’s point of view, even leaving aside the argument of possibly avoiding a new generation of welfare dependents (and at least some criminals according to Leavitt), paying for an abortion is a better bargain than paying for full term obstetric and paediatric care.
Perry:
I would be delighted to see the end of publicly-funded just-about-everything, including publicly-funded health care. We seem to be stuck with it for the moment, though, and Guy does a fine job of explaining how publicly-funded abortion limits the damage.
“paying for an abortion is a better bargain than paying for full term obstetric and paediatric care”
True but my point was: it’s immoral to force taxpayers, who oppose slaying of infants, into subsidizing it with their tax money.
The anti-war crowd uses a similar argument. They don’t believe in war and killing. Therefore it is wrong to use their tax dollars to fund something like the recent war. I won’t argue morality with the antis. I’ll simply say that their moral compunctions are trumped by my pragmatic wish not to be overrun by theocrats, welfare brats, or any other noxious group.
none,
I would agree that my tax dollars should not go to fund a war that is not fought in defense of the freedom of the people in your own nation. The question becomes whether this war defended our freedom or not.
Pixy,
I cant say I agree with your premise. Infectious disease generally comes back to choices of the individual. I havent gotten the flu for 9 years, this year I got it. I can trace it directly to my personal health choices as my exposure to the flu was no different this year, but my diet and excersize regemine was significantly poorer. Not all diseases are like the flu, but the point is that if there is a large market for curing a disease, it will get taken care of by the market.
Just because the government isnt funding healthcare, doesnt mean that the “public” will somehow not be provided for. The market is based on demand. If there is a demand, a supply will be created. We dont need government funding for that.