I actually thought it had to be a joke when I read this:
AUSTIN, Texas — A proposal by state Sen. Dan Patrick would pay pregnant women $500 for choosing adoption over abortion.
The anti-abortion Houston Republican said Senate Bill 1567 would provide an incentive to forgo abortion, but critics questioned whether such payments would be viewed as baby selling or coercion.
"We want that lady to have an incentive that makes her stop and think about having an abortion and that gives her a reason to put her baby up for adoption," Patrick said. "My goal is to save as many babies as we possibly can."
But no, it is not a joke. It is a bribe, an absolute waste of tax payers money, and will be devestating to many young women. It incentive to double guess you're own choice. It is incentive to bring another unwanted child intot he world multiple times over, and moreso will be used as a scam by women who are desperate for cash. It is paying women for their babies. It's the sale of a baby, basically.
Now, I understand where the guy's coming from...sort of. He wants women to not choose abortion, and he wants them to have a reason not to choose abortion. 500 dollars is NOT a legitimate reason to have a baby. It is not a valid reason to encourage a woman set on abortion to endure nine months of labor, health risks, personal lifestyle damage, possible loss of job, family, relationships, education...it just isn't. This is a bribe to women who are on the brink; women who think 500 dollars will somehow do something for them. It won't 500 dollars is NOTHING compared the to 9 months they will in turn endure for something they originally planned on aborting.
You will have women getting pregnant every year for an extra 500 bucks. Don't think so? You give people more credit than they deserve. Some women don't mind being pregnant, and some women will see 500 dollars as a good payoff for something they don't really mind doing; more children entering the adoption agencies, more children not adopted, more children wasting away in foster homes...awesome idea government.
Here's the deal people. The choice whether to abort, give up for adoption or keep the baby should be entirely them woman's--there should be no "bribing" on either side. Bribing a woman with cash to change her mind about something so incredibly life changing, and for merely 500 dollars is ridiculous. How about spending the ridiculous amount of money they'd spend on this program on a comprehensive sex education program? Donating the money to children's service agencies? Donate to funds that help place children with permanent families?
This won't deter abortion as much as lawmakers would like; it might change a few minds, but the overall need for abortion will never diminish, even in the face of half a grand. Lawmakers can bitch and moan all they like, but all they are doing is wasting tax payers dollars that should be going to more stable and productive orgranizations, that actually will benefit multiple citizens and help change many lives for the better. Trying to coax women out of making possibly one of the most important decisions of her life on her own wit a payoff is insulting, degrading, and I genuinly hope if it is passed, which I don't think it will be, it will blow up in their faces.
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I don't know if I agree with this or not. I think it's crazy to pay women to have their children to stop them from having abortions, but at the same time... "It is incentive to bring another unwanted child into the world" that statement to me is false. The child may be unwanted to the mother but there are people everyday praying for children that can't have them. Many children up for adoption today are drug babies which means adopting them is much more expensive and hard to deal with. Not that these babies shouldn't be adopted, but I believe that if more women chose adoption over abortion many of these healthy,n normal babies would find homes. But I do think it should be their own decision and that money should be put to use somewhere else.
Why dont't all the people that are so for putting more unwanted kids into a system that could potentially trap them for life all adopt 3 kids.
Hail The PitGodess!
I can't believe that Texas is honestly considering this proposal. There are so many children in foster care already that aren't being adopted. This extra $500 the legislators have decided they could pay women with should be going to these children. Don't pay people to put more children in a system that is already faulty and expensive, put that money into the system to help fix it.
~Jax
"Everyone has the right to their own opinion, I just prefer mine."
It seems very shallow, 500 bucks-a-pop type deal. Just from taking the news in from this page, I'm left to wonder how much red tape would be involved in the process. I'd only pay props to the notion if they planned to make the whole process so complicated it were discouraging; that word of discouragement would be sent through the grapevine with such put-down that it would become notorious among the child-baring population as a no-go program.
All this is highly unlikely, so by need of alternative, I would hope the state of Texas uses such an idea only as a brainstorm-reject for a better method of handling the issue.
500 dollars, huh?
I'd get paid 500 dollars for 9 months of pure hell?
500 dollars wouldn't even cover the hospital fees.
You know, thanks to Roe v. Wade and other landmark abortion cases, the government now puts forth funding to abortion clinics, and while I believe in a woman's right to choose, I don't see any reason why the government should get involved either way, for or against.
--Mike