Subsidized abortions

[angus]

Social Darwinism is disgusting

concise.

Social (and, indeed, physical) Darwinism is the first thing I thought of as well, but why are you so disgusted with it?  The survival of the fittest is natural, and has selected your kind for success.  If the society is willing to help alleviate the social burden of nurturing an unwanted human, and the benefits outweigh the costs, and the impregnated human female, being of age and of sound mind agrees to the procedure, then why not?  But then you obviously don't think the benefits outweigh the cost.  The cost being our humanity.  I think I feel you.  And I think it's an important policy consideration.  Sure, it's cheaper to spend a one-time 300 dollars than a hundred grand over 18 years, so the immediate economic burden of subsidizing abortion is more attractive than the alternative (long-term welfare cases), but at what cost?  Such a soulless society has greater problems than its economic outlays, I guess you're saying.  Food for thought.  You're the forum's schoolmarm.  The one who looks on disapprovingly when we curse, drink, smoke, or say things like "hell, she doesn't want it anyway, and it's cheaper than welfare."  And on some level I admire that.  An amoral society may not be everything we'd hoped it would be, so we'd better be careful if it's what we're wishing for. 

Was this a poll?  I forget.  Well, you have convinced me that I may have to think more before I vote.

[angus]

Social Darwinism is disgusting

concise.

Social (and, indeed, physical) Darwinism is the first thing I thought of as well, but why are you so disgusted with it?  The survival of the fittest is natural, and has selected your kind for success.

"The survival of the fittest"? Then how do you explain the continued existence of the hippopotamus, who can only feed on dry land but cannot even survive on dry land during the sunshine?

pretty much the same way I explain the survival of the human, who has no long sharp teeth, no claws, doesn't hear very well, doesn't run very fast, and doesn't see very well at night:  I don't.  I leave that to biologists.

But I will answer your second question.  The point would be that no one is paying for anyone else's health care, which is a very satisfying thought to rightists and libertarians. 

Being a centrist, I'm a bit torn.  While I'm generally offended at the thought of socialized medicine, there is one set of procedures that I'm more likely to vote to publicly underwrite:  fetal abortion.  And it's for exactly the reasons I state.  But still, I say "more likely" and not "absolutely ready" to support, since much of Al's position captures what I think in the dark recesses of my mind that I don't admit to very often:  amorality isn't necessarily the best we can hope to achieve as a society.

[angus]

Well, from an ideological standpoint, I'd say, "For exactly the same reason that we ought not to have socialized medicine:  it's none of my business and it's not my problem."  There are those who really don't feel like we need the Nanny State.  To me, this means we don't shouldn't need prescriptions for drugs, we don't need to make things like prostitution and marijuana illegal, it's none of my business whether my neighbor gets an abortion, and I should not be expected to pay for any of your medical problems, whether it's a nose job, an abortion, a vasectomy or whatever.  And I think my views are largely consistent on this.  In fact--except for a very few important issues such as my strong support of public schools, my desire to see more basic research funded including research on embryonic stem cells, and my strongly held belief in the benefit of a strong, standing Army and Navy--I'm pretty much with the Libertarians on these types of issues.  That is, we keep abortion legal for the same reasons we don't want socialized medicine.  Moreover, I'd say that on this issue, the ideologically inconsistent ones are the ones who ostensibly support keeping abortion legal because they claim to want less government intrusion, yet who want the government involvement when it comes to paying the bills.

Then again, I"m really not such a rightist/purist like my Libertarian friends, and as I said, this is probably the one procedure which I'd be most comfortable letting the public finance.  And really it isn't for ideological reasons, but for pragmatic ones.  After all, we're going to end up underwriting the existence of certain individuals in our society, and since underwriting the procedures that curtail their existence is cheaper, it's an option to consider.

But then again--and I'll flip once again--to see humanity in such starkly economic terms, as though we have no spirits or souls, is probably exactly the sort of thing we Westerners do that makes it easy for radical islamic clerics to rouse up hatred against us.  Well, that and we like to park our airplanes in the Saudi Arabian desert, which is a little too close to Mecca for some folks.  And we supply Israel with money and advisors.  And we invaded Iraq.  And...

Really, I could go either way on this Lewis, and am not given to passionate debate over issues when I'm a mugwump.  I can see why some would want to publicly fund it, and I can also see why some would be opposed.