July 7, 2022

"Estimates of just how many babies will be born because of new abortion restrictions vary. One researcher suggests 75,000, another 180,000."

I'm reading "Many more babies will be born post-'Dobbs.' We need to help them and their moms" by Alyssa Rosenberg (WaPo).

That's 75,000 to 180,000 per year. Rosenberg doesn't seem to notice that to emphasize the number of new babies is to say, implicitly, that during the reign of Roe, that's the number, per year, that were quietly and invisibly kept from our presence.

But Rosenberg calls our attention to the importance of making life in America good for parents and children. The end of Roe creates an opportunity to lobby for things like better child care and health services. I would think most of those who longed for an end to Roe would want to join forces with women's rights advocates and work to lighten the burdens of parenthood. 

That's Rosenberg's pitch:
It may feel daunting to think bigger and do more than merely try to claw back the rights so recently lost. But these times demand that the entire country — not only those in the abortion-rights camp — be more ambitious. In this extraordinary moment, feminists and family policy advocates should welcome conservatives who are willing to heed the call from former congressional Republican staffers Mark Rodgers and Kiki Bradley to “increase our commitment and, through public resources, help carry the load that we are asking many women to bear.”... 
Access to abortion may have let some Americans disregard our broader failures to support mothers and babies. That excuse is gone.

49 comments:

Levi Starks said...

So… planned parenthood, which does “so much more than perform abortions” is now, absent the ability to perform abortions powerless to prevent pregnancy.
I meany they’ll still be providing all those other services right?

rhhardin said...

Do it yourself child care is traditional. It's not hard to keep a man.

Gahrie said...

My pitch is to tie increased aid to restoring the family rather than directed at mothers.

Eleanor said...

There are already more pregnancy centers in say a state like Massachusetts than there are abortion clinics. To suggest that people who are anti-abortion have been neglecting their responsibilities to women and children is a leftwing talking point. It's extortion. "Either you provide cradle to adulthood care for my child or I'm going to kill it, and it's your fault."

typingtalker said...

Is there some reason that availability and use of birth control other than abortion isn't part of the discussion?

realestateacct said...

I've long felt the failure of colleges and universities to accommodate women (and their spouses) with babies and small children is an issue worthy of being addressed.

Howard said...

No extra help is coming because Jesus believes in Social Darwinism.

Yancey Ward said...

The signal will be difficult to detect in all the noise, but I suspect, on net, the change in births won't be even that high. Probably more on the order of 20-50K, and it might result in net loss of births if people take contraception more seriously.

MayBee said...

So are our only choices now to allow babies to be killed or pay to support them? What other age groups are included in this line of logic?
I don't think we should be able to kill 15 year olds, but I also don't think we have to pay to support them.

Yeah, I believe in a safety net, but I'm also wary of some new policy that comes about by holding pro-lifers hostage.

John henry said...

When they say "opportunities for better childcare" do they actually mean qualitatively better care?

Or is this a euphemism for "child care paid for by someone other than the parents"?

In my experience it usually the latter.

John LGBTQBNY Henry

Beasts of England said...

’I would think most of those who longed for an end to Roe would want to join forces with women's rights advocates and work to lighten the burdens of parenthood.’

Totally agree!! Shrinking our federal bureaucracy and its insatiable desire for the fruits of our labor would lighten the burden considerably.

Kevin said...

I was told all those women would be having back-alley abortions.

Kevin said...

Perhaps Planned Parenthood can help with the actual parenthood planning?

Mutaman said...

"I would think most of those who longed for an end to Roe would want to join forces with women's rights advocates and work to lighten the burdens of parenthood."

What planet do you live on?

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Eleanor said...
There are already more pregnancy centers in say a state like Massachusetts than there are abortion clinics.

The screeching harridan, Sen. Warren, says there are three pregnancy centers for every one abortion clinic in Massachusetts.

Of course she wants to close them all down "right now!"

Richard Aubrey said...

kevin. Yeah. They'd have some facilities no longer in use. Clear out some of the old stuff and....

Original Mike said...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Eichmann) is trying to shut down crisis pregnancy centers that have helped untold millions of women — and saved the lives of more than 800,000 babies, just since 2016 — by providing prenatal care and ultrasounds, parenting classes, counseling, diapers, other baby supplies including formula and furniture, and access to social services. But that’s not good enough for Liz Warren because those centers refuse to shed innocent blood.

What's this about?

Gahrie said...

I've long felt the failure of colleges and universities to accommodate women (and their spouses) with babies and small children is an issue worthy of being addressed.

Yeah, universities are known for being unwelcoming and unaccommodating to women, which is probably why only 60% of those in college today are women.

Freeman Hunt said...

So they're going to lower taxes to allow more people to stay home with their kids? Sweet!

n.n said...

The goal is to mitigate progressive value, corruption, and dysfunction, which requires, first, life, second, personal responsibility, and, third, normalizing shared (i.e. father)/personal (i.e. mother) responsibility. That said, there is a relevant principle, where it is viable to help people help themselves. The same principle followed by parents when raising children, while mitigating spoiled child syndrome to become a productive members of family, community, society.

n.n said...

Perhaps Planned Parenthood can help with the actual parenthood planning?

Childcare, home making, fiscal responsibility, organization, etc. Get the mother and father to participate in equal and complementary stations.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Access to abortion may have let some Americans disregard our broader failures to support mothers and babies. That excuse is gone.

Stop making it more expensive to be a parent.

Stop passing mandates that impose costs and burde3ns on parents

Stop demanding that everyone be a helicopter parent. Stop letting CPS go after parents because they let their kids play at the park without adult supervision.

You want to increase the child deduction on income taxes? Great!

But not one damn thing that puts money int eh pockets of Democrat "child care" workers / unions.

Support parents being parents? yes

Support parents farming work off on "professionals"?

No fucking way

Marc in Eugene said...

The end of Roe creates an opportunity to lobby for things like better child care and health services. I would think most of those who longed for an end to Roe would want to join forces with women's rights advocates and work to lighten the burdens of parenthood.

With the 'women's right advocates' who would rather kill the unborn than fight for 'things like better child care and health services'? Two weeks ago and today, 'let's fight for the right of women to kill their unborn children'; today, for reasons best known to herself, 'please validate our bona fides by working with us for these political goals'. Pft.

But there are hypocrites on both sides of this issue, so I suppose it's not so surprising that this sort of let's-work-together rhetoric is used by the Alyssa Rosenbergs at this point in the contest; I hope they do some practical good for women who face challenging pregnancies but I don't see how I, personally, could trust them, not that my opinions and sensibility are the point.

Bender said...

I would think most of those who longed for an end to Roe would want to join forces with women's rights advocates and work to lighten the burdens of parenthood

The problem with this - aside from your ignorant presumption that the pro-life community does not do this already (there are thousands of pro-life pregnancy centers and maternity homes) - is your ignorant presumption that "women's rights advocates" want to lighten the burdens of parenthood beyond getting rid of the "burden" of children.

In fact, the "women's rights advocates" have been attacking pro-life pregnancy centers for years, trying to shut them down and now doing things like firebombing them.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I was asking this very question. What’s the good coming out of killing Roe. Thanks for posting.

Marc in Eugene said...

I can't get over AR's suggestion that the former Mrs Bezos could use her immense resources to finance diapers etc (because clinics operated by the pro-life [presumably semper et ubique] subject the poor women served to 'proselytizing'). I suspect that if MS cared about 'women's health' (and not the so-called 'right to abortion') she might already be doing this.

Inga said...

It wasn’t married women with supportive husbands who were getting abortions. It was single working women who already had a couple children or more. So if one wants to see mothers stay home to take care of their children, one may have to come to terms with social services to these single mothers to increase in a big way. Free daycare for the moms who must go to work despite increased social services, more time off for pregnancy, birth and newborn care. More funding for WIC and EBT. I sure hope we don’t hear any complaints about now having to help these women and their new children.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Warren wants to shut down pregnancy centers.

Witch.

More men are seeking vasectomies now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe



roger said...

From Mike’s link: On Wednesday Warren said, “Here in Massachusetts, these so-called crisis pregnancy centers outnumber genuine abortion clinics three to one.”

She accused crisis pregnancy centers of tricking women into visiting the clinics thinking they’ll be able to get an abortion and then pulling a bait-and-switch in order to harm them. “That needs to stop. We need to put a stop to that in Massachusetts right now,” she declared.

From the Left’s perspective anything which does not lead to the death of the unborn human being is a circumstance created “in order to harm them.” (women). It never enters her head that a crisis pregnancy center would support and assist women in need.

Reddington said...

An article you linked recently said late term abortions were rare — only 6000 per year, accounting for less than 1% of all abortions. Perhaps not the point they intended to make, but that would seem to suggest 600,000 abortions per year.

roger said...

“I would think most of those who longed for an end to Roe would want to join forces with women's rights advocates and work to lighten the burdens of parenthood. “

Women’s rights advocates believe deep in their dear little hearts that I am a racist, bigoted, homophobic, white supremacist.

I am a practicing Christian. My church invests tremendous amounts of time, food, housing assistance, and utilities assistance to assist those in need,including new mothers. This is direct action; Boots on the ground.

hawkeyedjb said...

Something I have noticed lacking in recent discussions about abortion is any honest understanding of the role pro-life citizens have had in our country over the last half century. These are the folks who have worked to find homes for children, and in many cases have brought those children into their own families. My sister and brother in law have adopted unwanted children and raised them as their own. Yet people like them are reviled in the press, and pro-life pregnancy centers are burned to the ground. It is an absolute travesty that this continues, and the sympathy from politicians and the media is for those who do the burning. It is an awful inversion of humane values. I wish it would stop.

M said...

So since the Left can’t kill babies they will use this as yet another excuse to push socialism? NO. I do not want to “lighten the burden of parenthood” by paying more in taxes so kids can be brainwashed by the state from infancy. No thank you. Hand out free vasectomy and IUD vouchers with tax returns to people who are below a certain income. That would be a hell of a lot cheaper than 18 years of free child care which will soon be utilized mostly by middle class white women who want a “career” and kids too and think everyone else should pay for it.

BTW there were nearly a million abortions a year in the US. Are you telling me all those woman will be more careful now that they will have to live with the consequences of their actions? Good.

Yancey Ward said...

"No extra help is coming because Jesus believes in Social Darwinism."

If that were true, Howard, why are you still alive?

roger said...

"It may feel daunting to think bigger and do more than merely try to claw back the rights so recently lost. But these times demand that the entire country — not only those in the abortion-rights camp — be more ambitious."

We pro-life folks will be right with you, as soon as we rebuild our firebombed clinics.

Joanne Jacobs said...

Planned Parenthood recommends long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) methods, which include various IUDs and implants. They are highly effective.

"The birth control implant (AKA Nexplanon) is a tiny, thin rod about the size of a matchstick. The implant releases hormones into your body that prevent you from getting pregnant. A nurse or doctor inserts the implant into your arm and that’s it — you’re protected from pregnancy for up to 5 years. It’s get-it-and-forget-it birth control."


Gospace said...

Way back when in 1977 when planning on our first child we went to "planned parenthood" to get some information on, you know, parenthood. False advertising. Their name should be "Preventing Parenthood" with the slogan "By any means necessary!"

We ended up with 5, 19 years from first to last.

Quaestor said...

Suppose we just leave the whoring to the professionals?

BUMBLE BEE said...

Yancy @ 11:01 for the win!

Kevin said...

It’s amazing that an additional 75,000 - 150,000 children per year, in a country of 330 million, suddenly requires nationalized, free childcare.

Why that’s up to 3,000 new babies PER STATE!

Jefferson's Revenge said...

Earlier commentators mentioned the father. That is indeed the key to the whole debate. There are multiple studies about the harm done, to both the child and society, by single parent (usually mom) child raising. It just doesn’t work well short or long term. I can personally tell you it leaves a whole in the child’s soul.

Giving more money to single moms incents more single parent households. Every kid has a father. Find them. Make them pay. Stop glamorizing baby daddy’s and single moms. It will take decades but we need to reestablish the societal importance of the family unit. That is the solution.

Tina Trent said...

We already support the mother, and usually the father, who hangs around. Of course the guvment money would be less if they married, so they don't. Fix that. Mothers have to name the father to qualify for programs, and fathers have to pay child support. Return to doing home checks to make sure dad isn't freeloading off one or more of his baby mamma's benefits. And close the border. A huge percentage of these cases will disappear when we stop having a permanent shadow class. We pay these freeloaders plenty. Sure, they don't all get to live in expensive cities. Tough luck: neither can I.

Guy comes up to me in the Home Depot. Says he's looking for cheaper Mexican laborers. Most want $40 an hour up here. Only the newest ones work in the poultry plants. And no, they don't pay taxes, though many apply for and get EITC. Riddle me that. And yes, we pay for their healthcare, WIC, utilities, rent, food, phones, internet, kids' education, extremely necessary policing, and now redundant meals delivered by schoolbus or given in backpacks every weekend -- as soon as they have one baby here.

You see them get into their 60K work trucks after picking up another gig they won't be paying taxes on. When they hurt someone, they either have no insurance and disappear or buy into transient pools catering to illegals that disappear when you try to settle the accident case. How do they drive? The Mexican Consular helps them get ID and police are told to cut them loose for driving crimes that would have us sweating in jail. Or they're driving their boss' equipment, and they take off. It's a nightmare to settle. We also pay more for such legal and medical nightmares, and pay massive amounts for uninsured motorists here -- because we have more illegals than anywhere in the nation. Thanks, poultry industry.

It's not single mothers alone who cause any of these problems. It takes two to tango, and then a whole lot of chicken to pluck. New waves arrive to take the place of those who figured out how to get enough benefits and quit working, save for an occasional construction gig. Many urban girls and other young women and illegal women have multiple children and multiple abortions. Guttmacher openly lies about this in their statistics.

ems4019 said...

If the anti-abortion politicians really believed in providing help to children after birth and their mothers, they would support health insurance (Medicaid) post-partum to new mothers for a year. But a state like Mississippi is stingy and only provided health care for two months post-partum.
And the anti-abortion politicians should be supporting Medicaid expansion so that all women of child-bearing age have access to health insurance. Better health care before pregnancy can reduce maternal mortality and morbidity.
But the states that are so eager to ban abortion are often the states with the highest maternal mortality.

Marc in Eugene said...

If the anti-abortion politicians really believed in providing help to children after birth and their mothers, they would support health insurance (Medicaid) post-partum to new mothers for a year.

Or for three. And the Congress should just fund this outright because some states won't. Cut a billion from the current non-budget here, another there, and before you know it this inarguably valuable payment toward a more mother-and-child friendly society is paid for without any increase in federal tax. But of course this is exactly the challenging sort of practical decision-making that the current plague of legislators won't do.

Achilles said...

Howard said...

No extra help is coming because Jesus believes in Social Darwinism.

Another shining example of bad faith discussion.

Rusty said...

What I'm finding amazing is that women have no agency.

Tom said...

70-180K children were being killed each year. My God we’ve become evil.

walter said...

Ah. Do interviews with the moms after births.

walter said...

Howie: I can swim!
Semper Fud