I like to say I was raised by ‘a pack of women.’ I grew up in a household of two sisters, a mother, and very frequently a grandmother, who all did their part in my up-bringing. One of the benefits of that, aside from my steady rotation of crushes on my sisters’ friends was that I learned to appreciate and respect women. Couple that with a strong libertarian philosophy and you have someone who believes in the right of a woman to have an abortion. However, I feel there are strong moral responsibilities that go along with that decision, but those responsibilities belong to the individual woman and the father of the child.
Therefore I oppose the notion that my tax dollars can be used for an elective abortion. I don’t mind helping pay for an abortion that is the result of rape, incest, or a pregnancy that threatens the mother’s life but I do not want to facilitate abortion as a form of birth control or a way to maintain someone’s perceived quality of life sans children. If a man and a woman don’t want to have children, it is their responsibility and theirs alone to ensure they don’t get pregnant. It is not the shared responsibility of the community or the nation to bail them out of a situation they had the power and means to avoid. If a couple is in a financial position where child birth would be disastrous to all involved (the parents and the child or children) then it’s the responsibility of the parents to do whatever it takes not to have a child. It isn’t the tax payer’s responsibility to help pay for the consequences of their actions. I understand that no contraception is 100% effective but even that does not make it the tax payer’s responsibility to help pay for someone else’s abortion. The bottom line is that if you are in such dire straights that another mouth to feed would be disastrous, you should either explore abstinence or adoption or take financial responsibility for an abortion, should you chose to have one.
H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, would overturn existing legislation (the Hyde amendment) that already prevents tax payers’ dollars from funding elective abortions. The Stupak-Pitts amendment ensures that the spirit of the Hyde amendment lives on. Women can still have abortions, they just can’t be funded by tax dollars, which is already the case and has been since 1976.
H.R. 3962 is being used to advance an agenda cloaked in “women’s rights.” It is not a woman’s right to require anyone else to help pay for an elective abortion.
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