Lately in the news there has been a lot of talk about politicians on the right trying to keep your “hard earned tax dollars from paying for abortions.” I wonder what would happen if people decided to push for legislation to stop tax dollar funding of wars, after all, there are a great many people who vehemently opposed the war, and their numbers have only increased over the many years that the US has been involved in the current conflicts in the Middle East. Would legislation like that be considered legitimate, or would it be considered unrealistic and unpatriotic?
Frankly I think cutting tax funding for abortions is unrealistic, because unlike tax funding for wars, tax funding for abortions doesn’t even exist. Money is not allowed to pay for abortions currently, so what is the right fighting for? What they would argue is that there shouldn’t even be funding for places that perform abortions, whether or not that’s what the money is for, and they would specifically point out Planned Parenthood as an example. Abortion only accounts for 10% of Planned Parenthood's procedures though, the rest are STD testing and treatment, necessary routine tests for women’s health, and other entirely necessary services. If funding is cut from Planned Parenthood, which provides services to low income women across the country, many locations would have to close their doors, and rather than having the desired effect of reducing abortions, the abortions would increase. Women would have less access to contraceptives; there would be more unplanned pregnancies, and more abortions, legal or otherwise. There would also be higher rates of STD’s, more preventable deaths from things like cervical and breast cancer, and more of a burden on other tax funded health clinics for low income families as they are forced to take on the responsibilities of the now closed Planned Parenthood locations.
Now, maybe someone would argue that war is a matter of national security, so cutting tax funding for it just because the people don’t want war is entirely different than cutting funding to abortion providers just because some people think it’s immoral, but if you look a little closer it’s clear that it’s actually not as different as some might think. The point of the military and national security is to protect people and property in the US, it is part of what is understood as necessary to maintain a civil society, but it is only a part. The sustained existence of our civil society, where people obey the laws for the most part and can generally expect not to have their things stolen or to get assaulted on their way to work, is due as much or more to the availability of education, food, healthcare, infrastructure like good roads and public transportation, and other things which are commonly taken for granted, than to the military’s actions around the world. The right to and availability of abortion is one of the things that makes our relatively peaceful and prosperous society possible; statistics show that places where abortion is banned or availability is limited see a marked increase in crime and a general social and economic decline.
I haven’t even gotten into the rights of women, and I won’t, it’s an argument everyone is familiar with, but clearly the issue of whether or not to fund clinics which provide abortions with tax money is a ridiculous one at best. Cutting funding won’t reduce the number of abortions, will raise crime, will negatively impact the economy, and will piss off a lot of women, and until we’ve also seriously questioned whether people want their tax dollars paying for other things they’re morally, and politically opposed to, I think it’s also an entirely illegitimate issue.
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