Cost/Benefit analysis on … Abortion in North Carolina

That’s right, a North Carolina legislative panel actually had a discussion that concerned the “extra cost” to the state if a woman elected to have a baby as compared to the cost of an abortion. What do you say to this?

Hat tip to Sister Toldjah, who references a WRAL.com story.

House Bill 854 “Abortion–Women’s Right to Know,” sponsored by Republican Reps. Ruth Samuelson and Patricia McElraft, would require that doctors provide counseling, an ultrasound and a 24-hour waiting period before performing an abortion.

Legislative fiscal staff estimated the bill would result in nearly 2,900 more births a year, based on results from a similar law in Mississippi. Those births could cost the state approximately $7 million a year in Medicaid cost, staffers estimated.

Supporters of the bill said fewer abortions and more births are worth that cost. …

Opponents of the bill said it’s not necessary to force women making an emotional decision through a longer process.

“Most women have thought about having an abortion. It’s not something that I would think that they would take lightly,” Rep. Beverly Earle, D-Mecklenburg, said. “I think it’s a true insult to women to imply or say that they don’t know what they’re doing.”

I’m guessing the pro-choice crowd are perfectly fine with a five day waiting purchase when buying a firearm, but that’s another post.

Sister Toldjah writes… (go read it all)

This is your standard liberal feminist cop-out. The goal is to make people believe that pro-lifers consider women who are going to have an abortion ‘too stupid’ to know what’s going to happen when they go in for an abortion. It’s not really that pro-lifers consider women who are considering having an abortion ‘stupid’; it’s more along the lines of wanting to make sure she’s fully informed and not partially informed.

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

19 Comments

  1. David R on May 19, 2011 at 9:28 pm

    While I believe abortions should be kept to a minimum, the bill raises some interesting questions: Does a woman have a right to not see a sonogram, or receive counseling? Does she have a right to choose her own counselor? Is it the American way to force a woman?to think more about something that? she’s already thought about…especially when the action she is considering is legal? Does the new procedure actually change minds, or does it pressure women…using the authority of an MD and the state? The cost/benefit thing is scary though…reminds me of when Ford thought it’d be cheaper to pay damages for the expected 180 deaths and 180 serious burn cases from Pinto’s exploding gase tanks than do a re-call.



  2. ricbee on May 19, 2011 at 10:48 pm

    Any woman that has an abortion will regret it for the rest of her life. Abortion should be made illegal again. But we must reopen orphanages to accept any unwanted child of any age.



  3. Marilyn on May 20, 2011 at 7:30 am

    About a year ago Supream curt Justice Ginsburge admitted that RoeVWade wasn’t so much about women’s rights as it was about reducing the # of children born to welfare moms and cutting down on the # of dependents of the State.? What the Supream court failed to recognize is that those?on welfare will chose to have another child to keep their checks coming.



  4. Dimsdale on May 20, 2011 at 7:41 am

    “Legislative fiscal staff estimated the bill would result in nearly 2,900 more births a year, based on results from a similar law in Mississippi. Those births could cost the state approximately $7 million a year in Medicaid cost, staffers estimated.”

    ?
    Hmmm.? I wonder if some space could be freed up if they deported some (all) of the estimated 350,000 illegal aliens (2009 figures) from North Carolina?? How much are they costing the state?
    ?
    I wonder why a waiting period for a process that is guaranteed to kill is so objectionable when compared to a waiting period for a gun, which, in most cases, will never kill.



  5. winnie888 on May 20, 2011 at 8:34 am

    Steve, I love the analogy you make re. waiting period for a gun vs. a waiting period to have an abortion…irreversible surgery, a life ended, a woman’s life altered for good.? These liberals arguing this issue don’t care about women or children…they just care about the bottom line.
    ?



  6. joe_m on May 20, 2011 at 8:55 am

    Life, liberty and the pursuit of happyness…
    Life is the first unalienable Right. Abortion denies this right to the unborn child.
    You cannot legislate human behavior, only education will change how people behave. So education is the answer, a slow answer but an answer. If a women has made the decision to have an abortion, do you really think she will change her mind? Having a waiting period will not change anything. She needs to be educated before she makes the poor choice to get pregnant and have an abortion. If we continue to pay for her mistakes, she will just keep making them. Society has become the enabler for many.



  7. TomL on May 20, 2011 at 9:56 am

    they won’t allow us to chose what we can eat, but to have an abortion make a quick decision



  8. GdavidH on May 20, 2011 at 10:18 am

    Isn’t N. Carolina the same state where you can’t choose to kill yourself with a rare hamburger?



  9. sammy22 on May 20, 2011 at 11:24 am

    I believe a woman should be able to make her own decisions w/ the information she can gather: make information available, let her seek advice , let her make the decision, let her deal w/ the consequences.



  10. Dimsdale on May 20, 2011 at 6:28 pm

    Unfortunately, the baby is the real individual that has to deal with the consequences, and as SOS’s previous post showed, a fetus looks remarkably baby like, not just a hunk of tissue as the abortion enthusiasts would have us believe.



  11. sammy22 on May 20, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    Great, Dims, you make the decisions for the fetus. As to SOS’s post, I’d like to hear under what conditions one would abort a 21 week fetus (21 weeks divided by 4 is about 5 months). And there are abortion enthusiasts?? You kidding or WHAT?



  12. GdavidH on May 20, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    “And there are abortion enthusiasts??”

    Yes!…..Have you not been paying attention?



  13. Tim-in-Alabama on May 21, 2011 at 1:14 am

    We need to end the taxpayer subsidies to Big Abortion. These greedy corporations are the leading cause of death in American today with more than 1 million victims a year. Educating women about what they’re doing when they’re killing their unborn children is the equivalent to putting warning labels on cigarette packs. Think about it, won’t you support something if “it saves the life of just one child?”



  14. sammy22 on May 21, 2011 at 1:55 pm

    I should have know better: this is not the place to even mention abortion.



  15. Dimsdale on May 22, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    Maybe you would prefer “human baby denier”?



  16. Dimsdale on May 24, 2011 at 11:51 am

    Sammy: you said “Great, Dims, you make the decisions for the fetus.”
    ?
    Well isn’t that the crux of the problem: making decisions for the fetus, all too frequently ending with their demise?? Aren’t these pregnant women and abortion enthusiasts in Planned Parenthood that deliberately keep them in the dark making that decision?? It isn’t “her body”, it is the body of the fetus, demonstrably different from the mother at the DNA level.



  17. PatRiot on May 24, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    CT mortality information 2008
    http://www.ct.gov/dph/lib/dph/hisr/hcqsar/mortality/xls/aamr_state_1yr_annuals.xls?? Click on the 2008 tab at the bottom of the page.
    Total deaths 29,314??? ?Suicide by firearms 111, homicide by firearms 84
    ABORTIONS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE TOTAL DEATHS
    <a href="http://www.guttmacher



  18. PatRiot on May 24, 2011 at 8:35 pm

    http://www.guttmacher.org/datacenter/profiles/CT.jsp
    under Pregnancies, Births and Abortions? you will find that 17,030 abortions occurred in CT in 2008.?
    And that in 2006, there were 11,800 publicly funded births.
    And our focus is on gun laws ?????????
    ?
    <span style="font-size: small; font-family:…



  19. PatRiot on May 24, 2011 at 8:37 pm

    All this death and bickering AFTER the pregnancy?.? Typical Americans, treating the symptoms and bypassing the problem.
    Planned parenthood?s annual report: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/PPFA_Annual_Report_08-09-FINAL-12-10-10.pdf
    Anyone have a grip as to how much our state pays for educating our youth PRIOR to pregnancies?????
    Pro-lifer’s education budget?



square-girl-baby-toss

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