I have started a new part-time job as a bus driver. Actually I'm more like a van driver; what I do each morning is drive a SWEET 2011 Dodge Caravan out to two houses and pick up three kids who aren't really able to ride a school bus successfully. I then take them to school where they are all minded by paraprofessionals throughout the day in their various classrooms, and then I pick them up after school and return them back to their homes. Basically, I (and a few other drivers and the students' paras) are something like personal nannies, and of course we get paid for our time. Each day the district (or the programs that fund these kinds of programs) likely spends at least a hundred dollars
per student for each of these hard-case kids. Some of them come from difficult homes, some are in foster care having been rescued from difficult homes, and some are just plain difficult. Rather than kick them out of school, lots of money is poured into trying to help these at-risk kids. These are our tax dollars at work.
So I was having a conversation recently with somebody who out of the blue brought up the problem of abortion and who wanted to direct my attention to
recent attempts in Ohio to curtail abortion. Generally speaking, I am against abortion, though I think that abortion is just a larger symptom of a greater problem, in that people do not want to take responsibility for their lives and so offing a fetus seems like the easiest option. I would wish that every child could be born and that they could be loved and be raised right. Sadly, however, millions of children are aborted each year.
But let's say for a moment that abortion was made illegal in this country. There would be many illegal abortions, of course, and the danger to women's health would probably be a big issue. But more likely ending abortion as we know it would also strongly increase the birth rate in our country. Millions of children who at one time were unwanted (or perhaps had birth defects in the womb that led to the abortion) would now be born to parents who do not want them. What effect would that have?
Opponents of abortion would say that many of these children would live normal and healthy lives, given the opportunity. Perhaps they are right...but I wonder how many of them would be unwanted, unhealthy, and now dumped onto a social infrastructure that is already over-taxed? For instance, what would this do to pediatricians, who now have far too many patients to see already? What would it do to our tax system, that already encourages people to make babies by all the tax credits and benefits one can get? Would our deficit and debt balloon even more? Would our schools have enough room?
And on a personal level, how many more special vans would we have to run out from our school district to transport all these difficult children who are now alive rather than aborted? Are we ready for the population explosion that many good conservatives already resent by their refusal to vote for school bonds and other child-friendly structures? Even now I hear people who grumble that the state and the schools do far too much to raise children...what do you think is going to happen when a million plus new unwanted children are tossed upon the social infrastructure each year? Are they going to be at all happy about that?
As for me, I'm happy to be able to be a blessing for these children. And I am thankful for the families that produce them, even if sometimes I wonder whether some people need to see that having more kids ain't a good thing. But for those who want to end abortion, I wonder if they really see the ramifications of their hopes. Because since many of them are financial as well as social conservatives, I wonder whether or not they are willing to pay for the needs of these children with as much vigor as they fought to keep them from being aborted?
