tfp25

                           THE WELFARE CONUNDRUM
(Written under the psuedonym, "George Steinkrueger",and published in the Neighborhood Journal 21 August 1996. Posted in toto with Preface and Epilogue 16 September 2001)

PREFACE -- Those who know me know that I am a yellow-dog. George, however, was not. George wrote from an outsider’s point of view, that both parties tended to be hypocritical and two-faced. George is a libertarian, which explains why if you read his columns chronologically, it tends to look like he is switching allegiances. He is not.

        Welfare is pro-life. Sounds like something out of 1984, doesn't it? Except this statement is not one of those famous oxymorons from Orwell's book. This is fact, not fiction. And because it is fact, it creates a conundrum for both major political parties.
       One of the biggest complaints about our current state of welfare (or should it be called the welfare state?) is the number of children on welfare. "Why do these people on welfare have so many kids when they can't afford it?" There are many theories as to why, ranging from stupidity to status. However, the why is not important. What is important is that those on welfare are choosing to have babies instead of abortions. Whatever the motive, the end result is life over death. And, life, even one that begins in the throes of poverty, is still preferable to death.
       The Republican conundrum, then, is how to reform welfare and make single parents more accountable for their actions (i.e. penalize them for having children) without driving them into the clinics of the abortionists. This is a very difficult puzzle to solve. Preaching abstinence does absolutely no good once a baby has been conceived. Adoption is not a viable alternative for many of the poor because of race. There are more black children that could be adopted than there are black couples that could adopt them, as many whites will not adopt a black child (and many blacks frown upon the adoption of blacks by whites) because of the "cultural differences". ("I'm not a racist, but it just wouldn't work out, because they come from a different culture and just wouldn't fit in; they need to be with their own kind.") So, for most welfare recipients, there are two choices: life for the baby, or murder of the baby (otherwise known as abortion). Obviously, the choice for most is life, as large family size is one of the motivations for welfare reform. However, penalizing welfare recipients for having children may force them into having abortions to avoid the penalties. Is this the desired result? I hope not. But the Republicans need to establish their party's priorities before implementing such a policy. If the Republicans are as pro-life as their propaganda suggests, then why would they even consider a policy that may increase abortions? How can you be for the rights of the unborn and then take away the rights of the born by denying money and thus livelihood and ultimately life to its mother? How can you be avidly pro-life about a life and then apathetic about the same life when the only difference in the life is that it traveled four inches?
       For the Democrats, the contradiction involves their justification for the right to an abortion, which is the right for a poor person to get an abortion safely and inexpensively. The right of access to abortionists for the poor was the principal argument in favor of restoring Medicaid reimbursement of abortions for the poor. After all, a poor woman has the right to an abortion too, doesn't she? (Of course, it's one thing for a poor woman to want an abortion; it's quite another for her to expect me to pay for it.)
       However, since the poor are having children (as this fact is fueling the welfare debate) instead of abortions, then how can it be stated that access to abortions for the poor is the justification for allowing abortions (paid for by you and me) when the poor are choosing life over death and are having their babies instead of killing them? This choosing of life over death by the very group whose rights of death the pro-abortionists claim must be preserved nullifies the whole argument made in defense of abortion. Thus the Democratic quandary: how do you support the rights of children whose right to exist you don't support? How can you be against a life when it is the womb and for the same life, 4 inches later, when it is born to a welfare mother? How can you be apathetic about a life and then avidly pro-life about the same life when the only difference in the life is that it traveled four inches?
       Before proceeding, then, with any more welfare reform, both parties need to become introspective and ask themselves some tough questions. For the Republicans: Do we want to penalize an innocent child with the potential loss of its life because of the sins of its parents? For the Democrats: Do we really want to support children that we do not believe have a right to exist?
       Those are the questions. Are there any answers?

EPILOGUE -- My hard-core libertarianism of this period has transformed over the past several years into a radicalism. I attribute this to two events: the Presidential persecution of 1998, and the theft of the American Presidency in 2000.