Children: The New Scapegoat

From Drudge:

PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY
Sun Jan 25 2009 22:13:43 ET

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.

The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

Developing...

Here we have taxpayer dollars possibly going to pay for contraception so the government won't have to pay for a child that may be born. Is this appalling just to me? If one were being crass enough to simply look at children in terms of economics, I would think one would want as many children born as possible in order to add to the tax and social security base. Anyway, not all children are birthed, fed, educated and cared for at the taxpayers expense.

But, let's not be crass. Children are not commodities. Have we for so long looked at children as either financial burdens, or accessories that the Speaker of the House can regard children with such disdain? Are these contraceptions to be given to everyone, or to only the poor, and if only to the poor, is this not a form of temporary sterilization of the outcast? I find this all very disturbing.