Abortion Tax

[""]

There is a clear division between people who support the right to choose, and people who do not. That is a given. People who oppose abortion come from every walk of life. They aren't just Christians, but Atheists, Muslims, Agnostics, Wiccans, etc. The same can be said for pro-choicers.

Many people fear the prohibiting of abortions, because they think women and young girls will end up having to go to unsafe, hidden, clinics to have them. Those who oppose abortion, though they would like them to be completely unavailable (except in cases where the woman might die otherwise), have almost reconciled themselves to the idea that this probably won't happen.

What if......
Abortions were allowed to continue (unless or until they became illegal), but only those who vote for them to remain legal, are taxed in order to pay for them. This would remove any gov't involvement (no more medicaid charged abortions), and it would keep those who oppose abortions out from under any umbrella of guilt. We could still oppose abortions, but we would no longer have to pay for them via our taxes, and every year, the cost of abortions performed, in each city, would be divided up evenly and charged as a tax, against those who wish to keep them legal.

Example:
Let's say there are 500,000 abortions in St. Louis, Missouri one year, at the cost of $400 each. The total population for St. Louis Missouri in 2000 was 2,698,672, so let's say that half of them voted to keep abortions legal. If you do the math, that comes out to approx $150 per year, per voter. This is not perfect math of course, because out of those half, not all of them are voters, so it's possible that the cost could jump to $300 per voter, per year. So let's just make a guess that it's between $150-$300 per year, per voter.

Then every year, there would be another vote over whether or not to keep them legal, and once again, those who voted to keep them legal would have to pay for them.

The Questions:

Would they remain legal for long if the yes voter were taxed?
Why or why not?
Would you support this tax?
Why or why not?

Btw, if you're not from the USA, just apply what I have said to your own country, and imagine the cost divided up between the voters who support pro-choice/abortion rights.

 

[""]

Keep in mind, the OP is NOT... I repeat.. NOT a debate about whether or not abortion should be legal. As I said at the beginning of the topic, it is a GIVEN that there are some who support abortions and some who do not. I even mentioned a few of the reasons why some oppose the idea of making abortion illegal. So let's not turn this into a debate about whether abortion should be legal. Let's stick to the OP. Please. If you find it difficult to do that, then go make your own topic.

Btw, I have not stated my full opinion in this topic, though I have used "we" and "us" as descriptive terms. So please do not direct assumptions toward me.

Thanks.

 

[419gam]

Its nice in principal but do you really think this would work. I don't think our troops should be in Iraq. Why should I pay for them? My money is being used to fund an oocupying force in Iraq whoose presence has lead to death on both sides. Where do you draw the line.

Also legalised abortion in America has signifigantly reduced the crime rate. Whether or not you agree with it you are obtaining a clear benifit from it remaining legal. Since you ultimately benifit arn't you obligated to pay the cost.

Also as a sidebar what about a 17 year old who doesn't want a child has her parents consent to abort but is too young to vote. Or what if after you becvome preggers you decide that abortions wern/t so bad after all?

 

[""]

Its nice in principal but do you really think this would work. I don't think our troops should be in Iraq. Why should I pay for them?

It's not about if I think it would work. Do you think it would work?

Why wouldn't it work? The only way it would appear to cease working, would be if the pro-choicers stopped voting for it to be legal. There are definitely more pro-choicers right now than there are pro-lifers. So it could be kept legal as long as the pro-choicers are alright with paying for them.

I don't think our troops should be in Iraq. Why should I pay for them?

While I really do appreciate your point here, I have to say that it's not applicable. Our troops defend our country, so we must keep paying for them. We don't have to support everything the president uses them for, but as citizens here, we do have to support our armed forces.

Abortion doctors do not protect and defend our country in a military manner. One might argue that they prevent unwanted babies from being born, but it's still not the same. I'm not dissing your opinion. I do feel you, and agree in part with what you are saying. I'm just pointing out the difference.

 

[419gam]

I don't think it would work. There is no way to set up a system where people don't have to fund functions of government they don't approve of. Even if you could make abortion the only exception to current tax law I still think it would fail. Abortion is legal because it was determined to fall under a woman's right to privac and to control thier own bodies. Whether or not you agree with this or just think it was the excuse used to make them legal, that is the foundation of abortion's current legal standing. You couldn't deny women what the court has declared a fundamental right just because they voted the wrong way, or didn't pay a certain tax. Because abortions are considered a woman's right you couldn't legally stop a woman from obtaining one just because earlier she was against them but has changed her mind since the election.

Also would any man pay this tax? Why would they vote yes they will never need the service in question.

Also you neglected the 2nd part of my post. Society as a whole benifits from legalised abortion, why shouldn't society as a whole pay?

 

[""]

Ok, how does repeating your post make your point any more valid? I saw the first one.

 

[""]

Also legalised abortion in America has signifigantly reduced the crime rate.

Provide proof with statistics please.
It would be nice if we could stay on task with this topic though. I knew that was too much to ask. Ah well.

 

[Seeking...]

First off, I'm a libertarian - so I HATE the concept of taxes being used for this kind of stuff anyways.

Why can't people just donate to organizations that perform free or sliding-scale abortions?

 

[419gam]

Provide proof with statistics please.
It would be nice if we could stay on task with this topic though. I knew that was too much to ask. Ah well.

First what a hostile reaction to a double post, I didn't do that on purpose. Second, I pointed out that one of the flaws in your proposed solution is that those who vote against abortion are still benifiting from abortion's legal standing without contributing and you response is to flag it as off topic? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on that.

Here are the statistics you asked for. You can also consult the book Freakanomics. S

Levitt and Donohue use statistics to point to the fact that males aged 18 to 24 are most likely to commit crimes. Data indicate that crime started to decline in 1992. Levitt and Donohue suggest that the absence of unwanted aborted children, following legalisation in 1973, led to a reduction in crime 18 years later, starting in 1992 and dropping sharply in 1995. These would have been the peak crime-committing years of the unborn children.

As well, if this theory holds states that had abortion legalized earlier and more wide spread should have the largest reductions in crime. Levitt and Donohue's study indicates that this indeed has happened: California, New York, Alaska, Washington and Hawaii had steeper drops in crime and had had legalized abortion before Roe v. Wade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect
This is the link where that came from.

 

[""]

First what a hostile reaction to a double post, I didn't do that on purpose

Oh you're right. I thought you were being a putz. Sometimes people do that if they think you didn't pay enough attention to them the first time they posted it. Forgive me?

 

[""]

First off, I'm a libertarian - so I HATE the concept of taxes being used for this kind of stuff anyways.

So am I, and so do I.

Why can't people just donate to organizations that perform free or sliding-scale abortions?

Ok but what happens when they run out of money because there weren't enough dontations? Do they do abortion telethons? Do they just turn people away after the money runs out?

 

[""]

Levitt and Donohue use statistics to point to the fact that males aged 18 to 24 are most likely to commit crimes. Data indicate that crime started to decline in 1992. Levitt and Donohue suggest that the absence of unwanted aborted children, following legalisation in 1973, led to a reduction in crime 18 years later, starting in 1992 and dropping sharply in 1995. These would have been the peak crime-committing years of the unborn children
As well, if this theory holds states that had abortion legalized earlier and more wide spread should have the largest reductions in crime. Levitt and Donohue's study indicates that this indeed has happened: California, New York, Alaska, Washington and Hawaii had steeper drops in crime and had had legalized abortion before Roe v. Wade.

I found an article which suggest that what you have named as THE cause for crime reduction is actually only one of the reasons for the decrease in crime, but it also suggests 2 other reasons you might check out. I actually found it while researching to see if the economy had something to do with the increase/decrease in criminal activity over the years. Here it is:

Exerpt from
Crime and the Economy: What Connection?
by Eli Lehrer
November 15, 2000

So if the economy doesn’t explain it, why have crime rates fallen so sharply in recent years? One can’t say for sure, but the smart money is on three key factors.

For one, America’s prison capacity has roughly quadrupled since the mid-1970s and, starting in the early 1980s, the punishment a criminal could expect for a crime began to rise in most states after a 30-year decline. In short, many more crooks are behind bars.
Second, we have more police officers – and, for the most part, they’re doing a better job. Of course, research shows that it is not the number of police on the street, but rather how they are managed and deployed that makes the biggest difference in controlling crime. And thanks to new ideas about cracking down on disorder, holding police commanders accountable, training officers and working with community groups, the police have become a lot smarter in fighting crime.

Third, the number of males aged 16 to 24 – the group that commits about half of all crime – declined a bit in the early 1990s.

But these trends won’t last forever. In the last three years, the number of young males began climbing again. In some cases, bold policing experiments have stumbled. And some law enforcement experts are questioning the effectiveness of federal programs in combating crime, or the social and economic wisdom of expanding the nation’s prison system.

At some point, America’s crime rates will rise, and the economy will stumble. But even if both happen at the same time, one won’t necessarily have anything to do with the other.

Eli Lehrer was a Bradley Fellow studying crime and urban issues at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based public policy research institute.



Distributed nationally by Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

 

[SallyNow]

It's a neat idea, but I don't really have an answer to this OP, because several questions popped into my head instead:

~How we know who voted which way without delving into the sanctity of a secret ballot? An honour system?
~Would men have to pay? They never have to directly use the service
~Would only those who pay the tax be able to get an abortion unless due to "dire medical circumstances"? What would consitute those?
~How would it prevented from being used as legal fodder to make everything a tax-at-will program? Would special legal status have to be mandated?
~Would medically-indicated abortions be a part of this?

 

[jayem]

In actual practice, relatively few abortions are paid for publically. Since 1976, the Hyde amendment prohibits federal Medicaid funds from being spent on elective abortion. Such funds can only cover abortion for reasons of life endangerment, rape, or incest. Some states will cover abortion for health reasons using their own funds, and most of these require a court order to certify the necessity. I'd have to research the exact figure, but I would think the total proportion of publically funded abortions is 10% or less of the whole.

I understand your point, but I also think the mechanics are impractical. I don't know how a taxing body could identify individuals who voted a certain way without very undesireable privacy violations. And, like it or not, abortion currently has the status of a constitutional right which is not subject to referendum. To even begin to implement what you describe would require the SC to reverse Roe, or the Constitution amended.

Since the vast majority of US abortions are already privately funded, have you looked at your own health plan? Does it cover abortion? Most do, though maybe with some deductable. If I were anti-abortion, I'd be more bothered that part of my health insurance premium is being used to pay for terminations.

 

[hernyaccent]

I don't believe that is a good idea. I don't support many things the government does with money but if we are all given the right to choose what taxes our money went to it could bankrupt a lot of programs that people need to survive.

 

[Spinrad]

Line item taxation. What a good idea.

 

[In A Perfect World]

I think it is a bad idea. Why not have special tax on Bibles?

Why not tax open heart surgery?

Why not tax kid's allowances?

Bad idea IMHO.

 

[butterfoot]

Not a very good idea. While your idea is for the better good of society, it would never happen. For one you would be pushing a tax that targets for doing something on the basis if we find it moral or not. I do agree that Abortions do not need to be paid by taxpayers but the democrats in office won't let that happen.

So what do we do. We just keep reminding everyone that abortion is legalized murder and maybe one day enough people will get into government that can outlaw abortion.


-cw

 

[In A Perfect World]

So what do we do. We just keep reminding everyone that abortion is legalized murder and maybe one day enough people will get into government that can outlaw abortion.

-cw

Unless the Supreme Court sees fetuses as human beings that deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, abortion won't become illegal. Even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the power to legislate abortion would be reserved to the states. I know in CT, we'd probably still allow abortions.

Abortion may be legalized killing, but it is not legalized murder. Murder is the illegal act of killing. Abortion in this case, aint' murder

 

[Seeking...]

Ok but what happens when they run out of money because there weren't enough dontations? Do they do abortion telethons? Do they just turn people away after the money runs out?

Develop a "work for abortions" community service program. Give them the abortion and then require that they turn up for training in some public service kind of thing (like sex ed) where they are required to receive training and do a certain # of volunteer community education hours. If they don't report - they get fined - heavily.