While watching the health care debate I have often wondered if there is a single personal freedom that Democrats believe is too sacred for the government to regulate. The only one I could think of is abortion. For Democrats, it is apparently okay for the government to regulate every single aspect of our lives except for sex and the babies that result from it. Now, Democrats are even proposing ‘soda taxes’ and ‘junk-food taxes’ as a way to control our health care costs.
Democrats think these types of taxes are perfectly fine. It’s not like they are telling people they can’t drink beer, or smoke cigarettes, or eat chips. They are just encouraging us not to consume them by making them more expensive via government taxes.
After thinking long and hard about how I can illustrate to Democrats why these types of targeted sin taxes are wrong, I thought of abortion.
I think the vast majority of Americans believe that abortion isn’t good. At best, it’s neutral. At worst, it’s murder. Why not ‘encourage’ fewer abortions by taxing them? I am envisioning a $10,000 tax per abortion. It won’t be a tax on individuals (so taxes won’t go up using Obama’s logic). It will be a tax on the abortion providers. If they perform 10 abortions, then they must pay $100,000 in tax. Of course we will provide tax credits for those instances of rape, incest, and when the mother’s life is in danger. So, after all the proper paperwork is filed, the doctor would get a refund for these types of abortions. All the tax money we collect would be used for sex education and birth control programs.
A plan like this would reduce the number of abortions while still allowing access to the service. The government wouldn’t be anywhere near a woman’s uterus. Women could still have as many completely anonymous abortions as they wanted.
What do you think Democrats? Sound like a good plan?
Comments
Google "why abortion is biblical"
Anti-abortionist should be required to adopt a child.
Sure-thing, I checked out your link. I'm not opposed to abortion for religious reasons. I believe that life begins at conception due to scientific evidence and logic. I don't believe that 5 minutes before a baby is born it is a clump of cells, but that after it is born, it magically becomes a baby.
An egg is fertilized and begins to grow based on its DNA blueprint. That blueprint isn't altered in any way during pregnancy. It just grows. Just as a baby continues to grow after it is born with the aid of its parents.
In short, if the Bible said explicitly that abortions were good, I would still oppose them.
I do agree that society--conservatives included--doesn't fully embrace the unborn as children. Nor does our Constitution for that matter. But those are secondary issues. First we must have a consensus on when life begins, then we can change society to reflect that, including more adoption.
This article was to point out that ALL our freedoms are in endangered from sin tax regu
I think the argument then, though, would be:
Since the cost would obviously be passed along to the consumer (woman seeking abortion), that then only the rich would be able to get abortions--and when abortion was illegal that was the same complaint (they could fly to X to get one, but the poor couldn't). But people don't look at being able to afford cigarettes as a "right" that they deserve and that now only the rich can afford. I like the idea as a comparison, though. Very original, and I may borrow it in conversation sometime. :)
I think the argument then, though, would be:
Since the cost would obviously be passed along to the consumer (woman seeking abortion), that then only the rich would be able to get abortions--and when abortion was illegal that was the same complaint (they could fly to X to get one, but the poor couldn't). But people don't look at being able to afford cigarettes as a "right" that they deserve and that now only the rich can afford. I like the idea as a comparison, though. Very original, and I may borrow it in conversation sometime. :)
Brilliant idea! This is a perfect analogy. That's exactly how Dems usually put it, "I believe abortion should be legal, but rare..." Something like that. This analogy shows the depth of their hypocricy and, yes, lies.
In order for your proposal to be remotely comparable, the abortion tax would have to be lowered to something reasonable, like $20/incident, or the junk food tax would have to be raised to something unreasonable, like $85/Big Mac. A $10,000 tax would be a ban by another name, which should be obvious to anyone with the ability to string together coherent sentences.
The purpose of "sin taxes" are not necessarily to stop or even reduce the behavior. They have two purposes:
1) To raise revenue by taxing negative actions (cigs, junk food, CO2) rather than positive ones (labor, investment).
2) To offset the negative costs caused by the negative behavior.
Say that universal health care goes through, and revenue must be raised to pay for it. Which would you rather we tax: A) junk food, B) fresh fruits and veggies, C) your investments and labor?
Abortion tax would raise revenue, while discouraging negative behavior. We can debate the level of the tax.
Argh. I hate sin taxes. They are basically poor taxes almost universally. Any tax that is the same for any person regardless of their income bracket is problematical. When the very thing you're taxing is specifically of more interest to the poor, it's blatant.
Alcohol and especially cigs are used purchased in greater quantity by the poorer working class. This junk food tax is even worse. Poor people don't eat junk food because it tastes better. They eat it because it's -cheap-, easy, and tastes palatable. All this does is suck money out of the already impoverished, by increasing the cost of staples.
Great article! If abortion reduces the number of future taxpayers, won't this make it harder on the rest of the taxpayers to fund Medicare and Social Security? Shouldn't abortion doctors making more than $250k per year pay their fair share for increasing the amount of entitlement payments that the rest of us will have to pay? It is time someone stood up to "Big Abortion" in favor of us little guys.
Using the Soda tax / cigarette tax logic on abortion makes a great point. Supporters of abortion will chaffe at the idea of a tax on "abortion providers" since the cost just gets passed on to the woman having the abortion. But the same condition exists thing for these other taxes. Taxes on companies are really just taxes on customers since taxes get passed on. And if someone dies of a smoking-related death at 60 years old, several decades worth of publicly-funded health care are saved. If the numbers were fully crunched, smokers should likely get a tax credit rather than a tax penlty
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