I don't care what you think about abortion. We need to do something.

I don’t care about your stance on abortion; this is a tragedy: 

"women who carried an unwanted pregnancy to term are three times more likely than women who receive an abortion to be below the poverty level two years later." (io9)

I couldn’t tell from this post whether the women were below the poverty line before pregnancy, HOWEVER, no child should have to grow up in poverty when I am sitting here never having struggled for food or housing. No child gets to choose the family they are born into. I was lucky.

People fight so hard for the right of fetuses to grow to term and be born. But what happens after the baby is born? They are launched into the world perhaps with an unemployed (and most likely underemployed) mother. Hopefully there’s a father around. But if not? The mother is stuck trying to support her baby financially as well as being a mother and all the time that takes. She chose to get pregnant, now she has to face the consequences.

People fight so hard for the right of women to terminate pregnancies. But what happens after the baby is born? The woman is expected to work and leave her precious child in a daycare or with a grandparent or someone else. The mother is also expected to be a good mother and take care of her baby. This leads to women working less than full time to spend time with their children. She chose not to have an abortion, now she has to face the consequences.

This is not okay. We can’t expect women to be both providers and stay at home mothers. And the thing is, even if there is a father around, a second income is needed to survive. The mother must be a provider, regardless of whether the father is around. You know who suffers the most? The child, who, as little choice as the parents had in their situation, had even less choice.

People talk about socialism like it’s a bad word. I get it. You don’t want your hard earned earnings to be given to some slacker. But think about the children. The parents may have made bad choices, may not be ready to be parents, may not be financially stable enough to be parents. But why, why should the baby ever have to suffer for it? But if we’re going to force all women to carry their pregnancies to term, we need to take care of the children. We live in a society. We should make it better for everyone in this society, not just for ourselves.

Women do not want to raise a child in poverty. It may not be government’s place to take care of the poor. But it is the church’s place. If we want to stop abortions, we need to make it so women can raise their children without the absolute, paralyzing, fear of having to raise a child in poverty.