policy proposal: pay pregnant women and at home parents

This proposal comes from the intersection of Tish Harrison Warren's article, Pro-Lifers Aren’t Hypocrites, at Christianity Today and Tori William Douglas's article, How I became radically pro-choice, on her blog, with some assistance from Andrew Yang's policy proposal of universal basic income.

Here is an important quote from William Douglas's piece.

The second was a quote, shared by my friend Jon, by Sister Joan Chittister, which you’ve likely read all over the internet by now. "I do not believe that just because you are opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, a child educated, a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is."

Harrison Warren's article speaks to this issue from a pro-life perspective.

Pro-life Democratic Governor John Bel Edward’s first act in office was to sign an executive order to expand Medicaid, providing more than 450,000 of the state’s working poor with health-care coverage. He has advocated for adoption and for a statewide living wage. He has worked to increase maternal access to pre-natal and post-natal care.

This happens to be the only public policy Harrison Warren notes, but does point to many charitable works. The weakness with charity is it's inability to address more people. While neighbor to neighbor charity is important, by nature, it cannot reach those who aren't in the charity's orbit. Some of those neighborhoods are less limited by proximity, but are by religion, race, or class. Government policy, that is funded by taxation, and is supposed to be non-religious, has a broader reach.

"Why should the government get involved?" asks the libertarians. Because healthy children lead to a healthy body politic. An abundance of children reduce the need to import labor from other countries, which is a plus to xenophobic citizens. Healthy children have fewer anti-social issues resulting in high costs in education and incarceration. Healthy children need healthy mothers. But mothers who are worried about the expense of health care, and losing their jobs, or not being able to provide for a child are likely to consider abortion.

Williams Douglas writes of her own experience, "I remembered my parents towering over me, fighting over how to pay for groceries. I remembered standing next to the couch while my mom tried to figure out if she could afford to take my brother, who was struggling to breathe, to the ER. I knew that no matter how I sliced it, bringing children into the world to suffer was not the intention of the pro-life movement but it would be the direct result of its success." When she got pregnant and suffered, she realized afterwards, this is not so black and white.

I did the math and pregnancy is the equivalent of working a full time, 40 hour a week job for three years.
If I demanded another person to do three years of free labor for me, I would be put in prison. My motivation would be irrelevant. I have no right to require another person do free labor for me, or for society as a whole, even if it greatly benefited society and myself.

She goes on to speak of her agency as a human being, and I agree, but will not engage here. Because in this current conservative dominated political landscape, I want to find avenues to move forward, instead of yanking backwards like the current, unconstitutional anti-choice bills passed by some states at the moment. This is where Andrew Yang's UBI proposal fits in.

Republicans seem heavy on sticks and very little on carrots. It's as if they want to keep all the carrots among themselves and the plutocracy. This is a place their conservative religious base can force them to flex and replace sticks as anti-abortion motivators and replace them with carrots. I propose any woman in America who finds herself pregnant be given $1000 a month, tax-free, through her pregnancy and the first 2 years after birth. This money will not replace Medicaid for poor women. This is money that rewards women for bringing new citizens into our country by cushioning lost income and helping with the added expenses of raising a child, including child care, car seats, diapers, cribs, formula, clothes, etc. For wealthier women, this is only a token, but for poorer women who will bear the brunt of these draconian anti-choice laws, if the supreme court reverses itself on Roe, this restores some agency to them. There will need to be additional protections for these poorer women so this money is not fleeced from them, such as a pregnant woman's landlord cannot raise the rent for three years.

What if a woman decides to make making babies her job, asks the Reaganite raised on the myth of the welfare queen. So be it. Twelve grand a year is not a path to wealth for the individual. On the other hand, the injection of funds into lower class areas, where abortion can be difficult to find, can help an entire community. Eventually leading to an increase in school populations and a larger workforce.

Of course, I believe school sex education is still essential to continue the decline on teen pregnancy rates as well as free birth control for all women, teens to menopause. I also believe a woman's right to agency over her actual life includes her agency over the potential life in her womb. Please read Williams Douglas's article for more on that.