There seem to be two issues you can always count on for some serious debate in Topeka: the budget, and abortion.
The same legislators who tout themselves as pro-life and usually vote for the bills that would restrict access to abortion also seem to spend a lot of time voting against children and health care coverage. While this is a running joke on the pro-choice side of things, it’s a terrifying reality for many families in Kansas. According to the KS Dept of Health and Environment (KDHE), in 2006 11,221 abortions were performed in Kansas, of which 5,836 were in-state residents.
With a state that has 25% of it’s residents under 18, and a total population of 2.8 million, that’s an estimated 700, 533 children statewide. In 2006 Kansas spent $424 million to provide care to 204,900 children. At $2069 per child, it’s one of the best dollar-impact state programs. In addition, in the 2006-2007 school year, the per-pupil public school cost was $8,998.
Combining just public health and school costs, the $11,067 each year is state support annually per child. If the state average of about 40% in poverty would hold true with the number of abortions in the state, 2,159 children of those aborted would be living in poverty. The $11k each year doesn’t include the free or reduced lunch that those children would be on, the cost of subsidized child care, food stamps, and all the other support children in poverty receive (and must receive in order to have a barely-equal playing field to other children).
The $11,067 minimal state support, times 2,159 children, = $23,893,653.
$23 million bucks isn’t a small amount of money. A large portion of that money would come from federal sources, but if you did that math for all 50 states (and the few territories), the number would be even bigger. Also, that $23m is just for kids from one year.
None of this is meant to say that abortion should be legal because we can’t afford children. Republicans love to vote for “pro-life” measures, but cut school funding, medical services for children, subsidized childcare, promote marriage initiatives (so that mothers can’t sue for child support, even if the father of the child is providing nothing). In an ideal world, contraception would be perfect, all children would be born into emotionally and economically stable situations, public education would be good no matter your geographic location – but we all know this isn’t reality.
Reality is that abortion must always exist as an option. In the real world, contraception is never more than 99%, schools are being cut and teachers laid off, geography has a lot to do with your educational opportunities, families change, and even the best laid plans sometimes go awry. Unless Republicans want to start funding opportunities for children, and taking real, substantial initiatives to help all children, and for comprehensive sex ed and pregnancy prevention (that doesn’t rely on abstinence-until-marriage and slut shaming), they have to right to moral-high-ground themselves. Women face reality, but apparently many legislators in the statehouse don’t.
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