Getting paid straight cash, as a single mother, to go to college is not a level playing field. Having equal access to student loans as an individual without children would is a level-playing field. You can even throw in the free childcare, really, if the college chooses to do that. I don’t really have a problem with the free childcare, I have a problem with the notion of going to college, not paying provided you graudate (and if you don’t, you’d still have to have a job before they go after you) and, in fact, actually being compensated for attending college as though it were a job.
Whatever it takes? I want to make sure I am not misunderstanding you. Is it fair to say that, in your position, a single Mother should be compensated for attending college, should not have to pay back any student loans (because it is all done with grants that will not be paid back on condition she graudates) while a single individual who did not fuck up in any way has student loans to pay back for nearly half (or more) of their lives when such loans cannot even have bankruptcy filed upon them?
My question is simply, why should someone who fucked up live better than someone who did not fuck up and have more opportunities, while actually having to do less for those opportunities? Why should someone who fucked up have the opportunity to live better, financially, than some married couples who did not really fuck anything up?
I think the political left has a skewed perception of what self-sufficiency actually entails. Self-sufficiency entails that, if you get a loan for college, you will eventually get a job after graduation and repay that loan. Self-sufficiency entails not being handed free money for the privilege (and that it is free makes it a privilege) of going to college. That’s something most people have to work, not to mention pay, for.
You’re absolutely right, and the fact that we encourage our youth to have sex via media portrayals and contraceptive counselling, as opposed to the conditioning of abstinence until marriage, doesn’t help either.
Why do you think women end up bearing the greatest responsiblity in raising their children? Don’t get me wrong, they do, but why do you think that is?
Because we don’t teach or hold accountable the males who are 50% of the problem. I think it’s odd that males are more than happy to be there at the moment of conception, but cease to have any responsibility for providing 50% of the nurture and upbringing of the consequential child. Males are charged with less or no responsibility of their penis adventures - any place in the world.
Hey Pav,
See now this is what I like so much about you:
Impressive. Not sure that it offsets what I read elsewhere: that when a female friend came to you for short-term financial help, your stipulation was that she have sex with you first… but knowing what I know about you, I’m sure it was more a “friends with benefits” type deal rather than the sleazy exploitation of a friend in need.
On to the topic at hand.
I think where we disagree, Pav, is in how pervasive the instance of the welfare abuser is. I, like you, am not for handing over money to people who work the system with no intention of giving anything back to the community that was there for them. I fully acknowledge that there are women who are content to sit on their asses all day, put Coke in the kid’s baby bottle and use their food stamps for twinkies. I’m not here to advocate for them.
I think we both agree that there are single mothers deserving of assistance, and those not so much. In my view, there are enough of the former, an overwhelming majority, to make it worthwhile to fight for. And I would sure as hell rather allocate more of my tax dollars to them than to subsidizing multi-million dollar corporations or individuals who pay less in taxes than I do.
It appears that you, on the other hand, feel that there are more single mothers who are happy to live off of handouts than not.
And that’s where I think one of those studies may have had some relevant insight. It goes back to women having larger social networks and having greater exposure to women living in a large range of circumstances, which informs our political views.
If I knew the woman you used in your example, and not many other single moms, I might come to the same conclusion that you do – single moms are handed everything on a silver platter.
But I know a lot of single moms who ended up struggling mightily to hold down at least one job while raising their kids alone. I do know one single mom who lives off the support of others, spends a lot of time drinking and partying, and her kids are growing up paying for it. But I know a lot more who stayed with their husbands longer than they should have to try to do what was “right,” and just needed help getting out of a bad situation and back on the road to normalcy.
My sister is one of the most devoted mothers you will ever find, a stay-at-home mom who left her full-time job when she had her first child. She stayed with a terrible man, an abusive alcoholic, for years in an attempt to keep her family unit together, until one night she woke up in the middle of the night and saw he had a handgun on his nightstand. She called me, and another sister and I went and got her and her 3 girls that night and they never went back. She was on government assistance until her youngest was out of diapers, and after that never had fewer than 2 jobs at a time until her girls were out of high school.
I have another friend whose husband is stoned half the time, and when he’s not yelling at them, he ignores both her and their kids. She, like my sister, made a huge mistake marrying him, but stayed with him in a misguided attempt to give their kids a father. She left him last fall and then promptly lost her job. She’s lucky enough to have a mom with room for her family, but I’m sure she is collecting some sort of unemployment.
Enough with the personal anecdotes. My point is that in my personal experience, in my network of friends, family, and acquaintances, I know many, many more single mothers who just need help getting back on their feet than I do women who are looking for free handouts. They’re not looking for handouts, most are mortified that they have to even ask for financial assistance.
I’m not saying your “network” is more limited, as I have no way of knowing that. Maybe you know just as many women who take advantage of the system and that’s the basis for your viewpoint? Maybe you’ve read studies concluding that most on welfare are undeserving?
I don’t see how that, by itself, is relevant. In more cases, the female is financially harmed, although that gap is starting to shrink because women are gradually making more.
That’s a misleading claim. He may find himself living in a financially worse situation than when they were married. But her situation is also worse than when they were married. The improvement she sees because of assistance doesn’t make her better off financially than when she was married, it just makes her better off than she’d be raising her children alone.
Agreed, but the same is true for her. That, in my opinion, is a failing of the system: people can be penalized for trying to earn even a small income while getting back on their feet.
I can’t speak to the specifics in Ohio but I do agree that some people might see that as a pretty sweet deal. Again, maybe it’s just a difference in personal experience, but it seems to me most people would not be satisfied living that life if they had other options. You’re always going to have a percentage who are just plain lazy, but I don’t think most people are like that. I think most would much rather use the assistance to try to better their future with the aim of getting off that assistance as quickly as possible.
And if you want to talk about college entitlements, rather than debate financial aid for those who need it, let’s chat about athletic scholarships and the sense of entitlement THOSE foster. Ah, but that’s really an entirely different topic, and I’ve rambled enough already, so I won’t go off on that rant here.
I understand your point about the kids coming into play, but this is where I have a problem:
The most responsible order in which a person can do things is that the person would go to college, get a well-paying job, and then have children when the person is in such a position to support those children. In many cases, the responsible decision costs the Government nothing, and results in the person paying back student loans for over half of the person’s life.
Contrastly, an irresponsible way to do things is to have children when you are unable to independently support them, (and we’ve already talked about how many women strive for financial independence, which is fine) and then go to college. However, if you do things in an irresponsible way, you will receive a free college education, get grants that pay you cash simply for going to college, and you will have nothing to pay back if you graduate.
Ultimately, let’s say you have two individuals that both go to school to be nurses, or anything else, for that matter. The first person goes to school and then has kids, the second person does that in reverse AND is supported by the Government when she is in school. If you zip ahead to when they have both graduated and are working, the first person has student loan debts that need to be repaid off-setting her income and the second person does not. Just for the Hell of it, let’s say they both have two kids.
How the fuck is that fair? How does that level the playing field? You fucked up, but ultimately ended up in the same position as the other person, only you’re debt-free, as far as student loans are concerned. I just want to know how that’s fair, that’s all.
You can make an argument for the childcare, which I really don’t have a problem with. You can make an argument for free or reduced tuition, and I’m really not going to attack such an argument ferociously, though I do strongly disagree with free tuition. I think the person should have to take out student loanbs somewhere. Again, if you have student loans and are working you must pay them back, whether you’re on assistance or not. Thus, someone could have went to college first, then had kids, now requires State assistance, and if that person works, that person is still paying on student loans.
I think that you can Legislate in such a manner that the person can cost less money without paying her for the privilege of attending college. First of all, you can Legislate in a way that requires all utility companies to deliver utility services to all Government-Subsidized apartments/houses at cost. There is absolutely no reason why the electric companies should profit off of those people when they are bullshit Regulated Monopolies who get to price-rape everyone else, anyway. I think it’s bad enough that such services are not delievered at cost as it is, but it’s even worse when the utility companies are biting the hand (Government) that feeds them the ability to rape people without having any competition in their markets.
The second thing that you can do is have price adjustments at the grocery store (though you wouldn’t advertise the prices) that happen automatically when someone uses a foodstamp card which charges the actual amount but electronically deducts the retail markup on the food items. Once again, I really see no reason that the grocery stores should profit on these people, and it also pisses me off that these people will very often buy all name brand items, buy garbage fucking food, and will not do anything to offset the cost of the food such as clipping coupons or what have you. The Government’s money really becomes their money. Shit, I clip my coupons just because I’m a miser, I can afford to pay retail!
Those are a few ways that the costs can be reduced to have people on welfare, and I think those suggestions are completely reasonable. In the event that those suggestions are taken, then you will see that giving someone $12,000/year for going to college (over-and-above the fact that they are already going for free) is completely unnecessary. Why are they being given this money? I’ll tell you why, at least, in many cases. They’re having that carrot dangled in front of them simply because the prospect of a free education is not enough to compel them to go to college, but if they are paid for going, then it becomes worth it in their estimation.
Can you imagine that, Tentative. Imagine someone walking up to an eighteen year-old with no kids and saying, “Here is a free college education,” if the eighteen year-old were to reply, “No thanks, not good enough,” what would you think of that person?
Seriously, why do you think the grants pay people actual money in addition to making the college free?
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Look at the rates of unmarried teens who were pregnant for the last few decades. People simply married younger a few decades ago, it was pretty much expected that you would marry, if not directly out of H.S., then shortly thereafter.
Boom! For 15-19 year-olds in the year 1950, of those who got pregnant, 13% were unmarried compared to 79% in 2000.
Let’s crunch some numbers:
It is true that a rate of 82 teenage births per 1,000 teenagers in 1950 was close to being an all-time high. while that rate was about 48 for the year 2000. That is offset, however, by 28 abortions per 1,000 teenagers in 2000, making the potential birthrate 76.
Since abortion was not legalized until 1973, you’re basically looking at an actual birthrate of 82/1000 compared to a potential birthrate of 76/1000, which is very little difference considering the improvements in contraception.
But, no, abstinence counselling didn’t work. Neither does contraceptive counselling, not really, it seems the only thing that, “Works,” is abortion…which is largely fine by me.
However, only 13% of those teenagers were unmarried in 1950, so if we look at 13% of 82, then you’re talking about 10.66 unmarried teen mothers per thousand teenage girls. In the year 2000, the rate was 48/1000, which is nearly half, but 79% of those were to single mothers. In that case, you are talking about 37.92 unmarried teenage mothers per thousand teenagers, for an increase of 356%.
If you look at the potential unmarried teen Mothers for the year 2000, going back to that potential statistic of 76/1000, then you end up with 60.04/1000 unwed teen Mothers, 6% of the population of teenagers 15-19 and nearly 600% more than there were in 1950.
As you can see, your contraceptive teaching (and the contraceptives, in fact, are better now which is a mitigating factor) does absolutely nothing to alleviate the amount of unwed teenage Mothers. Correlation is not Causation I will grant you, but it seems that taking the social stigma of being an unmarried parent off of both the Fathers and Mothers alike has correlated to…gasp…higher rates of unwed parents.
Thus, even if the welfare system were the same in 1950 as it is now, which it isn’t, the welfare system would still be paying out substantially less as you are talking about 1.06% of the teenage population being unwed Mothers compared to 3.79%.
Marriage works. Period. Abstinence education appears no worse, it just seems more people are having abortions and contraceptives are better and more varied.
Morality works. Period.
I am inclined to agree with that, but only to an extent. I certainly agree with 50%, don’t get me wrong, but how is he to come by that 50%? You have to take into consideration the fact that she gets free access to education after her mistakes where he does not, so his employment opportunities may be limited, unless he is already educated. Furthermore, the Court is going to order him to pay a certain amount of child support, which may impact his ability to get an education independently of Government Assistance due to the time he has to spend at work.
I don’t think any of them should get free ediucation, but were we to allow that, I do not think they should be compensated, on direct, for the privilege of being educated.
I sincerely agree with your statements about how males should have to take more responsiblity, though. I would say that if a male fails to pay the designated amount of child support, which should be income-based, for three consecutive months…or if he is three total months behind…we hook him up with a little death penalty action. I think that the prospect of dying will motivate him to get his fucking ass in gear and take two jobs if he needs to.
I’m consider a flaming liberal in these here parts (redneck Idaho). But lemme tell you what would actually work.
First, no one is a citizen by birth. Citizenship is EARNED. How is it earned? Each and every young person would have to pass a series of tests that proves they have enough education to find gainful employment, that they understand the cost of finance and can balance a fucking checkbook, that they understand what marraige is and isn’t, along with what is child production and the rearing thereof. Until they can satisfy these requirements, there is no drivers license, no job, no nothing. In short, to become active in society they have to prove that they have the education necessary to pursue their happiness WITHOUT COSTING ME ANY MONEY! A social safety net for the inevitable accidents, debilitating health issues can be provided, but to citizens only.
Further, mom and dad are on the hook to see that each child receives the education and passes those tests that culminate in citizenship. They remain responsible for that ‘child’ until they pass the test at 16 or 40 - whichever comes first. No dumping them on me to support the day they turn 18.
This would probably take three or four generations before it would be effective, but it pretty much wraps up all the social ills issues. Is that conservative enough for you?
I realize that hell will freeze over before we have the political will for such a scenario, but anything short of this is to continue the same 'ol bullshit.
You’re right about that. It detracts from the story somewhat, but she was fully aware that I would have loaned her the $100 if she had not agreed to the terms. The question ended up really just being one of, “Feel like having some sex?” We continued to have a recreational sexual relationship even after that, and she, as you may have expected, repaid the $100, in full.
I agree with you on this matter. It seems that our personal observations of the pervasiveness of such people greatly differ which could be a geographical thing, or there could be any number of other factors involved. It’s really difficult to say. I would say that in the occupations in which I have worked, and in the managerial positions that I have held, my experience with a great many people leads me to my conclusions. Here are two examples:
1.) Having worked as a cashier and then evening supervisor of a grocery store, namely the Giant Eagle (out of business) of Moundsville, WV, I would witness any number of people walk into the store and behave in manners which I found disgusting. Furthermore, if I had just one dollar for every individual I saw come up with buggies full of absolute garbage food and pay with a food stamp card, I could probably have invested that money well-enough to be retired by now.
Furthermore, there were other abuses that took place. For instance, you would occasionally have people that would come through purchasing $12/pound filet mignon…on a foodstamp card. You would have people that would execute an illegal transaction right in front of me which is basically that someone would pay for an entire cart of groceries (not theirs) with their food stamp card and then the second person would hand them half of that in cash, which would then occasionally (not always) be used to buy beer or cigarettes or what have you.
2.) In other areas where I have been a manager, again, if I had a dollar for every person that would come into a place and work for one day and then ask for the paper to be filled out for welfare that they have a job and then I never see them again except for them working for that one day, I’d be loaded. The problem is that you are legally bound to fill out that paper if you hire them, the people are JUST smart enough to work for that one day (as opposed to presenting the paper upon interview) first, and they are good for six months. If welfare has that paper, they don’t even inquire as to whether or not the person has a job or is looking for one again for six months!
3.) You are probably aware that I manage a hotel. I’ve had any number of guests, and we’re talking locals here, come in and pay cash (or debit) for a room and I have noticed a foodstamp card when they have opened up their wallet. If there is not a power outage, and you live within five miles of a hotel, what the Hell are you doing blowing money staying at a hotel when you are on foodstamps? Paying for my highest-dollar Jacuzzi rooms? If a person has kids, could that money really not be used for a better cause that somehow pertains to the kids? I don’t know, clothing? Books? Toys?
-Anyway, these are only a few of my experiences with such people. They are frequent and repeated. They greatly outnumber any positive experiences that I have had with other people in the same position, though there certainly have been positive experiences.
I understand that my positons would effectively reduce the entitlements for people who may actually be deserving of such entitlements and will do something constructive with them, and I think that it is very unfortunate that we cannot somehow seperate one from the other and have different policies for each, but it is essentially collateral damage. Further, if anyone really wanted to better herself, she would take student loans out (even if college were not free) and she would attend college and graduate even if she were not being paid straight cash to do so.
That’s basically just, “See-above.” That’s the main source of our disagreement, pervasiveness. How many of them are deserving, that sort of thing. Life experience is often a pain that way, life experinece can lead two people who fundamentally agree on the nature of some things to two totally different opinions.
It’s not just her, it’s a great many of them. I went to college with a great many of them, and many of them are what I call, “Career-Students,” just for that reason. They have five or more Associate’s Degrees and continue to collect them like baseball cards because the grant money is there and attending college classes for twenty (or so) hours a week is less rigorous than a full-time job. The thing that you should understand is that many entry-level salaries would put them in essentially the same living situation in which they presently find themselves as they would lose everything (including having to find different housing as they would no longer qualify for income-based) except for the healthcare benefits because the standard on the kids having free access to healthcare is, thankfully, very high. It’s $38,180/year for a family of three before the kids would lose that, in Ohio. I just looked it up, but lost the link, sorry about that.
That’s true, it’s just the way our experineces have been weighted, I think.
Exactly. I have also read many studies that seem to point in that direction, and this is particularly true with respect to the length of time these individuals spend on welfare when, really, the free college thing should be enough to help get them out of it. It also thrills me when someone on welfare (who may collect child support) will have a live-in boyfriend who contributes to the household (where rent is based on income…and not his) and she’ll just live that shit up and continue to collect all of the benefits, knowing full well that if she were to marry Mr. Live-In Boyfriend, the amount of child support the Father of the kids would be expected to pay would go down, which is one of the reasons that she doesn’t marry him!
I disagree with that, you have to crunch the numbers in terms of what sort of assistance the women receive, when single, in addition to the child support that the guy is paying compared to the standard of living she had when she was married to him.
For instance, if a guy were to be the only one working in his family and he made $30,000 where the wife was unemployed, and they got divorced where she continued to be unemployed:
1.) The kids had free healthcare in any case.
2.) The guy will pay $448/month in child support.
3.) The Mother will no longer pay anything for rent if she gets on income-based housing because no income = no rent. She will also pay nothing for utilities.
It would seem that the Mother will get $441-$451/month in food stamps.
5.) The Mother (if she at least has a G.E.D.) will get free access to college education.
6.) The Mother will actually be paid directly to go to college.
I’m going to use 60% of my personal housing expenses to determine this, just for the Hell of it to see how she does:
1.) $448 child support * 12 = $5,376
2.) $446 foodstamps * 12 = $5,352
3.) My mortgage payment is $509, so let’s say that reasonable rent would be $305.4…12 = $3,664.80…and that’s actually impossibly low.
4.) My Electric/Heating bill budget amount is $348 so let’s say $208.80 * 12 = $2,505.60
5.) My cell phone bill (they get free cell phones with limited minutes) is $60/month, so $36 * 12 = $432
6.) My trash bill is $18/month, so $10.80 * 12 = $129.60
7.) I’ve also filled out the form, just to see, and such an individual would qualify for $123/month cash assistance. $123 * 12 = $1,476
I’d get into WIC, but that’d be friggin’ nitpicky. The family of four would qualify for it, anyway.
***Ultimately, you have a value income…that I’ve intentionally low-balled of $18,936 for not working while the ex-husband will see $20,124 of his money after child support and taxes are taken out of the equation. Except, she doesn’t have to do anything for that and gets to dictate when or not he gets to seehis kids. In the meantime, he’s going to pay numbers for his cost-of-living closer to what I pay than what I’ve intentionally low-balled for the ex-wife.
Again, there is NOWHERE for rent with three bedrooms for $305.40, in fact, one of the reasons that I bought a house is because it is cheaper for me every month than renting actually was, so you can really add another $2,500 to her.
NOW, let’s factor in these school benefits:
Okay, you pay $91/credit hour at Belmont Technical College:
The single Mother will have to take at least 12 credit hours to be considered full-time, so $91 * 12 = $1,092
That’s quarterly as BTC runs quarterly, so the value on that is $4,368/year. Furthermore, let’s call books $800/year (lowball) and you end up with a total of $5,168.
That brings the single Mother’s value up to $18,936 + 4,368 = $23,304/year. Her value for going to college for 20 hours a week has now exceeded the husband’s value.
This does not include the $2,500/quarter that gets paid, as cash, to people that get this grant, nor does it include the cost of childcare. The cost of childcare at BTC, if you have to pay for it, is $3.00/hour, so $6.00/hour per two children. You multiply $6.00 by 20 hours in a week by 44 academic weeks in a year and you get: $5,280. That brings her total value up to $28,584/year, more than her husband brought home for the whole family after FICA taxes.
This has still not factored in the $10,000 cash she gets per year if she attends college!
She is financially better off than she was with her husband. Her husband is worse off financially. The value she has as a family of three exceeds the value that they had as a family of four. He works, she doesn’t. Everything she has is Government-provided, nothing he has is Government-provided, and in fact, since he cannot claim the kids, he will have to pay Federal and State (Especially State) taxes that he will not get back…something he did not have to do before as far as Federal was concerned. In Ohio, he still would not be refunded everything he paid in State tax as a family of four.
I rest my case.
I also make 38K/year, so don’t think this example was based on me in anyway.
See above.
The whole entire wage structure of this country is a failure of the system.
I disagree. Why does it take them to be paid straight cash to motivate them to go to college? Why is it not the case that college is free for them enough?
Disclaimer: It is known that I was an athelete in High School, but all of my scholarships were academic. I did have an Athletic scholarship, at one point, but I injured my knee…basically permanently…though I can run around if I am really careful…before I got to exercise the scholarship, and so I lost it.
I’m really talking about the student loans, anyway. Why does someone who does things the right way have to take out the loans and someone who screws up doesn’t have to do so?
I’d really appreciate it if you would address the direct points made in my post, unless you already intend to, that post took me a not insubstantial amount of time.
The OP gave quotes from studies garnered from Google about women and leftism. In order to verify those quotes, we’d have to repeat FJ’s search and read each study on our own–we’d also have to read studies that gave differing opinions–then we’d have to evaluate the sources for both.
Rather than do that, why not look at the current presidential candidates’ positions on human rights? (Women are human, last time I looked.)
In the meantime, =D> =D> =D> =D> =D> to both Anita and Pav for their thoughts.
Mississippi is going to throw women’s rights back a hundred years if one proposal is passed. Making abortion illegal. What kills me is, women are fighting to make abortion illegal. Now why would women want to become slaves?
Slaves to what? Slaves to not having sex if you don’t want kids? Guys are already slaves, then. If a guy impregnates a woman, he can’t make her have an abortion.
the point is men preventing women from having abortions means that women are not allowed to make choices regarding their own bodies.
it is kinda like slavery in some ways - especially when the woman then has no choice but to spend the rest of her life raising a child that somebody else forced her to have. men have the option of dissappearing from the child’s life - women rarely get that opportunity
besides, fuck it, there’s too many kids in the world as it is - why force women to have more if they don’t even want them?
but then here’s the other side: if a woman can choose to abort her baby, a man, if equality is your goal, should be given a comparable right – not to kill the baby obv, but the right to refuse to support it financially. if a woman can absolve herself of her responsibility by killing the baby, surely the man can absolve himself through far less vicious means.
Pav, your direct points read like a primer on how to cheat the system and how in your experience, there are more cheaters than there are people who use the aid available in responsible ways. Your numbers may be correct for Ohio, but they don’t necessarily reflect the whole country. Even though you acknowledge that there are success stories, your focus is on the abuse. It just might be a skewed perspective. There is no mention of the percentages of failures compared to successes. I’m afraid that your anecdotal observations leave out as much as they include.
My anecdotal observations see a much different picture. Yes, there are abusers and users of the system - plenty of them. But as a pawnbroker, I saw many people on the bottom rungs of the ladder, and most just needed a hand up, not a hand out. I’ve stood in the check out lane and watched that FS card come out and have seen abuse just as you have. But I’ve also seen a basket full of wise choices aimed at stretching the food budget to its limits. To focus on one while ignoring the other leaves a skewed perspective. But just as your experiences are somewhat limited, so are mine, and so any observations should be general only and address the whole picture, not just our little corner of the world.
That’s not my disagreement, I’m Pro-Choice, my disagreement was with the use of the word, “Slaves.”
I would argue that it would be just as easy for a woman to disappear from the life of a child, they just choose not to do it. Technically, a woman can give her child(ren) up to the State at anytime. I would not accuse you of making a disingenuous argument by any means, though, most people aren’t aware of the fact that (with consent of both parents, or a parent with sole custody) rights to a child can be voluntarily relinquished to the State at anytime.
I disagree with that. The simple nature of abortion is that the choice can only lie with a woman. I understand that such seems unfair, but only a woman can get pregnant, so it is just the way that has to be.
That is an interesting case, though. I wonder what would happen if a man made legal record of wanting a woman to have an abortion and she chose not to do so. Were he to divest himself of any custodial rights, is there a legal argument to be made for him not providing support? I don’t think there is, but it is an interesting question.
oh, sorry - not trying to create a strawman - some of your posts were really long so i confess i didn’t read them all
you’re right, i didn’t realize that - but it’s hardly the best way to deal with an unwanted child . . . and you’d still be forcing the woman to carry the thing to term and deliver it.
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