Pro-abortion activists have a tough time selling their product to the American public. When people realize “pro-choice” actually means pulling live babies piece by piece from their mothers’ wombs, it sullies the abortion brand.
While testifying before the Senate Budget Committee, Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen thought she had a silver bullet when it came to persuading members of Congress that abortion throughout pregnancy should continue to be the status quo.
Secretary Yellen was mistaken.
During her testimony, Yellen stated that ending abortion would be detrimental to our nation’s economy. Yellen testified that if women were denied abortion they would suffer in terms of employment, attaining their educational goals, and experiencing general distress over finances.
Of course, we can make a persuasive moral and ethical case for ending abortion. It has brutally killed tens of millions of innocent unborn children while burdening their parents with the grief and shame that often follow. However, an economic argument may be effective for those who share no moral qualms about killing the most weak and vulnerable among us.
In other words, let’s talk about abortion’s impact in cold hard cash.
Yellen and other economists believe that without abortion women will sacrifice on average $26,000 in earned income during the first six years of the child’s life. She cited the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimate of 630,000 abortions in 2019, and after doing the math stated there would be $16.9 billion in lost earnings for women.
Senate Republicans on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) issued their own report on abortion’s impact on the American economy.
The Republican report used the same value of a statistical life (VSL) utilized by the Department of Transportation to “assess the costs and benefits of policy actions that affect mortality risks.”
By multiplying the VSL by the CDC’s estimated 630,000 aborted babies, they found there was a $6.9 trillion negative impact on America’s economy in 2019 alone, which represents 32% of the gross domestic product (GDP).
This is a 425 times larger economic hit than the $16.9 billion in missed earnings during the first six years put forth by Secretary Yellen.
Senator Mike Lee (UT), the ranking member of the JEC said their report doesn’t include the broader economic impact of a “loss of ideas and innovation, of families, communities, and growth. Our economy does not benefit from the tragedy of abortion.”
This is a conservative estimate due to the fact that California, New Hampshire and Maryland do not provide abortion numbers to the CDC. The pro-abortion Allen Guttmacher Institute takes a more proactive approach to numbers and estimates that there were 930,160 abortions in 2020.
But Secretary Yellen wasn’t finished advocating against life, and her comments took on a decidedly eugenics tone.
Yellen said, “teenage women, particularly low income, and often black…means that children will grow up on poverty and do worse themselves.”
Senator Tim Scott (SC) who is black responded to her racist comment. “I’ll just simply say that as a guy raised by a black woman in abject poverty, I am thankful to be here as a United States senator. Telling black teenage moms that there is only one alternative for them is a depressing and challenging message.”
Secretary Yellen’s comments reflect a thinly veiled movement to further Margaret Sanger’s work of keeping the “undesirables” from reproducing. Life Issues Institute’s own research shows that 79% of Planned Parenthood abortion centers are in or near neighborhoods of color.
We can be thankful that pro-life members of Congress remain vigilant advocates for our most defenseless citizens – preborn children.
Fighting for LIFE,
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