ChanchanXI wrote:
I think the 40% statistic regarding unwed mothers isn't a tell-all since not all unwed mothers require financial assistance. If you could show the link between unwed mothers and required government assistance, then I may be able to agree with your point.
The rate has increased by a factor of 13 over that period of time. Are you suggesting that an unwed mother is only 1/13th as likely to require government assistance today as she would have back in the 50s? Why? That just seems like wishful thinking to me.
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Additionally, I do not think we are speaking of increasing the amount of birth control and/or sex education as a solution to fix a growing population.
Not a "growing population", but a "growing population in need of government services". Remember when I insisted that we clarify your hypothesis:
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Let's first recall that hypothesis. You are claiming that it is less expensive to fund an organization which provides birth control than it is to pay for the social services for the "spawn" which would otherwise result. Thus, you are assuming that a dollar spent providing birth control will prevent a dollars worth of social services on child care. More specifically, you are assuming that the money spent on funding for birth control will cause a reduction in the number of children born needing those social services.
Yes, I would agree that is my guess. For sake of debate, I'll agree with your wording and say it's my "claim".
Your assumption is that by funding birth control, we are decreasing the amount of funding we have to pay for social services to support the children which would otherwise be born. Your argument is exactly about using birth control as a means to solve the problem of a growing population of children born poverty. You do remember your own argument, right?
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The statistics will not be able to distinguish how the outcome would have played out were the birth control/education not already in place. The situation is more along the lines of "Will the rates of birth increase in groups who previously had access to those services once those services are removed?" It's a subtle difference, but an important one when trying to compare against history.
Sure. But as I stated before. If your reason for supporting government funding for birth control on the grounds that it will reduce the cost to government to support the children who would otherwise be born, it's clear that the data simply does not support that reasoning at all. There's no evidence at all that handing out birth control is having any effect on the rate at which children are born into the conditions most likely to result in them needing government assistance. None at all. We assume this because the "obvious" assumption is that birth control helps "control birth", and thus empowers people to avoid that condition.
But it's clear that for whatever reason, it's not working. Can we at least agree therefore that spending money on providing birth control isn't the solution to that problem? I'm not saying that there aren't other reasons for doing it. I'll point out that I'm not arguing against funding birth control. Despite appearances, what I'm arguing against is doing it for the reasons you are claiming. You just stated what I saw as a week/false argument for providing birth control. That's it.