Chris Kelly Bio Blog Index RSS 03.23.2007 Make Big $$$ By Selling Texas Your Baby (44 comments ) Texas state senator Dan Patrick has a bold new plan to reduce abortions. It involves legalizing the slave trade, and putting it in the hands of big government, but hear him out. Here's how it works: If you're a U.S. citizen, Texas resident, pregnant, and you want an abortion -- and you can prove you really want it -- you may be entitled to $500. All you have to do is carry the fetus to term and sell it to the state. It's kind of like those ads where Art Linkletter says you can get a tax break for donating your car. Which raises an interesting question: Isn't he dead? Anyway, five hundred dollars is (almost by definition) five hundred dollars. Which seems like pretty good money, compared to my shifts at Waffle House, and I'd make and sell fetuses to the State of Texas in a second... but there seems to be a lot of paperwork involved. And what about my older kids? What'll Dan give me for them? Dan Patrick (nee Dannie S. Goeb) is the author of S.B. 1567, a bill that was referred to the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Wednesday. It calls for the health department to "develop a program to encourage pregnant women to place their children for adoption rather than have an abortion... The program must include a $500 payment to each woman who is a resident of this state and a citizen of the United States who places a child for adoption rather than have an abortion." And who could object to that? Sure, it sounds like social engineering. But at least there's money involved, so it's also creepy as shit. And the stuff about proving you're not Mexican gives it a nice nativist edge, too. Here's the problem: How do you make sure the pregnant woman you're screwing with isn't just in it for the money? Goeb is way ahead of you: Sec. 50.002. APPLICATION FORM. (b) The department may only distribute the application forms to abortion providers. The only people who can get the money to have a baby are those who've proven -- by going to an abortion clinic -- that they don't want a baby. If you don't want to have a baby, you can get $500 to have a baby, but only if you don't want it. That's some catch, that Catch 22. Another way to think about it is like the popular game show Deal or No Deal. Only with human lives. Of course that's not what this is really about. The $500 offer is just more paperwork to make terminating a pregnancy as unpleasant as humanly possible. Because otherwise it would be such a lark. Texas law already says the doctor has to tell his patient: The risks of infection, hemorrhage and future infertility, the risk of breast cancer; that counseling is available, that adoption services are available, and that the father can be legally compelled to pay child support. Time he'd otherwise just waste asking about her symptoms. He also has to tell her that Jesus sees everything and cries easily. Yes, it sounds sort of onerous, but it's not as if privacy is a really important right. It's not like she's buying a gun. (I think the breast cancer link has been pretty thoroughly debunked, too, but what the hell. It's Senator Goeb, not Doctor Goeb.) (Although he did run for office warning that illegal aliens spread "tuberculosis, malaria, polio and leprosy.") (Malaria can only be spread of mosquitoes. So not only do we need to build a wall; we could also use some screen windows.) There will be some unintended consequences if the bill passes. There are about 77,000 abortions in Texas every year, and at $500 a pop, they'll run the taxpayers $40 million dollars to buy off. (A small price to pay, when you're doing the lord's work, by creating unwanted children.) Also, passing the law will require vacating another Texas law, the one about not buying and selling people. And, I guess, the emancipation proclamation. But that may turn out to have its upside and downside. That's for history to judge. Now, Dannie Goeb is obviously just a hateful street corner crank, and he'll get his in hell, but if the law passes, there's a way it can actually help people: If you want to have a baby, move to Texas. Pretend you want to abort it, get $500, put it up for adoption, and then adopt it back. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/make-big-by-selling-t_b_44111.html