Regina Gandolfo
Lambertville
Well, it’s time for Gov. Chris Christy to wrestle that nasty, voracious public welfare beast to the ground.
With crumbling local and state economies in New Jersey, we should be seeing cuts to the social safety net by reducing Medicaid reimbursements to providers for maternity and postpartum care — similar to what Pennsylvania is undertaking.
What sets me off is that anyone on the public dole is receiving maternity benefits at all.
Where is it written that those on the dole have a right to bring more mouths into the system? Why should taxpayers be obligated, at any level, to subsidize a woman’s fertility in the absence of that woman’s ability to support that new life?
All I can say (which most likely will incite the religious, Right Wing pro-lifers to riot) is that if a woman is without means and destitute enough to qualify for welfare, she should not be permitted to deliver a child. A woman who is provided medical benefits should be required, as a condition of that support, to participate in a reliable method of birth control, and any pregnancy conceived while on welfare should be terminated.
I know this is not a popular position, but I don’t see where having children you can’t support is a birthright. And the state could save a substantial amount of money if costs now spent on maternity and postpartum care would instead be spent on birth control, which itself also reduces welfare costs by reducing head counts.
If you want a child, get the means (by marriage, work or something other than public funding). And to those religious Right Wing/pro-lifers who insist that a woman be allowed to have a child, feel free to pay for it yourself. In other words, put up or shut up.