The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.  

News of the Tautological
“Sheriff’s Depart. Handles Cases”–headline, Picayune (Miss.) Item, March 13

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • “Cheese Rolling Event Cancelled”–headline, Daily Telegraph (London), March 12
  • “Survey: Readers Don’t Want to Pay for News Online”–headline, Associated Press, March 15

ObamaCare and Eugenics
National Review’s Bob Costa catches up with Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who, although not opposed to ObamaCare, has said he and a dozen or so like-minded colleagues will vote “no” if it includes subsidies for abortion:

Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”

What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue–come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

Stupak frames his argument too narrowly. Forget about “life” for a while–the Democratic leaders’ position ought to be equally shocking to those on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate.

What Stupak is hearing from his colleagues is not the pro-choice argument that the government should permit abortion as a matter of individual liberty. Rather, they claim that the government should encourage abortion as a social expedient–a cost-cutting measure.

The first thing one must say about this position is that when stated categorically, it is nonsense. Sure, babies are expensive. But from society’s standpoint, that expense is a necessary investment–the only way to produce the next generation of productive adults. A society in which babies are a net long-term cost–in which the average person consumes more over his lifetime than he produces–is unsustainable. A policy aimed at reducing the number of babies born would be economically ruinous, because within a few decades it would result in a shortage of workers and taxpayers.

But as a matter of cold cost-benefit analysis, not all babies are equal. Some are costlier than others, and not all grow into productive adults. In particular, certain disabilities and diseases are very expensive to treat and limit productive adulthood by causing either early death or lifelong dependency.

In order to be effective, a policy of using abortion as a cost-cutting measure would have to aim at preventing the birth of babies with such pre-existing conditions. The goal would be not a reduction in the number of babies, but an “improvement” in the “quality” (narrowly defined in economic terms) of the babies who are born. This is known as eugenics.

Getting government into the eugenics business would have disturbing implications for reproductive liberty. What would happen to a woman who received, say, a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome? She would be free (as she is today) to exercise her right to have an abortion. But would she be free to exercise her right not to have an abortion?

Presumably the government could not directly force her to abort, as this would provoke political outrage and run afoul of Roe v. Wade and subsequent rulings. But one can easily imagine softer forms of coercion coming into play. A government-run insurance plan, for instance, could deny or limit coverage for the treatment of certain conditions if diagnosed before fetal viability, on the ground that the taxpayer should not be forced to pay the costs of the woman’s choice to carry her child to term. Perhaps the courts would find this an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to choose, but that does not strike us as an open-and-shut case.

Pro-choice advocates have argued that even persuasive measures aimed at curtailing abortion are objectionable, although the Supreme Court has disagreed. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court by a 7-2 vote upheld a Pennsylvania law mandating “that counselors provide women seeking abortions with information concerning alternatives to abortion, the availability of medical assistance benefits, and the possibility of child support payments.”

It’s not hard to imagine the federal government’s establishing counseling protocols designed to encourage abortion in certain situations–for example, informing a woman after a Down syndrome diagnosis of the burdens (but not the joys) of rearing a child with that condition. This seems no less an infringement of reproductive liberty than the Pennsylvania law to which the pro-choice side objects.

For Bart Stupak, who believes abortion is a form of homicide, opposing abortion subsidies is an easy choice. But those who are pro-choice–as opposed to pro-abortion–should object as strongly to government policies designed to encourage abortion as to those intended to discourage it. “Keep your cost-cutting measures off my body!” may not become the new pro-choice rallying cry, but it should.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.