by Jeff Fecke • Matt Drudge, in his job as ruler of the em-ess-em’s world, is pushing this statement by Nancy Pelosi as if it’s supposed to be embarrassing:
| Jeff Fecke is a freelance writer who lives in Eagan, Minnesota.In addition to his own blog, Blog of the Moderate Left, he also contributes to Alas, a Blog, Minnesota Campaign Report, and AlterNet. Fecke has appeared as a guest on the “Today” show, the Alan Colmes radio show, and the Mark Heaney Show. Fecke is divorced, and the father of one really terrific daughter. His debut novel, The Valkyrie’s Tale, is now available. |
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic “stimulus” package, claiming “contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”
Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, “Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom,” seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.
The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC’s THIS WEEK.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
This, of course, is one of the least controversial things Nancy Pelosi has ever said. Children cost money? You don’t say! And it’s cheaper for the government to give poor people who don’t want children birth control than for the government to give poor parents who don’t want their children aid to care for the kids they can’t afford? Shocking!
I particularly love the gratuitous shot at Pelosi for daring to have had a number of children and still believe that people should have the right to chart their own reproductive destinies. Because evidently, if you have more than 1.5 children, you’re not allowed to support other people in making the choice to, say, wait a few years to have a kid until they’re more stable. That’s unpossible!
Seriously, I know there are people out there who believe that birth control is tantamount to the Killing Fields, but for the rest of us, what Pelosi said is simply a basic level of sanity: helping people not have children when they don’t want to helps them financially. If you’re struggling, having a child can push you under completely. Children are wonderful, and I’m grateful to my daughter. But that doesn’t mean they’re cheap.
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