NAAM Day 7: Lower Teen Birth Rates Harm Missouri's Economy

Yes, you heard that right folks. Teen births are a good thing. The more we have, the better off we’ll be. At least according to Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. Bailey and the AGs of Kansas and Idaho have filed suit to force the FDA to reinstate restrictions on mifepristone, one of the two medications used to induce medication (chemical) abortions. Their suit is an amended re-file of the earlier attempt by a group of anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations to restrict access to the medication. That suit was tossed by the US Supreme Court when it ruled that the litigants lacked standing. Attorneys General, our new boys on the block claim they do have standing

But, Great Caesar’s Ghost! If they would just be honest and admit that this is about their personal and political abhorrence for abortion, this would be “normal” yet disturbing and even dangerous news. But no. They had to muck around and carry it a step further arguing that low teen pregnancy and birthrates economically harm their states:

In making the case that the states have standing this time, the attorneys general contend access to mifepristone has lowered “birth rates for teenaged mothers,” arguing it contributes to causing a population loss for the states along with “diminishment of political representation and loss of federal funds.”

Last year Bailey got taken to the woodshed for this kind of BS by Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem, when the AG refused to sign off on the fiscal note attached to an abortion rights initiative unless it included HIS estimate that the measure would cost the state $6.9 trillion! For FY 2024, the US government spent $6.75 trillion. How did this addle-brain get elected?

This reminds me of the time that George W Bush, then Governor of Texas, argued against adoptee OBC access because it would force Texas women to go to sealed record states to give birth in secret; thus, lowering the Texas tax base!

The AGs also go full patriarchal pearl-clutch over the autonomy of their states’ women–especially young women– to make their own medical decisions without the helping hand of the state. (Must have forgotten Ronald Reagan’s dictum: “Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.) They declare that they want to “protect women’s health” by requiring 3 in-person doctor visits, reducing the gestational period from 10 to 7 weeks, and abolishing the mail-order sale of mifepristone.

From the filing:

“Younger women are more likely to navigate online abortion finders or websites ordering mail-order medication to self-manage abortions,”…

…“Reflecting the ease of driving to another state to receive abortion drugs, it is estimated that just 2.4%of abortion-minded women were prevented from getting abortions in Missouri after Dobbs”…

Bailey is really whacked-out about medicated abortions bankrupting the state’s public hospitals. Using the same math skills as he used to come up with the $6.1 trillion abortion initiative loss, Bailey takes a walk on the wild side over what he considers the cost of the I suppose what he considers botched medicated abortions to hospitals and the state.

Real Stats:

Nationwide, in the 28 years, since the FDA approved mifepristone, only 32 deaths have been attributed to it.

In Missouri between April 2018 and August 2023, 438 abortion complications were reported to the state including 185 from medication abortions.

Now, to Bailey’s bad acid trip:

Nearly 400,000 women of reproductive age are eligible to be enrolled in Missouri Medicaid but only 13% of them are enrolled in it. That’s about 52,000. Apparently, Bailey worries his pretty little head off that all of them are going to fuck their brains out, get medication abortions, and stiff hospitals for what the state doesn’t pay–and BOOM! Hospitals are gonna close.

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For as long as I can remember and way before that, teen sex, pregnancy, and birth have been discouraged by nearly everybody: parents, schools, religions of all faiths, conservatives, liberals, and governments. More than discouraged: stigmatized, vilified, and shamed. Girls, especially white and middle class– were “sent away” or shot-gunned into an early marriage. That’s how 6,000,000 of us ended up adopted. and our records sealed.

While the social stigma has drastically decreased it is still present–but often unspoken or sometimes very spoken (Twitter incels give “unauthorized” sex and birth a field day). It is always amusing when politicians (usually) and evangelicals (especially) denounce pre-marital sex, and complain about welfare, but oppose contraception and abortion and congratulate women for “choosing life” even when they (the celebrants) would rather eat kitty litter than do anything to help them materially. To assist them in the role of “good mother,” though, they will gently guide them to the adoption mill “for their own good.” The state then won’t have to dole money to them while adopters will get a hefty tax credit. It’s SO confusing and confounding.

But we have a new brand of politician who in a whole new way, exploits teen pregnancy and birth, while sorta skipping over, but not quite, their abhorrence for abortion for the most insidious of reasons: the amount of dollars teen mothers putatively generate for the state. Private industry isn’t mentioned, but I am sure adoption agencies, lawyers, CPCs, and related hangers-on are included in the pay ledger. The Scarlet A has been replaced with the Scarlet $.

Honestly, this is all new to me, and I don’t know what to say other than STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. It’s bad enough that adopted people have a price stamped on their foreheads, now their mothers do too. Has capitalism gone this loopy? (You don’t have to answer.)

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Earlier this week, Missouri voters overturned the near-total state abortion ban by about 4 points. For now, abortion seems safe in the state, at least from Bailey’s clutches, but for how long? All these goobers wanted to throw abortion back to the states. When that happened and they didn’t get the results they wanted, they cried foul, and now demand a federal ban. I have to admit though, that it’s been fun watching radical no-exceptions anti-aborts demonize Trump for waffling publically on the issue, and then rush to the polls and post later than they voted for the liar-in-chief after all, admitting that they hope he was lying to them. Who in the hell hopes their president is lying to them?