If you would like, we could come up with a mathematical formula to estimate the number of unwanted pregnancies from incest or rape. The problem with doing that is that there are both unreported cases of both and false accusations of both which would make it more difficult to find an accurate answer. I did google some rape statistics and found this:

About half of all rape victims are in the lowest third of income distribution; half are in the upper two-thirds.

About 81% of rape victims are white; 18% are black; 1% are of other races.

The adult pregnancy rate associated with rape is estimated to be 4.7%.

Let’s assume these statistics are fairly accurate. Based on these assumptions, 1/2 of the rape victims are wealthy, 80% are white and only 5% lead to a pregnancy. Still want to make this a wealth/class issue? Still want to subsidize abortions when most of the people getting them are upper class white women that were not raped? Kind of derails your argument.

http://www.paralumun.com/issuesrapestats.htm

I want reproductive health to be a part of any health plan. And if by calling it “reproductive health” you are attempting to whitewash what we are really talking about (Aborting a fetus/baby) you are missing your mark. Let’s call a spade a spade and leave it as abortion. Reproductive health would be more directed at protecting both the health of the mother and the child during the pregnancy.

And you are not addressing the main crux of my point (This does not surprise me). It is far cheaper to work towards prevention then it is to pay for abortion. I would hand out free condoms all day long before I would subsidize an abortion. The waiting list to adopt a child in the United States is obscene. We have other more humane and effective ways to address this problem (unwanted teen pregnancy).

Also, you may want to update your definition of wealth. I am by no means wealthy in my early thirties. And even if I was wealthy, that does not take away from the validity of my arguments anymore then you being poor takes away from yours. If you feel you have some kind of moral authority to speak on the issue because of your socioeconomic status you would be incorrect.

It is life experience and education that lead me to form my opinion (you simply must try this at some point in time, I promise it will be worth the wait). Your life experiences are obviously different from mine leading you to have a different opinion, which is perfectly fine, neither gives any more credibility to either of our stances.

Yes, you finally got me. I am so ashamed. My father, the laborer, helped me to get a 1979 Volkswagen Scirocco for roughly 5k. Not all of us start out with zero help right from the womb as I am sure you no doubt did. I am sure you started working your doubles, for the neighborhood of course, at the age of 6 with zero help from anyone for your entire life. How silly of me. If you are going to hold my that against me so be it. I don’t need to apologize for my father helping me with my first car when I just turned 16 so I could drive to school and drive to work.

Anger is the only recourse when you no longer have the mental capability to debate topics in a sane manner. Not everyone has agreed with the way I see things either economically or socially, which is fine by me. Opinions are like a$$holes, everybody has one. You would certainly be the first who has been almost immediately reduced to name calling and ridiculous threats within the first 2 posts which speaks volumes to your abilities.

I do not have any anger towards you. I believe you are wrong, arrogant and naive but that is my right. I wish you no ill will and hope you have a happy thanksgiving. You have a lot to be thankful for just living in this great country.

excellent now you are making headway

so how is it that you decide that certain procedures are “elective” “preventable” and that people have failed to take “the proper precautions,” especially now that we’ve established that you do not know these people do not live near them or speak to them? do you get to decide because you are wealthy?

how is it that you could without knowing the specifics SURMISE that most of these people are willful mistake makers? and then use that assumption to prevent reproductive health from being part of US health insurance coverage for the poor? is your supposition worth more because you have wealth?

is it some experience of the hard facts that motivates you to hold this position? or is it your own self-image that really motivates you? perhaps that’s where you should be thinking critically. for example, you had credit to get your college loan because you made your car payments on time. good Michael!

WHO COSIGNED YOUR FUCKING CAR LOAN, YOU HYPOCRITE?

at some point you are ignoring a level of factual suffering and honest-to-god evidence that the only recourse is anger. if nobody else has told you that you have the economic policy and social responsibility of a weasel, let me be the first

And no, my parents did not cosign for the loan. I had a decent credit score going into college because I had a car payment and a credit card with a good payment history. I also started college later then usual, this helped as well. I used ACS for the refinance.

Where you and diverge is on the definition of “help”. I don’t “help” my employer by coming into to work everyday. I am here to make money and they are here to benefit from the skills I bring with me. When lenders lend money, they are not doing it out of the goodness of their heart, they are doing it because they have excess cash reserves to which their loans should return. They are doing it to make money and keeping their best interests in mind.

It matters not to me whether you think I am making the facts up surrounding my situation. Lying to an anonymous person online is like lying to a dead man so to speak.

I wasn’t saying use only those borrowing sites, the point you are missing is that there are funds available assuming you have good credit. Good credit being the operative word as most people will not lend money to people with poor credit scores and I don’t blame them. If you have bad credit, then I agree, you are shit out of luck sir and may want to consider community college as opposed to the more expensive institutions.

To your question of what kid has a credit score of 640 or higher, I would say one that has a loan history and pays his bills on time. You dont have a lot of time to build a credit history so it is of the utmost importance that you pay what bills you do have on time.

I am actually a registered independent but I do lean more towards the libertarian side, Kudos to you for picking up on that one.

I never said I was a lion or better then anyone else. You and I just dissagree on this particular topic, the role of government and standards of personal accountability (humanism to you). You know as much of my intelligence as I do of yours sir.

I do not feel I have the same responsibilty to the broke teenage girl who got pregnant on her own volition as you feel you do. I look at is a personal choice that has repercussions. Rape and incest are separate issues that complicate anyone taking a black or white position on this matter. I am referring the general trend of ending pregnancies because they are inconvenient. We should do more for our veterans and elderly, this we agree on. If you have ever been to a VA hospital you would understand why I don’t want a government take over of our healthcare system. We also agree that education is paramount to the success of this nation. But that is not what this debate was about, we can discuss that separately if you wish.

No one is blaming the poor, this wasn’t about wealth. This was about the tax payer being on the hook for elective procedures. The majority of which could be preventable if people took the proper precautions. Rape and incest are a different story but it is also very difficult to produce legitimate statistics on the number of occurences vs. the total number of abortions. I surmise it would be very low but that is my guess (It is a guess).

Anger also has nothing to do with it. Emotions rarily produce applicable arguements. I try my best to leave the emotion out of debates and use rationale. I am not angry at you, we dissagree, I leave it at that. You and I see the world differently, I just don’t resort to name calling and idle threats. Also, I take back my comments about you working at the car wash. I don’t know you, what you do or how hard you work. For those comments/implications, I apologize.

Hope you have a happy thanksgiving.

and are you sure your parents didn’t cosign your loan? Are you sure the government didn’t step in and help fund your education? Discover requires a credit check, like every loan company I’ve ever seen, and ACS only services loans after federal loan maximums are met

there is more or less no way that an 18 year old without a full ride pays his own way through a 4-year BA after 1985. you get help from your parents or you get it from the government, either way somebody else helped you out

i basically think you like to make crap up to make yourself feel better and it’s the feeling better that you care about rather than the crap you make up

both the person-to-person loan services you point out give max 3 year loans now how is that a way to do anything but drop out of school junior year they basically admit that it’s a program designed for trucking school

and what kind of kid has a minimum credit score of 640 lendingclub.com requires 660

the vibe i get from you is that you drank the libertarian kool-aid and you think you’re some kind of lion of commerce, Ayn Rand style

but you’re not a lion you’re not better you’re not special you’re not even that smart you’re just another member of society you feed off your fellow citizens and you have responsibilities to them

responsibilities to the broke teenage girl who’s two months pregnant, responsibilities to the homeless, to veterans, to the elderly, to the education of the next generation

you keep talking about me as if i’m asking you for something specifically i don’t need anything from you i work my job i make my money i support my parents i pay my taxes

pawning your responsibility to your community off on the free market and then blaming the poor when they don’t all become rich is real cowardice

telling a fourteen-year old bleeding from the crotch to jump on the bus is ignorant and cowardly

do you get it

i’m not angry at you because i’m poor i’m not even that poor if i got a big fat windfall and went off to yale i would feel how i do now

i’m angry at you because you are a bad person

No, not everyone gets a fair shake. Just by being born in this country your are already ahead of 90% of the rest of the world. People forget that which is where some of the entitlement comes from in my opinion. You cannot control the cards you are dealt but you can control how you play them. Some people will invariably have better cards then another. What are you doing with your cards?

If you choose to believe my life is posh due to my zip code, that is your choice, I just feel bad that someone can go through life with this many misconceptions about how other people live. I believe this initially was a debate about abortion no?

Also, my jib is quite impressive, that always helps.

you are telling me that you got a college loan with no collateral whatsoever

poppa didn’t sign anything

this is your statement before god and your country, that you walked into a finaid office/bank and because they decided you were a ‘viable prospect’ because they liked the cut of your jib you got a loan for all your non-scholarship costs

that’s your thing that’s your story

what bank was it because damn i want to make some calls

also bonus points for explaining securitization to me as if it didn’t just bankrupt the housing industry. it’s a magical financial tool that eliminates risk! everybody’s using it! the banks get paid RIGHT AWAY!

but don’t stop (organ music) believing that everybody gets a fair shake and in the superiority of the rich over the poor man just keep seeing a country full of lazy good-for-nothings every time you leave the upper east side

and by no means should you even notice the many links i left you there is nobody behind the curtain you are not inventing a set of beliefs that are morally convenient for you and your excessively posh lifestyle

Yes, my father was able to save so so much working as a day laborer… Again, I am continually astounded by not only your arrogance but your lack of common sense. I went to college on a scholarship and took out loans for the remaining amounts that I could not cover through my income. My parents were unable to lend a helping hand with my college tuition. So, private lenders, seeking to make a better return on their cash reserves, lend money to viable prospects with a high liklihood of being able to repay the loan. They, the private lenders, then package all of these loans and sell them as a pool (see securitization) and are paid back immediately. You might want to consider adding a finance or economic class to your workload if you still go to school. I think it will help your understanding of how this works immensely.

I could really care less at this point what you do and do not believe. You continue to think the world owes it to you while working doubles at the car wash for the neighborhood. I will continue to believe it is there for the taking for anyone who puts in the time, hard work and has the right attitude.

i am sure you will parlay that statement into me calling the troops lazy or spitting in a veteran’s face. Good luck in your future endeavors.

when I say momma and pawpaw put up some of their nicey nicey goods to guarantee your college loan, you say I’m ‘making assumptions’ but I’ve been there. no collateral no loan, unless it’s from the government (which is why I care about RTV and you find it unnecessary and odious). go ahead let’s hear you tell the truth I’ll believe you if you say you did it on your own all you have to do is say it

but if you’d like to fall silent that’s okay too. stay in your office. stop thinking. There are 3 million of you in this country and 150 million of me