Abortion & ObamaCare

The invaluable James Taranto points out the chilling implications of the arguments being made by pro-choice Democrats about the abortion provisions of ObamaCare. He notes the reporting from NRO's Bob Costa about how some Democrats are praising the efficacy of abortion as a "cost-cutting measure."

Taranto explains that obviously, nations need new generations of citizens -- well, productive citizens, that is (who else is going to pay your social security someday?!). On the other hand, some little ones are born with conditions that are very expensive and/or incurable and/or difficult to treat (very "inefficient" to save and care for those babies in hard cash terms, don't you know!)

Taranto then proceeds to the ugly but ineluctable conclusion about what the Democrats' argument really means:

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.

He's right -- as is his argument about how such a cost-benefit analysis, if made by government-health-care-bureaucrats, could impact the reproductive rights of women who want to carry "imperfect" babies to term.

Perhaps this would be a good time for all the pro-choicers in the Democrat Party -- who have long claimed to support "reproductive rights" -- to clarify if those rights only matter so long as they're being exercised for the purposes of aborting the unborn, rather than saving them.