Not so well, or fair

Here's one for all those fet-o-philes  who love those ''preborn children'' for 9 months and then, on the 10th month, discover they have to contribute to their care and feeding, schooling and housing.

Growing up poor isn't merely hard on kids. It might also be bad for their brains. A long-term study of cognitive development in lower- and middle-class students found strong links between childhood poverty, physiological stress and adult memory.

The findings support a neurobiological hypothesis for why impoverished children consistently fare worse than their middle-class counterparts in school, and eventually in life.

"Chronically elevated physiological stress is a plausible model for how poverty could get into the brain and eventually interfere with achievement," wrote Cornell University child-development researchers Gary Evans and Michelle Schamberg in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Now obviously, not all unwanted pregnancies happen to the poor but you can bet many of them do. And, because these women have limited access to contraception because of the cost -- in some areas of urban America, druggists lock up condoms -- or because they are in locations where there's no easy availability to abortion, such as PEI or New Brunswick, well, it's hardly surprising that more kids are born in impoverished homes.

Of course, the fet-o-philes will be wagging their fingers and saying these people shouldn't be having sex then.

Well, maybe they shouldn't but they do and so, as a society, we need to care for all our children.

Otherwise, they could grow up into far more expensive people we need to care for.

Comments

[deBeauxOs]

Strangely enough, the majority of socon foetishists are often the ones shriekingly opposed to providing more care, support and services to First Nations and Aboriginal newborns, infants and children. And when they are available, the attitudes of many providers are shamefully racist.

Check out this recent study: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2009/30/c5382.html

[SUZANNE]

So the solution is to kill poor fetuses instead of helping the poor children.

Because you can put a price on life.

[Antonia]

Oh, thanks for the reminder dBO. meant to blog that earlier this week.

[deBeauxOs]

The solution that the majority of socon foetishists seem violently opposed to supporting - in spite of the pious platitudes they blather - is to ensure that all children who are born are guaranteed quality of life.

Just check out the bloggers who spew the most racist, vile, ignorant and cruel opinions about Aboriginal and other brown-skinned people; observe that they are also opposed to contraception and reproductive choices for women of European ancestry as they shrieeek about the demographic profiles of which populations enjoy increases in birth rates.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

de Frumoase,

"to ensure that all children who are born are guaranteed quality of life"

you can't do that by government fiat - most of the 20th century was spent proving that the hard way.

[neko]

I can put a price on life! My life has worth. Lots and lots of worth. Subsequently, I don't feel that I should have to pay for someone else's life when the money that I work hard to earn can pay for mine.

I think that everyone should feel that their own lives have worth. Perhaps then we won't feel the need to sacrifice our lives to the supposed needs of invisible powers in the sky that tell us what to do through a communication system based on someone else's interpretation of a two thousand (give or take) year old book.

I'm all for contributing my share to communal services that we will all make use of (Health Care, Transit, Water and Power grids, etc), but that's where it ends for me. My life is mine to do with as I please because it is a worthy life and it is MINE. It doesn't belong to the Government, to invisible powers, or to unwanted clumps of cells growing inside of me.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"unwanted clumps of cells growing inside of me."

neko-san,

you mean the Alien movies?