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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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why the hell do we subsidize incompetent mothers one penny

Subsidize is doing a bit of work, here; as far as child support goes, it's a choice of how we split what's currently the man's contribution. Regardless of anyone's level of sympathy for irresponsible mothers, there's no reason that they should get less sympathy than irresponsible fathers. And even if we did want to subsidize irresponsible fathers compared to the status quo, allowing financial abortions would unleash a dynamic that results in substantially greater financial subsidization of children by taxpayers.

And hypothetically, at least, all this money is going to the upkeep of the child. If the money not actually ending up benefitting the child is the concern, you'd get a lot more buy in (from me, at least) with ideas on how to make sure a greater proportion of child support goes to benefit the intended beneficiary.

Regardless of anyone's level of sympathy for irresponsible mothers, there's no reason that they should get less sympathy than irresponsible fathers.

We generally grant less sympathy to those with more power over the situation. We've decided to grant women more power than men over the decision to become parents (via abortion), so it stands to reason they should get less sympathy than men if they are irresponsible.