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In a Catholic newsletter, The Catholic Register, I came across a letter to the editer that claimed that President Bush is not Pro-Life because he supports a specific sort of welfare cap. I can't remember the exact name of it, and I can't seem to find the paper now, but basically it means that after a certain point you stop getting more money for more children. The lady who sent the letter in said that this was supporting abortion because it will make poor people get abortions instead of keeping the children.

This confuses me, and kinda bothers me. For one thing, it infers that supporting some only vaguely related thing could change you from Pro-Life to Pro-Choice. Like maybe if I supported higher taxes, that would be supporting abortion because more women wouldn't be able to afford a child.

But mainly it bothered me because I agree with the welfare cap. I have been told stories by trusted friends of people on welfare who have more kids because then they get more money, and basically they don't take care of the kids and use the money for themselves. Having a welfare cap would prevent these sorts of things, at least at the magnitude that my friend said it was happening.

Also, perhaps having a welfare cap would get more poor people to have safer sex, or to have less sex. I have nothing against poor people, but seriously, if you are poor should you really be having that many children?

In Nova Scotia you only get more money for the first 3 children, so lots of people do have more and more children in order to get more money. Not having a cap seems kind of silly and in other ways I can see what the fuss is over.

You see people that only have a little bit of money aren't as apt to be able to go out and buy birth control or condoms. Although if that can't afford at least condoms they really shouldn't be having sex. Welfare doesn't give you a whole lot of money, it's meant to pay your rent, heating, electricity, water, food etc. Add clothing, a phone line, school supplies, medical bills (in America, here we have medicare) or any of the extras that you need, it gets really hard to add in protection.

Now this doesn't mean I don't agree with the cap, it just means I can see where they're coming from. Also, welfare isn't SUPPOSED to be a lifestyle or long term solution, it's supposed to be something you go on when you need money but can't find a job right away. People are taking extreme advantage of the fact that it's here, and it's screwing over the people who truely need it.

Unless you're having babies specifically to get money, whether there's a cap on welfare or not isn't going to change whether or not you're going to have the child.

I've actually had people tell me I'm not pro-life because I think so long as abortion is legal the father should have the ability to walk away from the mother and child scott free. They said "well that would just lead to a rise in abortion!" and proceeded to refer to me as "Bush." At which point I explained to them that I didn't see why the only way I could be against people taking away their children's fundimental rights, was if I supported taking away the father's rights.

Welfare is abused. The concept is good, like, my friend's mom was in an abusive marriage. At the ripe age of 4, my friend had to testify against her father to keep him from having custody. The legal fees left her mom broke but with two kids to support. She used the welfare money to go to train to be a nurse, and then went off of it as soon as she could get a job as a nurse.

The system needs better regulation. She's always bitter when people use it just to get money. Just like my mom gets ticked when people borrow cars from their grandparents in order to use the handicap plates to park in a handicap spot.

That being said, there are other reasons I think Bush isn't prolife, but a welfare cap isn't one of them.

This bothers me on a number of levels. I'll try to draw them all out in a quasi-sensical fashion.

The first notion is that this necesarily sets up a lose-lose situation. I can't quite see it that way, to be completely honest. Like I.Am, I've heard of women planning pregnancies they can't afford in order to boost their welfare payments. If a woman knows that a cap exists - and most people who plan to exploit a system know the rules of that system - she would be less inclined to get pregnant for the sake of money.

Unfortunately, this does little for those who see abortion as a mere extension of birth control. Should a woman now encounter an unplanned pregnancy as the result of sex, she now has less incentive to keep the baby.

The real flaw here is in the suggestion that this policy is in direct conflict with the pro-life cause. Ultimately, responsibility currently falls upon the individual; Bush would certainly prefer that the child be raised as well as possible, but the law doesn't allow him to make that decision.

There are many valid criticisms of Bush's pro-life stance. But this isn't one of them.