Who profits from overturning Roe v. Wade? | Opinion

The Supreme Court's decision last month to overturn Roe V. Wade, the landmark 1973 that guaranteed the right to abortion, poses three problems:

• First, the Court has opened the door to the reversal of any right because the precedent has been set.

• Second, there is zero infrastructure laid out to support the severe increase in the number of births.

• Third, there is the problem is the greed behind this decision. The root of just about everything is money and who profits from overturning Roe v. Wade?

Has anyone noticed that everyone who has argued in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade has ignored the horrendous child support system in this country? The amounts of child support set by the courts vary from state to state and often are set too low. Child support is very difficult to collect because state laws contain loopholes.

One solution is to create child support laws with realistic dollar amounts in line with the cost of raising a child and enforce the laws without exceptions nor extensions. That means the non-custodial parent cannot miss a payment and leave the custodial parent who already contribute 35% to 65% more than the non-custodial parents in a lurch.

Our broken system

Our nation has a serious lack of healthcare and childcare and now the pro-lifers are claiming we can fix it for mothers and their children. Did it not occur to any of these advocates to correct the broken system all along?

In addition, we have a broken foster care system, a disparate impact of different state laws on child abuse and the practice of rehoming. In 2013, a Reuters investigation exposed the practice of rehoming that occurs when an adoptive parent does not like the adopted child, and simply lists the child on Craigslist or the Child Exchange and voilà, the child is rehomed with strangers.

While there are sincerely loving foster parents who do an amazing job, there are those who do not and those who abuse their foster children. Any number of abused children in foster care is too high and there are not enough trained childcare workers and social workers to oversee such a massive system.

So, the next argument is to bring back adoption agencies and orphanages or group homes. Our tax dollars will go to experienced childcare handlers like the ones on the U.S./Mexican border: BCFS, a global organization of nonprofits, which received over $179 million in federal contracts; General Dynamics, the global aerospace and defense company; and MVM Inc., which until 2008 contracted with the U.S. government to supply guards in Iraq. Right now, the U.S. is spending $60 million dollars per week on these children and now add the unwanted children to that list.

Another point of concern is the influence of dominionistic funders, such as Betsy DeVos and her family, who are large donors to Bethany Christion Services. In 2019, their profits went from $36.2 million to $40.7 and run over 100 pregnancy centers and placed children ripped from their parents on the Mexican border with “temporary foster homes.” DeVos and her family support the Alliance Defending Freedom organization, which is a lobbying group that represented the infamous Colorado Baker, an anti-LGBT case. What will this ruling mean for LGBT parents who want to adopt?

Wealthy women will still have access abortions, just as they were able to acquire birth control after the Comstock Act of 1873 banned until that legislation was overturned in 1936. Birth control was available to married women, but it was considered “unacceptable” until the 1960s, when Griswold v. Connecticut invoked the Constitution’s implied right to privacy. There have already been attempts to ban birth control as a form of abortion.

Beyond childhood

Consider the long-term impacts of this ruling and the coming surge in births and the planned burden on the criminal justice system. Mass incarceration is an epidemic in the U.S. who is less than 5% of the world’s population yet holds 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. Prisons are privatized, and trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Prisons need to be profitable for their shareholders and need prisoners. Similarly, there is already evidence of the privatization of adoption agencies and future orphanages — all in place. There have been numerous studies on the rise of this sector. In one study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Stanford University economist John Donohue and University of Chicago economist Steve Levitt found that from 1973 to 2019 legalized abortion was estimated to have dropped violent crime by 47% and property crime by 33%. As horrible as it sounds in a callous system, more anticipated prisoners are the result of overturning Roe v. Wade and this alarm has been ringing for years.

No woman wakes up and says to themselves, “it is the perfect day for an abortion.”

Women need to control their bodies and make informed decisions on what is best for them at that time. Many women are forced into desperate situations and, as a country, we cannot help them, as many naively believe. We cannot even keep children safe in learning environments from gunfire, mass shooters and stray bullets. This is just the tip of the iceberg of rights being reversed.

Gerri Budd and Donnalynn Scillieri, both academics,  lead Peace in Action LLC, a Nutley-based education company they founded that is dedicated to providing training in diversity, inclusion and equality.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Who profits from overturning Roe v. Wade?