Ending abortion doesn’t have to mean more welfare. There’s a better way to help new moms

Texas remains embroiled in the aftermath of the Supreme Court sending abortion policy back to the states. It’s led to some interesting proposals that reveal a fundamental flaw that goes well beyond abortion: A lot of people think the government should solve their problems.

A recent Texas Tribune article suggests that Republicans have already let women and unborn babies down because they didn’t agree to expand Medicaid coverage to a full year after women give birth. In 2021, the Texas House approved a measure that would have lengthened that coverage from 2 to 12 months, but the Senate cut it to six months — more than it was but still less than a bevy of other states.

The Texas’ Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee recommends that moms need 12 months of comprehensive health care after pregnancy. But it’s obvious why some Republicans balked: How much is enough from the government? Whose job is it to care for the babies?

Texas ranks high among the states in pregnancy-related deaths, but according to the maternal mortality committee and a Department of State Health Services report from December 2020 that reviewed 54 pregnancy-related deaths, obesity and substance abuse contributed to almost half of those deaths.

A mom’s need for Medicaid is often a symptom of other problems, and those are the ones conservatives should address. One mom the article cited needed Medicaid only because she “couldn’t manage the cost of private insurance through the Affordable Care Act” and was living on $600 per month. Six more months of Medicaid is a short-sighted fix; a better job and insurance is a long-term salve for the real pain.

Similarly in The Atlantic, writer and Arlington native Elizabeth Bruenig suggested in a recent column that, if abortion is illegal, “pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care should all be free, and [we should] demand that the federal government make it so.”

Bruenig may as well have said: “So now that Republicans successfully ushered in a pro-life era so nearly one million more babies live, they must succumb to socialism to really make good on their values.”

Conservatives will never advocate for a full-throated expansion of Medicaid or universal healthcare to ensure that having (or raising) babies is free. That doesn’t make them hypocrites or jerks; they just don’t think the government should be the primary source of care, comfort, income or advocacy. They think people should be empowered and they’re happier, richer, and healthier if they make their own way.

Government programs such as Medicaid have a role, but the private sector should be allowed to step in. Promising startup programs are designed specifically for helping moms — if politicians do anything, they should make sure regulations don’t deter their progress. Likewise, childcare, flexible work hours, and livable wages are all factors that help new moms improve their living situations and areas where the private sector can do the most to change work culture.

Of course, there are plenty of conservatives, elected and unelected alike, who don’t live by the creed that limited government and personal responsibility are components for happiness, but the axioms are a distinguishing factor between the two.

Republicans and Democrats could argue about the specifics of Medicaid expansion for mothers all day long — two months, six months, 12 months — but the fundamental worldview differences will remain, as well they should. Not for nothing did Ronald Reagan say, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ ”

On a micro level, a visit to the local DMV will confirm your suspicions that even state government is a web of bureaucratic nonsense. Ditto the administrative arm of the U.S. Postal Service, (no offense to the hardworking folks delivering mail in this Texas heat).

These differences are obvious when it comes to nearly all major political issues: From handling COVID to easing college debt, Democrats want to throw money at everything. Personal responsibility and free-market incentives be damned. Isn’t it obvious that the more the government does, the more problems occur? Nationwide stimulus drove inflation, and Obamacare introduced an onslaught of issues into an already complicated healthcare marketplace.

As issues emerge in the new abortion environment, the approach to solve issues matters as much as the specifics. If conservatives are called on to help women who carry forth pregnancies because they advocated for an end to abortions, this doesn’t meant they must default to recklessly expanding government programs. Instead, they should use the government to incentivize the private sector to empower women.

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