Professor Wants $5,000 Baby Tax for Couples With Two or More Kids

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 9, 2007   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Professor Wants $5,000 Baby Tax for Couples With Two or More Kids Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 9,
2007

Perth, Australia (LifeNews.com) — A university professor has written an article in a medical journal suggesting that couples who have more than one baby should pay a $5,000 tax for supposedly hurting the environment. His comments follow on the heels of women in England saying they had abortions to protect the environment.

Associate Professor Barry Walters, a professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia, says the taxes would help offset the supposed problem of overpopulation.

Writing in today’s Medical Journal of Australia, Walters proposes the baby tax and says parents of every child born should also pay an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child. That would cover the supposed cost per year that people cause by harming the planet.
"Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society," he wrote.

Moreover, Professor Walters suggests that Australia’s government should scrap the tax rewards parents get for having a child and, instead, imposed a one-child only rule that China uses.

That coercive family planning policy has resulted in forced abortions and sterilizations as well as prison time and loss of jobs and homes for those who don’t comply. It has also led to a skewed male-female ratio that is causing a myriad of social concerns.

"Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behavior, a ‘baby levy’ in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle," Walters contends.

Even people on the pro-abortion side of the debate condemned Walters’ comments, with Australian Family Association spokeswoman Angela Conway telling The Advertiser newspaper that babies don’t cause global warming.

"I think self-important professors with silly ideas should have to pay carbon tax for all the hot air they create," she said. "There’s masses of evidence to say that child-rich families have much lower resource consumption per head than other styles of households."