US News, PBS Media Host Bonnie Erbe Defends View More Abortions Needed
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 3, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — US News & World Report contributing editor and PBS television show host Bonne Erbe came under fire for her celebration of abortion increases in light of the sour economy. Now, the media wallah is defending her position after hearing news that the use of food stamps has risen.
The use of food stamps, according to Agriculture Department figures, rose in all but four states during January and three states saw usage rise more than five percent.
"I blogged earlier this week about the rise in birth control usage and abortion due to the recession," Erbe writes today. "These figures back up my assertion that the last thing young, unemployed, or already large families should be doing is creating more mouths to feed."
Erbe complained more abortions are needed because "foods banks nationwide are reporting shortages and it’s only going to get worse."
Earlier this week, Erbe celebrated the fact that women are turning to abortions who believe they can’t afford to have a baby.
"The recession is driving American demand for contraception and for abortions. The media have been riven this past week with stories about the rising number of couples and single mothers doing the math and deciding this is no time to bring a child into the world," Erbe writes.
"The media have also been rife with stories portraying this trend as something of a tragedy," she continues. "Let me propose a counter view: it is not."
Erbe focused on a heart-wrenching story of one mother in a recent Associated Press report who indicated she decided to have an abortion of a baby who would have been her fourth child because she and her boyfriend can’t afford to have the baby now that he lost his job.
"Can we agree that this unwed couple’s decision not to bring a fourth child into the world when they are having trouble feeding themselves and three children is no tragedy?"
She called the abortion "no tragedy: it’s a good decision."
Erbe complained that raising children "is expensive" to raise children and that the couple’s abortion decision "benefits society."
Those benefits? More time with the children who didn’t become victims of abortion and an assumption that the couple won’t have to rely on public support by having a fourth child.
Colleen Raezler, a research assistant at the Culture and Media Institute, takes issue with Erbe’s abortion promotion. She says Erbe is doing her readers and the public a disservice by not mentioning places that help women with the financial pressures that make them feel compelled to have an abortion.
"Erbe failed to mention the other resources, outside of government assistance, available to women who find themselves pregnant and in a precarious financial situation," she said.
"Crisis pregnancy centers across the nation can provide mothers assistance in the form of baby clothes, diapers and formula for their newborns," Raezler adds. "Adoption services are also available through a number of organizations such as Bethany Christian Services if a mother decides she cannot parent her child."
"But to note that would mean Erbe would have to acknowledge that conservatives do care about life, which she charged they don’t in a March 29, 1997, Washington Times column" Raezler explains.
"Caring for a child on an already stretched budget is difficult but it is not as impossible as Erbe makes it out to be. But that’s not really what’s at issue in Erbe’s post. The recession is simply one more way to promote her belief that abortion is nothing but a ‘choice,’" she concludes.
Email your complaints about her new pro-abortion comments to [email protected]
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