Your net worth is $1m. How much would you give to save the life of an unborn child?

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

littlebird:

What is the point of the experiment ?

I’m trying to work out the extent of commitment to the pro-life cause. So far the experiment is not going well!

As the other @xantippe pointed out $ alone are somewhat of a false God in the prolife world.

Do you really mean if someone had liquid assets of $1 million?

Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an institutional unit or sector minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities.

vs

A liquid asset is cash on hand or an asset that can be readily converted to cash. An asset that can readily be converted into cash is similar to cash itself because the asset can be sold with little impact on its value.

In my area, $1 mil of net worth could easily be a middle-aged couple, with 2-3 kids, 2 used cars, a somewhat modest house and filled with second-hand items. They aren’t going to be anywhere near wealthy, nevermind the opulence that $1million suggests.

Here’s an example. My husband and I craigslist endlessly. We have gotten so much free stuff, and so many things for pennies on the dollar. We’ve probably paid out between $1.5k and $2k over the past 5 or so years besides the gas. However, the equivalent replacement value of everything we purchased as deemed by insurance is just south of 100k. That’s not even if we replaced everything with new stuff. On some insurance adjuster’s computer, the value of my possessions in my house is north of $200k.

Net worth doesn’t care that I got my sofa set off the side of the road, repaired with tools bought for pennies, reupholstered myself with free material from Craig’s list using a free sewing machine (also craigslist). They care that I have a solid set of furniture in excellent repair that would cost $3-6k to replace. No one is going to buy a used sofa for $3-$6k no matter how good it looks. But that’s the difference between net worth and liquid asset.

And in all reality, it’s not about how much we have to give, but what we give and give regularly and mindfully.

 

[Xantippe]

To make the experiment simple and focussed.

So, you could give a home to a pregnant mother (or several at different times) and it wouldn’t count at all?

 

[Xantippe]

I’m trying to work out the extent of commitment to the pro-life cause. So far the experiment is not going well!

That’s weird, because I’ve seen people (including myself) talking about our charitable giving and ongoing support of young families.

I have no idea why that doesn’t count…

 

[littlebird]

Why is your experiment not going well ?
What were you hoping for ?

 

[FiveLinden]

Why is your experiment not going well ?
What were you hoping for ?

An excellent question! I think 1) Abortion raises emotions. Emotional responses reduce analytical thinking. 2) People are not used to focussing on hypothetical questions 3) The fact that people can’t immediately say Yes! causes anxiety about their commitment to the cause.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

1. Abortion raises emotions. Emotional responses reduce analytical thinking.

Sure

1. People are not used to focussing on hypothetical questions

I quite think they are. Myself, and most of my friends grew up discussing the hypothetical of winning the grand prize on the cereal box every morning.

1. The fact that people can’t immediately say Yes! causes anxiety about their commitment to the cause.

You still haven’t clarified that you understand the difference between net worth and liquid asset. Just because I want my children to have a roof over their heads, safe transit and not have to worry about providing for me in my old age doesn’t make me less committed to pro-life causes or even a singular child.

Like I explained above I have a living room set that is valued around $5k by insurance. It is valued that way because that is what it would cost them to replace it with a set of similar condition and style–either new or getting someone to do the work I did on an old piece of furniture. I would be hard-pressed to get $100 for it on Craigs’ list. However, because it would cost that much to replace my “net worth” includes that furniture. Are you trying to see if I would sell my couch for $100 to save the life of a child? Because in bits and pieces that sort of thing makes up a majority of my (about quarter mil) net worth. “Estate sale” on that would be lucky to fetch a few thousand without the right buyers…maybe upwards of 50k if we had someone pay the prices for the tools that are equivalent to what the used tool store sells them for.

What I own and acquire is for the sole purpose of ensuring that my children live a safe and healthy life. It would not be pro-life at all to deprive them of something essential (safe home, food, clean water, clothing, basic toys) because I wanted to save the life of someone else. God gave me my children in a HCOL area. This means that the basics are going to be expensive. That’s just the way it is. I could afford the living conditions I have. Should my husband and I have left the rug that was causing me to have asthma attacks and given the fraction of the cost we used to DIY it to pro-life causes?

Your hypothetical doesn’t make any sense to those of us who are living in reality. In an HCOL area, $1m in net worth could easily be a modest, paid off home of a middle-aged couple with 3-5 pre-teen/teens and their belongings, a couple of cars and retirement plan living a safe but very, very, very plain lifestyle. They could easily have zero to near zero liquid assets. IE no saving for fancy vacations or high-school sponsored sports trips, etc.

 

[Xantippe]

1. The fact that people can’t immediately say Yes! causes anxiety about their commitment to the cause.

No, it indicates that people are giving honest, thought-out responses, rather than giving cheap, easy answers that don’t reflect how they actually live their lives.

 

[Xantippe]

Myself, and most of my friends grew up discussing the hypothetical of winning the grand prize on the cereal box every morning.

Exactly.

In fact, this is a bit morbid, but I actually have it figured out how I ought to spend the million dollars of insurance on my husband in the event of his untimely death, as well as how he ought to spend the smaller amount on me, in the event of my untimely death.

The first one is: bury husband, pay off home mortgage, get kids through school, get kids through college, cover a couple years of living expenses, get me retrained and making some money (I’m a SAHM and haven’t had a full-time job since 9/11). That’s it–BOOM! a million dollars spent. The second one is: bury me, pay off home mortgage, cover extra household expenses for a year. Again, BOOM! $200k spent.

Life is expensive. And I didn’t even consider weddings or other young adult start-up expenses…

 

[Xantippe]

You still haven’t clarified that you understand the difference between net worth and liquid asset . Just because I want my children to have a roof over their heads, safe transit and not have to worry about providing for me in my old age doesn’t make me less committed to pro-life causes or even a singular child.

Right.

What I own and acquire is for the sole purpose of ensuring that my children live a safe and healthy life. It would not be pro-life at all to deprive them of something essential (safe home, food, clean water, clothing, basic toys) because I wanted to save the life of someone else.

Right.

Your hypothetical doesn’t make any sense to those of us who are living in reality. In an HCOL area, $1m in net worth could easily be a modest, paid off home of a middle-aged couple with 3-5 pre-teen/teens and their belongings, a couple of cars and retirement plan living a safe but very, very, very plain lifestyle. They could easily have zero to near zero liquid assets. IE no saving for fancy vacations or high-school sponsored sports trips, etc.

Yes.

Likewise, if you are a 75-year-old retired person with a million dollar net worth and no ability to work–that money is your entire future. That’s what is going to spell the difference between eating cat food and winding up in a bad nursing home and a dignified old age.

Again, saying that old people have to eat cat food also isn’t pro-life.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

Xanthippe_Voorhees:

Myself, and most of my friends grew up discussing the hypothetical of winning the grand prize on the cereal box every morning.

Exactly.

In fact, this is a bit morbid, but I actually have it figured out how I ought to spend the million dollars of insurance on my husband in the event of his untimely death, as well as how he ought to spend the smaller amount on me, in the event of my untimely death.

The first one is: bury husband, pay off home mortgage, get kids through school, get kids through college, cover a couple years of living expenses, get me retrained and making some money (I’m a SAHM and haven’t had a full-time job since 9/11). That’s it–BOOM! a million dollars spent. The second one is: bury me, pay off home mortgage, cover extra household expenses for a year. Again, BOOM! $200k spent.

Life is expensive. And I didn’t even consider weddings or other young adult start-up expenses…

I think discussing morbidity is fine. My mom asked why my husband and I took out the same $ on our life insurance when he’s the primary breadwinner.

Because we have little kids! He’d get FMLA for 12 weeks. He’d have that time to find care for them, probably update their schooling portfolios, find a school to enroll them in. They would need counseling. He would pay off the house so he didn’t have to worry about it and could afford to tell his boss no month-long work trips. (and not get any pay raises)

I would pay off the house and be able to work part-time for a couple of years until I was much more on my feet and life was a bit more normal. But $1mil in my area would basically do just that. Bury him, pay off the house, cover taxes, electric, gas and food. I spend around $60 on groceries (minus HCB category stuff) a week for my family. No mental energy to plan would mean a grocery bill that doubled. I would probably not make my kids “put on a sweater” either, I’d want the room to be a bit more generous and kind to them. And like you say, this isn’t for a trip to Disney, this is for the basics.

If we both died we have instructions for the beneficiary on how we suggest she do things.

 

[littlebird]

Analytical thinking does not always produce the best decision.

Especially in time dependent situations, if someone is standing there with buck teeth analyzing everything, I would have already been home after solving the problem.

Why suggest blame or lack of commitment on the people that were not irresponsible ?

Why not offer an experiment for the people that get pregnant because of irresponsibility ?

 

[fredystairs]

Slightly off topic, but a priest told me a true story about a man who had a friend who was trying to provide aid in Africa. The friend told the man that the group was getting the aid to the port but was having trouble getting it to the villages. They needed ten trucks. The man wrote a check to his friend so that he could buy the trucks. When I heard the story I estimated that the man probably wrote a check for $750,000 to $1,000,000. And he did it without making a big deal about it. That one gift probably saved untold lives.

Blessings

 

[Xantippe]

Slightly off topic, but a priest told me a true story about a man who had a friend who was trying to provide aid in Africa. The friend told the man that the group was getting the aid to the port but was having trouble getting it to the villages. They needed ten trucks. The man wrote a check to his friend so that he could buy the trucks. When I heard the story I estimated that the man probably wrote a check for $750,000 to $1,000,000. And he did it without making a big deal about it. That one gift probably saved untold lives.

Come to think of it, Puerto Rico has fallen out of the news since the hurricane, but they still have a lot of needs.

Health Foundation Reports on Conditions in Puerto Rico 6 Months After Hurricane Maria

Earlier this month, a team from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Health Foundation traveled to Puerto Rico as well as the US Virgin Islands to assess the recovery of the healthcare system 6 months following Hurricane Maria. What they found is a very mixed situation, with some areas faring better than...

www.ajmc.com

 

[Flopfoot]

Since the obvious answers have been given, here’s a different perspective: a million dollars isn’t enough. When governments and businesses spend money on safety measures to prevent accidental deaths, or on medical treatments, they spend up to 9 million dollars per life saved on average. (Value of life - Wikipedia)

Of course, that’s to prevent “natural” deaths. How much do we spend per murder prevented? (That’s a better analog to abortion). It’s not enough to just look at police budgets. Consider that one of the main reasons schools exist is to prevent children from developing anti-social behavior, and how much do we spend on education?

How much would we spend to avoid going to war? Think of America paying off the Islamic pirates in the 18th century

Preventing people from killing each other is one of the main projects of humanity. It’s not something that an individual or a small group of pro-lifers should have to fit the bill for on their own

 

[goout]

Yes of course, I should give it all to save one life.
?
On a real and practical level, children are not for sale. So we use our resources where they do the most good in real life.

 

[undead_rat]

Here is a way to reduce the incidence of abortion by each of us paying just a little more in taxes, and it really is very simple:
Our government must abolish child support laws. When young men get their girlfriends pregnant and are not ready to get married, they face a choice: pay child support for the next eighteen years or convince their girlfriend to get an abortion. This is not a hypothetical situation. Many abortions are motivated and financed out fo fear of having ot pay child support for many years.

I have made this suggestion before on CAF and have been truly amazed at the vociferous opposition to this idea.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

Here is a way to reduce the incidence of abortion by each of us paying just a little more in taxes, and it really is very simple:
Our government must abolish child support laws. When young men get their girlfriends pregnant and are not ready to get married, they face a choice: pay child support for the next eighteen years or convince their girlfriend to get an abortion. This is not a hypothetical situation. Many abortions are motivated and financed out fo fear of having ot pay child support for many years.

I have made this suggestion before on CAF and have been truly amazed at the vociferous opposition to this idea.

Having the state be daddy doesn’t help at all. It also disincentives families from having children because a pregnant woman can have a free ride. I have a husband—so I get no money? You would have to have a payment for ALL children…least mine starve.

I don’t think you understand at all how very much “a little more” would be. I was supposed to pay “a little more” for health care and I wound up going from around $3,600 annually in premiums to $15,000+ ANNUALLY for our family. We are nowhere near 100k annually (read VERY FAR) but even to someone who made six figures that represents a severe loss of over 10% of their income. This literally drops my family from lower middle class to lower class. That’s before taxes…before I pay for the schools that are free to all children and before I pay for the library that has after-school programs, the parks that have free summer lunches, etc.

And that’s just insurance. That’s not for food, clothing, shelter.

Negating male responsibility is not the way to do this.

 

[undead_rat]

Reducing the incidence of abortion should be the top priority (that is if really believe that abortion is murder.)
Whether the single mother gets her child support payments from the child’s father or from the populace in general has no real effect on another family’s incentive to have children.

 

[Augustinian]

Here is a way to reduce the incidence of abortion by each of us paying just a little more in taxes, and it really is very simple:
Our government must abolish child support laws. When young men get their girlfriends pregnant and are not ready to get married, they face a choice: pay child support for the next eighteen years or convince their girlfriend to get an abortion.

Depends on how much the welfare payments you want the government to pay.

If the amounts are too small, it would make abortion more attractive as mom would be expected to raise the kid on a tiny stipend with no help from the Baby’s Daddy.

if the amounts are large, it would encourage pregnancy and child birth among those who don’t have the skill to do anything else and will make a career of these welfare payments.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

Reducing the incidence of abortion should be the top priority (that is if really believe that abortion is murder.)
Whether the single mother gets her child support payments from the child’s father or from the populace in general has no real effect on another family’s incentive to have children.

You don’t get it. Like the above poster, you believe that money is magical. What “tax the rich” really ends up being is tax the middle class into poverty.

Reducing the instances of abortion is not paramount if children born to married couples have to starve to make that happen.

For just health insurance alone my family is paying 12,000+ more dollars a year. A social program like you suggest would easily need to be funded at a rate twice that. At which point my family with two working adults would literally be taxed below the poverty line.

Abortion is murder.

But two wrongs don’t make a right. Taking food out of my children’s mouths, stealing my hard-earned money so some man has zero responsibility is crazy.

I mean, why not have all men who don’t have children pay into a universal paternity fund? Atleast then there is no disincentive to have children in a moral way.