"College Bound Sisters," a controversial program run by the Guilford County health department in North Carolina, pays it's members a dollar a day to put towards college if they stay un-pregnant.
While the program does not advocate abstinance-only education, and supplies information on safe sex and contraceptives, many believe the government should not be paying it's citizens for practicing common sense. Abstinence-only supporters believe the program encourages sex.
What do I think? This is a program designed to avoid unwanted pregnancies. But it's also designed to prevent abortions. I think there's a fine line a lot of pro-choice supporters walk. By using language like: "It's always a difficult decision," they are setting themselves back and encouraging options like this, which are no more savory. Abortion is either legal or illegal. It is either benign or it is evil. This week on The View (as much as that show is an Oprah-on-steroids-fooforah of anything potentially lady related) Elisabeth Hasselbeck's commented that, "[abortion] is never an easy [decision], mark my words there." Joy Behar's response speaks to this issue: "To some people, Elisabeth, believe it or not, it is a very easy decision. I know that's hard to understand."
It's hard to understand because even pro-choicers have a hard time recognizing abortion as benign. There's this tip-toe dance that's played so they don't look heartless, but if there's nothing wrong with the choice they are supporting, how could heartlessness be an issue?
Here's the clip from The View episode. It ends before Behar's comment quoted above, but she does have some pearls of wisdom here. I think she's pretty much the only sensible person on the show:
