Goodlatte: Limiting Abortion ‘Promotes Job Creation’

GOP Congressman: Limiting Abortion 'Promotes Job Creation' (The Huffington Post)

Democratic opponents of a new anti-abortion bill moving through the House of Representatives criticized Republicans on Wednesday for fast-tracking a socially divisive piece of legislation that "does not create a single job." But Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said that he believes legislating against abortion does, in fact, create jobs.

"I would suggest that it is very much the case that those of us in the majority support this legislation because it is the morally right thing to do, but it is also very very true that having a growing population and having new children brought into the world is not harmful to job creation," Goodlatte said at the committee mark-up of the bill. "It very much promotes job creation for all the care and services and so on that need to be provided by a lot of people to raise children."

Conventional wisdom does not support the idea that abortion restrictions boost the economy. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that an anti-abortion bill passed by the House last summer, a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, would cost the federal government $225 million in Medicaid spending over the next decade.