Your baby is too expensive. Sorry.
"How much is a human life worth?" is not an uncommon question in development economics. Every day for the last month I’ve been dealing with this question when investigating the measures used for compensating people in the case of loss of lives, livelihoods, culture and social safety nets. What is the market value of living in a reciprocal economy? What is the going price for close family ties? The dams that I am reading up on have both human costs and benefits, but no one can agree on how to measure them. Thankfully.
The value of human life made headlines in Norwegian news today. A representative of the Progress Party entered an opinion in my local newspaper arguing for the abortion of handicapped children. Carrying handicapped children into this world is repulsive, she writes. Although some argue that handicapped children help create a richer and more including society, she does not see this need - this selfish need. She sees costs. Knowingly giving birth to children that will cost the society a tremendous amount of money in health care and equipment is selfish. We have more important things to spend the tax payers’ money on. And is it really fair to those around you? Your conscience should tell you that this will be too time consuming and too costly. Its just not fair to society.
Economic arguments and estimates are the basis upon which to genetically cleanse our society.
I don’t think I need to add anything to this.
