Preborn Babies, Infants, and Government Programs
by Sarah Terzo
A recent study looked at food insecurity and government benefits among pregnant people in the United States. Researchers determined that 14% of their sample was “food insecure,” meaning they couldn’t afford enough to eat.
These were all people who weren’t receiving government assistance through SNAP or WIC, two programs that provide food for the poor.
Food insecurity was associated with:
- gestational diabetes,
- preeclampsia,
- preterm birth, and
- neonatal intensive care unit admission.
Gestational diabetes can threaten the lives of both mothers and babies. Prematurity can lead to infant death and disability.
Preeclampsia will kill the pregnant person if the pregnancy isn’t ended . Pro-life groups have pointed out that doctors don’t have to kill a baby directly in these cases but can induce labor rather than performing an abortion.
But if preeclampsia occurs before viability, as it often does, the baby gets a death sentence either way. Whether the child dies by dismemberment in an abortion procedure or is born and suffocates due to prematurity, she dies. And either way, it’s a horrible death.
The study didn’t directly address infant mortality, but prematurity is a risk factor both for infant death and long-term disability.
In cases where the mother was receiving SNAP or WIC, most of the effects of food insecurity were eliminated. Mothers receiving SNAP or WIC were less likely to have premature babies and less likely to develop gestational diabetes. Their babies were more likely to be healthy and not need to spend time in the NICU.
In fact, the babies of pregnant people receiving SNAP or WIC were just as healthy as those of wealthier women. Only the babies of poor women not receiving SNAP or WIC suffered higher rates of prematurity and complications.
Government assistance led to healthier children and less prematurity. Children born from mothers who have enough food to eat have a much better start in life.
This really isn’t a surprising finding.
But the U.S. House of Representatives is poised to pass a budget resolution package which includes drastically cutting SNAP. This will inevitably lead to more food insecurity, which will leave preborn babies at greater risk of prematurity and NICU stays after birth, as well as increase the prevalence of gestational diabetes. More food insecurity means more complications for pregnant people and babies.
If we are concerned about abortion, we should be concerned about this. A baby who dies in the NICU is just as dead as one killed by abortion.
All preborn babies are valuable. All babies have a right to life and a right to have the best start in life.
The children of poor mothers aren’t exempt. And the pregnant woman’s poverty is never the child’s fault.
What Will the Proposed Cuts to SNAP Mean?
Right now, Republican House members are working on a budget that seeks to cut $230 billion from SNAP.
- Lower Monthly Amounts
The average monthly SNAP benefit is already very low. It’s $129 per person per month. The proposed cuts to SNAP would make this amount even lower.
Think of the last time you went grocery shopping. Could you buy a month’s worth of groceries for yourself for $129? Could you afford to feed your family on that?
The $230 billion in cuts would make this amount even lower.
- Work Requirement
The other proposed change is a work requirement. A single mother would have to prove she is working in order to get SNAP. If she can’t, she can only collect SNAP for one month out of a year for a maximum of three years.
What single mother can afford to feed her children on $129 for an entire year?
And if she’s providing child care to her own child directly rather than paying someone else to, doesn’t that mean she’s already working, and working at something society should value greatly?
Lack of Affordable Childcare
While ideally, people should work, many single mothers can’t work because of a lack of childcare services. A mother with an infant can’t simply leave her baby home alone while she works.
As of 2018, some 51% of Americans lived in what is known as a “childcare desert.”
In childcare deserts, there is either no access to childcare facilities or the number of children is three times higher than the spaces in childcare facilities. These women can’t access childcare at all. If they aren’t lucky enough to have a friend or family member to watch their baby while they work, they cannot work.
Even in areas where childcare options are available, they are often unaffordable.
According to one government website, childcare is becoming less available and its cost is going up.
The National Database of Childcare Prices reported on childcare costs in 2,360 U.S. counties. Their report:
shows that childcare expenses are untenable for families throughout the country, and highlights the urgent need for greater federal investments, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
A full-time job at minimum wage pays roughly $15,080 a year. The average cost of childcare for an infant varies based on where one lives. But the median amount ranges from $7,461 to $15,417.
At the very least, a mother with an infant working for minimum wage would pay 49% of her income in childcare. And in some cases, the cost of childcare would exceed her yearly income, meaning that if she were to work, she would actually lose money.
Things are even more dire for a single mother who already has another child. The cost of daycare for a toddler is nearly as expensive as that for an infant. Among preschool-aged children, childcare prices per child ranged from $6,239 to $11,050.
If a woman has both an infant and a toddler, her childcare costs would range from $13,700 to $26,467 a year- impossible to pay on a minimum wage salary. Even many single mothers earning above minimum wage wouldn’t be able to afford it. Don’t forget that these mothers must also pay rent and utilities.
Difficulty Documenting Work
What if the single mother or pregnant person is working? She has to prove it through submitting paperwork.
The Office of Temporary Assistance, which administers SNAP, is very slow in processing paperwork. When I submitted my application for food stamps, it took six months for it to be processed. I survived with the help of friends and family and also contacted a food pantry. The food pantry wasn’t able to give me much help because they didn’t have enough donations to cover the needs of the community.
Sarah Terzo
At the time, I was working. I just wasn’t making enough money to afford food. SNAP administrators made it very, very difficult for me to document my income, which was a requirement to prove eligibility.
I provided my bank statements for an entire year and my tax return. They could easily have seen, from these documents, how much money I was making. But they refused to accept either of them as proof of income.
Instead, I had to contact Live Action and get them to write a letter verifying the amount of money they paid me going back six months. Whoever wrote the letter had to go to the bank, get it notarized, and mail it to me. The letter had to be on official letterhead.
This was a huge inconvenience for them, and I hated asking. They were willing to do it for me, however. They sent me the letter – and the Office of Temporary Assistance rejected it. Why? Because it wasn’t signed. They never told me it had to be signed.
I had to ask Live Action to do it all over again. Write the letter, get it notarized, and put it in the mail – this time signed. For the whole time I was on food stamps, they had to do it every year.
I was very lucky they were willing to do that for me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten SNAP. How many employers would go through all that inconvenience?
(I also had to reveal to them I was collecting SNAP. That was information I would’ve preferred to keep private.)
None of that was necessary. The office had my tax return and my bank statements, which clearly showed my income.
These are the kind of hoops a pregnant or parenting woman would have to jump through to prove she is eligible to receive SNAP. The application process is bad enough. She would have to go through another whole level of paperwork.
A Brief Overview of SNAP
Many people believe that those collecting SNAP are lazy people who refuse to work. Actually, 51% of people receiving SNAP work full-time. The elderly make up 18.3% of recipients. And 28% of adults under 60 who received SNAP in 2015 were disabled. In 2019-2020, 65% of households receiving SNAP contained children.
The tiny percentage of nondisabled, non-elderly adults receiving SNAP who aren’t working full-time include those employed part-time and mothers of young children who can’t afford childcare.
Nearly everyone on SNAP who can work does work. Work requirements will only hurt the people, like caretakers, who can’t work.
What You Can Do Right Now
For those of us living in the U.S., write to your legislators and tell them not to cut SNAP benefits. This letter will also encourage them not to cut Medicaid, which provides health insurance for many poor single mothers and their children. It will only take you a few clicks of the mouse to do this through this link. Writing to your U.S. Senators would also be timely now.
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For more of our posts on governmental social services, see:
Social Programs to Help the Poor are Pro-life
SNAP Cuts? More Poverty, More Abortion
Home of the Brave? A CLE Response to City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson
The Impact of Family Caps on Abortion
Why the Hyde Amendment Helps Low-Income Women
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