According to Pet Spending Statistics, Americans are expected to spend a total of $157 billion on their pets by the end of 2025. The average dog costs its owner $143 per month in 2024, while a cat costs $90.50 per month. Children are much more expensive. According to data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), middle-income families with incomes between $76,106 and $138,070 in 2023 dollars) spent an average of $15,877 to $17,869 per child. How do you imagine a family making minimum wage manages? Who will care for the unwanted infants resulting from rape and incest?
What Kind of Life?
Abortion remains a deeply divisive subject. You would think the United States might learn from studying countries like Romania, which imposed a total ban between 1965 and 1989. The Communist regime’s goal was to raise the fertility rate. Instead, more than 10,000 women died from complications related to illegal abortions. Women who underwent abortions were imprisoned, and those suffering from botched procedures were denied medical care.
I described this tragedy in Over the Peanut Fence.
A landmark study on infant neglect was initiated in the 1980s when Dr. Nathan Fox and colleagues from Harvard Medical School walked into a Romanian orphanage. The recent abortion ban had caused the number of orphaned babies to soar. More than 170,000 children were placed in 700 overcrowded, underfunded institutions across the country, each with too few caretakers. Though the facilities were clean, the infants were emotionally neglected.
Left alone in their cribs day and night, the babies were changed and fed but rarely touched or held. The nurseries were eerily quiet. Since crying brought no response, the infants eventually stopped crying at all. No attention, no cries, only silence.
Dr. Fox followed these children for more than fourteen years. During the early years, many displayed autistic-like behaviors such as head-banging and rocking. As they grew, their head circumferences remained abnormally small. They had difficulty paying attention, understanding their surroundings, and regulating emotions. Over time, 50 percent developed mental illness. They exhibited poor impulse control, social withdrawal, low self-esteem, and pathological behaviors such as tics, tantrums, stealing, and self-punishment. Poor intellectual functioning led to low academic achievement.
Those fortunate enough to be placed in loving foster homes before the age of two often recovered. But children moved later, rarely did; many were permanently scarred.
Dr. Fox’s long-term research taught us much about infant brain development-the critical importance of touch, responsiveness, and warmth-and the devastating, unintended effects of imposing political control over women’s reproductive choices. Love and human connection are essential for a child’s well-being.
In the U.S., when an unwanted child is born, what are the chances they will receive nurturing care throughout their life? Now that several states have enacted abortion bans, I looked into what is happening today.
New data show declines in clinician-provided abortions and cross-border care in states with bans. Anti-abortion activists are attacking “shield laws” that protect providers and patients, while misinformation campaigns seek to undermine abortion pills.
As of this writing, twelve states have total bans, twenty-nine have gestational limits, and nine have no restrictions. Despite these bans, according to the Society for Family Planning, the number of abortions has actually increased in the two years following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. This is due to expanded Telehealth capacity, mail medication, increased interstate travel, and lower costs for abortions through virtual clinics.
A Johns Hopkins study shows the bans’ primary effects fall on racial minorities, younger individuals, and those with lower income or education-especially in the South. These are also the states with the weakest social services, perpetuating disparities and placing additional burdens on already strained resources. Researchers documented a 6 percent increase in infant mortality in states with bans, representing 478 additional infant deaths. The largest increases in deaths were among non-Hispanic Black infants in Texas, 9 percent overall, and in Kentucky at 11 percent. Maternal mortality has also risen.
Experiencing poverty in childhood has significant lifelong consequences for health and development. Low birth weight, a leading cause of infant mortality, puts babies at higher risk of long-term health and developmental problems. Yet the states with bans are not investing sufficient resources to support their at-risk children.
If we continue down this path of criminalizing abortion, we risk repeating Romania’s tragic history. Those who believe such policies are morally righteous should examine the suffering they create: women forced to give birth after rape; mothers compelled to carry fetuses they cannot afford to raise; families destroyed by the mandate to carry a dead or nonviable fetus; and women forced to risk their own lives for the sake of an uncompromising law.
These are not victories for morality-they are human tragedies born of political blindness.
Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
References:
Website (2025) Abortion in the United States. Guttmacher. Retrieved from U.S.
Jones,R, & Prrritt, J. MD (2029) The Misinformation Campaign Trying to bring down abortion pills. Guttmacher, Originally published in The Nation. Retrieved from PILLS.
Nelson, C. & Fox, N. & Zeanah, C. (2014). Romania’s Abandoned Children, Deprivation, Brain Development, and the Struggle for Recovery, Harvard University Press.
(2010) Decree 770: Abortion Outlawed in Communist Romania, CARAOBRIEN, retrieved from ROMANIA.
Lantz, P. (2025) The Impact of Restrictive State Abortion Laws: State of the Research Evidence in 2025. Milbank Memorial Fund. Retrieved from ABORTION
Website (2025). Unequal Impacts of Abortion Bans. . Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Retrieved from EDU.
Jacobsen, L. (2024). States with abortion bans continue to rank among the worst for child well-being. PRB. Retrieved from CHILD.
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Art is always for sale through my website. For information, go to about A Dog’s Life! __________________________________________________________Over The Peanut Fence provides insight into what it is like to run from a poor, dysfunctional family and spend your youth trying to survive on the streets. It will make you think twice about abortion rights and who will care for unwanted children. Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell’s Books.
