YOU’VE heard many fantastic liberal theories as to why members of the underclass are not responsible for their own actions and why government largesse must be increased, but here is one that takes the cake. Nicholas Kristof argues that early childhood intervention may be too late to “break the cycle of poverty.” The prenatal environment determines later success. The obese were exposed to doughnuts in the womb and criminals may have had mothers with worries.

This is a whole new frontier for socialist effort. Kristof does not say what the cure for these prenatal disasters may be other than cleaning up the environment. But imagine what this might cost with national health care. Head Start will seem cheap by comparison.

                                                      — Comments —

Kristor writes:

I read that news item and took it to be an argument in support, not of vastly expanded welfare, but of increased abortion of poor babies. Of course, it could work for both.

Laura writes:

It hadn’t occurred to me that he was making that argument, though his concern for prenatal life struck me as highly ironic given the pro-abortion position of the Times. If human beings are so decisively formed in the womb, isn’t that proof they are human from the beginning?

Nora writes:

While studies on chemically induced birth defects (like thalidomide and DES) are probably reliable in their findings, I agree with you that blaming poverty on the prenatal environment is far-fetched. Did any of these studies take into account that a poor woman who gets pregnant in less-than-favorable circumstances is just as likely to offer a less-than-favorable family environment after the child is born as before? Or that she may instill habits or attitudes in her child that lead to poverty? It would be interesting to see how (or if) the people conducting the studies separated out the effects of pre-birth vs. post-birth conditions.

From a pro-life standpoint, however, there are some sentences in that article that were slightly encouraging, like this one: “But now an array of research confirms that the fetal period is a crucial stage of development that affects physiology decades later.” Does this mean that the New York Times now admits that a fetus is indeed a human being in a very early stage of development? The author was careful not to mention what organism’s development or physiology is being referred to, but from the rest of the article it’s clear he wasn’t talking about dogs and cats. And this one: “Ms. Paul quotes Mr. Almond as concluding, “People who were in utero during the pandemic did worse, on average, on just about every socioeconomic outcome recorded.””

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