Antiabortion activists favor private charity but not structural antipoverty investment

Evidence

While virtually every antiabortion activist speaks of connecting pregnant women with “resources,” and some mention government assistance, none have a ready response when I press them on whether they would favor investments in the kind of education, safety net, and social service programs that their party, the Republican Party, has aggressively undermined. One woman tasked with developing a pro-life apologetics at her church cheerfully volunteers that she organized a donation drive, collecting a roomful of castoff toys and maternity clothes. Another activist says, with a sanguine, straightforward air, “Poverty has always been with us.” — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 295

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Shows the sacrificial-charity-versus-structural-aid contrast relevant to the essays; adjacent to themes in ‘On Sacrifice’ about emotionally-charged acts substituting for systematic change.
• XREF: Connects to Annihilation of Caste’s point that reform narrows to charity (e.g. scavenger uplift) to avoid structural redistribution, and to Gandhi’s charity theatre displacing structural cure.