Impact of 2-child benefit cap on abortion decisions

Before you put the cap in place you need to make contraception and morning after contraception widely and freely available, and make sure abusive men can't stop women accessing it.

Im in favour of the cap sorry , i have 2 children really wanted three but I couldn't afford a third on our wages so had to not have one , so why should someone on benefits be able to keep in having them.
The only time i would agree to pay more is in short term if someone who has been working for years looses a job and has 3/4 children that they could afford , just to tide them over

If you are going to use the carrot and stick approach, there had better be a carrot in place before you use the stick.

Women who are already being abused by abusive men will continue to be abused with no support and no way to escape. They will continue to have children they can't afford and they and the children are the ones that will suffer.
Women who are able to plan (access contraception and stomach an abortion) will continue to do so.

The only good thing I can think of that comes out of this is that they can't both remove abortion rights and limit benefits for children.

Pity that no one can come up with a way to limit the damage done by abusive men and help women see a better life than one on benefits.

Those uncomfortable with abortion can always abstain from sex or use multiple forms of contraception and the morning-after pill.

Unfettered human reproduction has got to become a thing of the past for the survival of all species.

Perhaps being responsible and responsible for it getting pregnant in the first place should be the focus, rather than on opting to blame the government?

The ‘having unlimited children as a way to have a life-long income and avoid working’ was most definitely utilised fully by many families in the past. That just couldn’t continue. It’s sad that abortion is one of the alternatives to that but we are overpopulated and the responsibility lies with the individual to afford the child, not that state.

I don't think there is an easy answer to this problem, but I do think anything that affects women and children is a feminist issue.

It is hard enough for a mother to leave an abusive partner, without adding stark poverty into the mix.

I doubt the cap makes feckless men stop impregnating women.

I am unhappy about the cap, because the sad reality is that many children are not conceived through enthusiastically consensual sex. Women up and down the country are, or have been, in abusive relationships and many of them are too beaten down to recognise it as abuse.

On FWR, I think we all know how low rape convictions are, even though the DPP only takes forward cases with the highest chance of success. How does a woman convince a benefits assessor that her third child was conceived by rape, but yes, she did stay with the man for a further five years before she LTB?

There is absolutely no chance that every woman who is morally entitled to a rape exemption will get it, even assuming she feels capable of telling a complete stranger about it.

Further, I'm passionately pro-choice. I think every child should be a wanted child, and every termination should be a wanted termination. I know the arguments about how we all have to manage our circumstances, but the idea of a woman terminating a very much wanted accidental pregnancy because of this rule change makes me ill.

I would much prefer it if we brought down the accidental pregnancy rate with robust campaigns on

1. consent,
2. sex education and how contraceptives work (particularly focusing on boys who seem to think "the pill" is magic), and
3. reiterating that everyone should be using condoms as standard as well as hormonal contraceptives in new relationships. A few scary viral campaigns about the effects of vatious STIs wouldn't go amiss. It is bloody stupid to shag someone off tinder without a condom. You have no idea who he was shagging last week.

I am not opposed to policies which encourage families to only have two children, per se, but I don't think this is right, because it punishes women, and children once they get here (who then need to suffer in poverty), not the men who cause the pregnancies with their careless ejaculation, and subsequent lack of financial support for their offspring.

I was glad about the two child cap - it prevents abusive men fathering endless children on trapped abused women in order to live it up on the benefits - which they have no intention of spending on the poor wife or kids.

Or they'll keep fathering the children but the abused women won't have the financial ability to leave

I do think disability benefits should be better, and I also really detest the language used around proving conception as a result of rape.

But in the main, I think its a good thing that women are considering whether they can afford to provide before continuing a pregnancy.
By virtue of the fact that it would appear some of these women decided to have a termination because of the benefits cap, this must mean that they are on benefits to begin with, or low incomes with supplementary benefits. In that situation its only right that they consider whether another baby is affordable. And as I understand it this is why the policy was introduced. To discourage people from having large families and claiming state support for them rather than going out to work (And I'm not attacking disabled or unwell families - I mean the people who can work but choose not to because being on benefits previously paid them quite well).

Personally I would prefer that thought to take place before you reach the stage of requiring a termination though as I cant imagine the emotional impact that would have on you.

It’s awful that children are being aborted owing to the cap, but it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. If the measly amount of CB is a barrier to having a child you prob Ali shouldn’t be having a child in the first place. That’s no life.

*@SerendipityJane

I am really sorry for your situation.

But is the conclusion from your story that everyone should get CB for unlimited children from the outset, or that women who become disabled or experience other hardship events (death of partner etc) should be better supported by the state in that event? I would say the latter*

I agree.

Disability benefits should be better. That is where the issue is, not the benefit cap on children. It is ESA and PIP that need looking at, specifically for people in your situation. The answer for you is not just increasing child benefit for everyone else.

When we decided no more kids we made sure there was no unintended pregnancy. I used a form of contraception and asked DH to get the snip. He wasn’t keen, fair enough, but the result was he either wrapped it or didn’t come near me. To be honest if, for some reason, we could only use one form then we wouldn’t have had sex at all as dealing with an accident was not a position we wanted to be in. Obviously I’m going not talking about personal responsibility here when there is a choice, not referring in any way to rape.

I think its disgraceful that our government makes women prove they were raped to access financial support and I can't believe there isn't more anger about it. I also don't think its fair to let kids live in poverty because their parents make bad decisions but I understand why other people support the cap.

*PinkPlantCase

I’m not sure how much covid comes into it. The cap doesn’t apply to children who were born before it came in, so only people who knew about the cap when they had their children will be impacted in the way you talk about.*

Children born before the cap are only covered if their parents have claimed benefits continually since before the cap. If you had 3 or 4 children before the cap and then lose your job, you are only paid for 2.

@SerendipityJane

I am really sorry for your situation.

But is the conclusion from your story that everyone should get CB for unlimited children from the outset, or that women who become disabled or experience other hardship events (death of partner etc) should be better supported by the state in that event? I would say the latter

You go and get all the covers you like.

Then have 3 kids.

Then get MS*

Then discover that no chronic condition is covered.

Then try and claim ESA. And PIP.

And then come back and be as smug as you can. I bet it doesn't even come close to 1% of the attitude just shown.

Remember, that you'll need somewhere to live that's accessible - not that you have much chance of getting that. Plus aids and adaptations. All while you're told by many that you really just need to get a job and stop whinging.

*Other shitty debilitating, life limiting chronic and untreatable diseases are available. You can take your pick if you think MS is a conspiracy.

One thing I have noticed repeatedly on this forum is how "feminism" or whatever it's called - completely and utterly excludes disability. All the frothing about toilets which invariably ends up with "just use the accessible ones" as if (a) they grow on trees and (b) if you're disabled you just suck it up. Luckily most disabled people do "suck it up" - but not from choice.

It effects working families as well though. When I had my first child years ago our household income was about 22k with DH working FT and me PT and we received tax credits.

I believe with 3 children the cap used to be 40k to receive tax credits.

There will be many families in full-time work who will have to choose between abortion and being pushed into poverty if faced with an unintended pregnancy.

I agree with all the above posters. Finances absolutely should be considered before bringing a child in to the world.

All the cap does is make life 10x worse for families who had more than 2 children because they could afford it right up until a parent dies or is permanently injured and unable to work

But that’s part of financial planning when considering if you can afford children. We put in place insurance for each of us to cover these scenarios so if this where to happen we wouldn’t be in a pickle. It’s a cost in deciding whether you can afford kids. I know of someone who couldn’t get death/disability insurance due to a serious health issue. This was the main factor in them deciding not to have a child and factored above the actual health issue in their decision.

All the cap does is make life 10x worse for families who had more than 2 children because they could afford it right up until a parent dies or is permanently injured and unable to work, and they have to put up with the level of judgement shown here that they "should have thought about that before hey had so many kids”

Or they should have factored in life/critical illness insurance into the cost of having children?

I’m not sure a return to personal responsibility is a bad thing. We didn’t have more kids than we could afford. It was one of the factors we took into account when deciding to have ours. Not only financial but other factors as well. Even if we ticked all the other boxes but couldn’t tick the financial box it would have been a no. If you can’t afford them, don’t have them. Common sense surely?

All the cap does is make life 10x worse for families who had more than 2 children because they could afford it right up until a parent dies or is permanently injured and unable to work, and they have to put up with the level of judgement shown here that they "should have thought about that before hey had so many kids".

And as for having to prove you were raped ...