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SCHIPs and Dips

Okay, so I stole the title for this post from Dale in the comments over at Carpetbagger's place but it really is an apt description is it not? I know I'm falling into my one trick pony habit again but it really just can't be helped. Seems having survived mostly intact from Operation Frostbite, the righties set their sights on a new target: Bethany Wilkerson, a 2 year old who thanks to SCHIP was able to receive life saving surgeries to correct a serious heart defect. If only there were surgeries available to correct the heart irregularities amongst some right.

As with the Frosts, they've settled on calling the Wilkersons bad parents for the choices they've made, such as Dana Wilkerson's decision to quit a job that provided health insurance some six years before having Bethany. But National Review's Mark Hemingway takes that critique one step further, suggesting the Wilkersons are bad parents for well, choosing to be parents in the first place.

Digby puts it so succinctly:
[U]nderlying this destructive sniping is a serious idea, and it is that children are a privilege that only those with means should be allowed to have. (This translates to the idea that sex is a privilege as well, since they don't believe in abortion and birth control.) This is a very old trope and one which conflicts directly with one of conservatism's most important arguments: family values.

For the right, it all boils down to choices which, in the end, aren't really choices at all.

More from Meme. See also A.L.

(Filed at State of the Day and All Spin Zone)