Poor and Stupid's Don Luskin points to an article (which has unfortunately fallen behind a subscription-only wall) that suggests something rather obvious -- that without abortion, there would be more Americans alive to pay Social Security taxes.

Look at the amount of Social Security taxes paid by the average taxpayer in 2004...and then multiply that number by 14,330,000 (the number of abortions performed between 1973 and 1983, according to Planned Parenthood's Alan Guttmacher Institute) and imagine, just for a moment, those dollars were placed in the Social Security trust fund.

More than a decade ago, I made a similar argument in my college speech class, but on a broader basis. Needless to say, that my more liberal classmates were not convinced -- mainly because they refused to even consider such an argument. Every argument they'd ever heard opposing abortion was a religious or religiously-based one -- an economic argument against abortion was practically unheard of and frantically rejected out of hand.

That the Social Security crisis would be diminished (not solved, but diminished) with more taxpayers is obvious. Social Security is structured like a Ponzi scheme and 14 million more suckers would keep it going several decades longer.

Something needs to be done now about Social Security, but it's an anathema to Democrats and it appears as though too many Republicans have lost their stomach for the battle. People my age and younger are the ones that will be made to suffer.