Via Digby, USA Today has a story about how child poverty has escalated to mind-numbingly high levels.

The rate of children living in poverty this year will climb to nearly 22%, the highest rate in two decades, according to an analysis by the non-profit Foundation for Child Development. Nearly 17% of children were living in poverty in 2006, before the recession began…...

The report projects that the percentage of children living in families with an “insecure” source of food has risen from about 17% in 2007 to nearly 18% in 2010, an increase of 750,000 children. Up to 500,000 children may be homeless this year, living either in shelters or places not meant for habitation.

But even with an issue as serious as this, our morally bankrupt mainstream media has to pull the fair-and-balanced card.  If you’re going to quote someone who is against children living in poverty and going hungry, you gotta find a poverty-and-hunger supporter.

Judith Palfrey, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, says family poverty increases many risks for children, including low birth weight, premature delivery, learning problems, asthma and other health problems. But the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector says the index offers little new information. He says the report doesn’t mention that poor children’s family incomes are supplemented by programs such as food stamps and housing assistance. “Most of the report is an advertising tool for more government programs and spending, which are pretty ineffective in increasing child well-being,” he says.

In other words, “We found a highly qualified doctor to explain how it’s not so great for kids to have lack of access to health care, housing, and nutrition.  And we found some asshole to say that he thinks a little starving should do ‘em some good. Don’t forget to weigh these options equally, dear audience.” 

Needless to say, Robert Rector considers himself “pro-life”.  You’re precious to him on a cellular level, but once you start breathing and feeling and eating through anything but an umbilical cord, you’re on your own. 

Of course, I know that this mindless assholery goes straight back to the built-in conservative assumption that the only thing that children need is a parent with a penis and his sidekick servant called “wife”.  In Wingnut Land, children don’t need food, shelter, education, or health care.  They just need a heterosexual couple to raise them.  The result is a worldview that makes child-hating assholery inevitable.  And not the kind of child-hating that creates 200 plus comment threads, where some childless person says, “Oh I hate it when some baby is crying in a movie theater” and the pile-on begins.  No, we’re talking about a topsy-turvy situation where “pro-life” conservatives are coming out against children doing well and for children starving and sleeping on the streets.  Because not only do you have Robert Rector railing against food stamps that keep kids from starving (sort of), but you also have all the angry wailing at the news that lesbians are raising healthier kids on average than straight couples.  Dammit, the only index we need is the penis index!  One adult penis per household—-no more, no less—-that’s all you need to know.