We have to trade the welfare state for an end to abortion? Yikes - way to allow for a future of something other than Gersonism.
I think Ross's assumption is based on a false assessment of the post-Roe universe. In a situation where roughly 30 states have rape-incest-life of the mother bans, and pro-lifers go from election cycle to election cycle battling for the remaining 20 or so (in some states, probably successfully - in the Northeast, probably not), we're supposed to assume this is going to lead inevitably to a massive expansion of the federal welfare state? This isn't Romania, people - there isn't some huge wandering gypsy population, giving birth to babies viewed as "inferior" by the citizenry, and abandoning them en masse to the state.
I don't see that at all, and it strikes me as sloppy reasoning. The likelier result is expansion of foster care funding, S-CHIP funds and children's health insurance, which is happening already, in the form of larger block grants to the states to allocate as they see fit. This is doubtlessly going to be accompanied by pro-lifers transferring their donations to fight Roe into more philanthropic ventures to help the children the law now protects. In both cases, that's just taxpayers funding the care of kids, not exactly some "epic social experiment."
As for that Village Voice piece about Romania - it gets a lot of things wrong, but I make a policy of not responding to the Village Voice. Instead, respond by going to Romania Reborn, a ministry to the foster children of that sad country, and doing your part to help.