Rep. David Eastman was censured by the Alaska House of Representatives on Wednesday after presenting an argument that fatal child abuse saves the government money.
Seated at a committee hearing, Eastman stated "In the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it's not good for the child, but it's actually a benefit to society because there aren't needs for government services and whatnot over the whole course of that child's life."
After being asked to repeat what he'd just said, Eastman clarified that he was "talking dollars."
"You've got a $1.5m price tag here for victims of fatal child abuse. It gets argued periodically that it's actually a cost savings because that child is not gonna need any of those government services that they might otherwise be entitled to receive," Eastman furthered in the second version of his original statement, unprepared for the ways in which the committee he was speaking to would firmly disagree.
"I guess that would be the idea, if I could use a really bad analogy, when you hit somebody you always back up because it's cheaper to insurance," was the response he received. "I'm not even sure how to answer that, that there's a cost savings to the death of a child. The impact that that has to a family and us as a society when a child is lost, especially to child abuse and neglect, is unmeasurable."
Not even sure what to say here. Rep. Eastman says it’s a benefit to society when children who are victims of abuse die “because there aren’t needs for government services over the course of that child’s life” when they die as a results of abuse. #akleg pic.twitter.com/0hV4o7AzTY
— The Alaska Landmine (@alaskalandmine) February 21, 2023
According to coverage of the hearing by The Daily Beast, "The House voted 35-1 to censure Eastman over his comments, with Eastman alone dissenting."
This was not the first time the GOP lawmaker was censured. In 2017 Eastman found himself in a similar situation after making the statement that "We have folks who try to get pregnant in this state so that they can get a free trip to the city, and we have folks who want to carry their baby past the point of being able to have an abortion in this state so that they can have a free trip to Seattle," according to the Associated Press.
