(although not all women do, and those that do don't generally have a baby every year) are said to cost more in the health care arena.

But men have higher rates of smoking. A surprising number of men will ignore obvious health care issues until things are pretty dire. And I'm not talking about the problem of being uninsured, I'm talking about men with good coverage.

I wonder if in the end it's not at least a wash.

But that doesn't matter. It's too easy to start arguing that people who don't have babies shouldn't subsidize the cost of those who do, or people who don't smoke shouldn't subsidize the cost of smoking-related illnesses. Or that healthy young people shouldn't pay for sick older people. No. It's totally about the social contract. How we should be helping each other out in ways that we can.