You know what's really expensive?

Being gay. Oh, and unsafe abortions, too.

Gays first. A New York Times exercise has plotted the lifetime financial disparity between straight and same-sex couples at between $467,562 and $41,196. It's an imperfect exercise, obviously, because the assumptions were fairly static across scenarios: 2 women, college educated, together for 46 years, 2 biological children, one parent staying home with them for five years, earning a total of $140,000 per year, with varying levels of health benefits. They ran scenarios for couples in New York, California, and Florida, the three states with the highest estimated gay populations, and divided up that $140k between each earner a few different ways, and it's those factors that account for the bulk of the variation.

There are two main reasons for the disparity: the inability to get legally married, and to a lesser extent, the difficulties and expenses associated with same-sex couples having biological children.

And Unsafe Abortions. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that the 19 million unsafe abortions performed each year in developing nations cost upwards of $341 million in healthcare costs. That's just costs to the healthcare system for giving women medical care--even life-saving care--after their unsafe abortions, not household costs. I wonder how that would compare to the costs of an effective contraceptive distribution program or improving access to safe abortions.