A legislature in Alaska has stirred up some well-deserved outrage after questioning whether the death of child abuse victims could be considered “a cost savings.” Because, according to this legislature, it would mean they wouldn’t need “government services later in life.”

This sentiment was brought up Monday by Republican David Eastman, a member of the Alaska House of Representatives in the middle of a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Newsweek reports. I’m going to add this little scintilla of information: Eastman is a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right, anti-government paramilitary group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

This, to me, makes Eastman a really odd duck, especially since he says things like “every child is made in the image of God.” But Republicans are typically hyper-concerned about the unborn but once a child is born, welp, they’re on their own. Maybe that’s where this weirdo fits in, I don’t know.

The committee was meeting to discuss the ways in which children are impacted by physical or sexual abuse as well as being witnesses to domestic violence within their own homes.

The lawmakers reviewed a study indicating that each instance of fatal child abuse costs society roughly $1.5 million. That figure was arrived at by assessing the impact trauma causes and how it affects the child’s loss of earnings over a lifetime.

But Eastman wasn’t particularly impressed, and he questioned whether fatal child abuse could be economically beneficial to wider society, an argument he said he’d heard earlier.

“It can be argued, periodically, that it’s actually a cost savings because that child is not going to need any of those government services that they might otherwise be entitled to receive and need based on growing up in this type of environment.”

This is horrific, but in a way, it exemplifies typical Republican thinking, that once that child leaves the womb, they become a “don’t care” situation. Well, isn’t that what they act like on most days?

Eastman’s remarks upset Trevor Storrs, president of the Alaska Children’s Trust (ACT), who described the loss of a child as “unmeasurable.”

Democratic Representative Cliff Groh, a former prosecutor who worked on cases involving child abuse allegations, said he was “disturbed” by Eastman’s comments.

Homer Republican Rep. Sarah Vance, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said Eastman, who doesn’t serve on any committees, attended the hearing at her invitation.

In an interview with The Anchorage Daily News, she said “I wished that he asked questions with a little bit more sensitivity to the listeners and how they’re perceived, and I can have that conversation.”

“But he’s there on his own accord and only represents himself.”

She later suggested Eastman was attempting to make an argument against abortion, which is considered by some to be “child abuse.”

Speaking to The Anchorage Daily News in text messages, Eastman said: “I was pleased to hear ACT advocating against child abuse, but a child’s value comes not from future productivity, but from the fact that every child is made in the image of God.”

Newsweek reached out to Eastman to see if he stands by his remarks but apparently hasn’t heard back.

Eastman, who was formerly in the military, was reelected to the Alaska House of Representatives in November 2022. A lawsuit was filed in the hopes of barring him from office because of his affiliation with the Oath Keepers but was unfortunately unsuccessful.

Numerous members of the Oath Keepers who stormed Congress are doing time over their role in the attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021, as part of a dangerous mob who tried to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Eastman was apparently in Washington, D.C. that day but there’s no evidence to suggest that he took part in the riot, which he condemned.

But he did, however, promote a discredited conspiracy theory, suggesting the violence may have been committed by the left-wing movement Antifa.

So it looks like Eastman is another nutball. But what would you expect from someone who can so coldly suggest that fatally abused children could save the government money?