Pro-life and single moms

And a rant about weddings

My wife had an interesting and sad point recently.

A friend’s son had gotten his girlfriend pregnant, and the couple decided to have the baby. This was a small victory for the pro-life cause, but there was some reticence towards celebration of the pregnancy among some of the ladies of the church. Why? Because the couple wasn’t married.

This sort of situation can lead to some awkwardness among Christian pro-lifers. The Bible teaches that sex should be reserved for married couples so there was some hesitation about appearing to approve of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and birth.

Photo by Aditya Romansa on Unsplash

The biblical guidance on premarital (and extra-marital) sex is widely ignored today both inside and outside the church. That doesn’t mean it’s bad advice, however. I hear a lot of people talking about how emotionally damaging it can be to be used for sex and then rejected or ignored. There are also the practical difficulties of raising a child as a single parent, which would probably have been a lot worse in ancient Israel.

On the other hand, in our society, a single-parent family is often an indication that an unmarried mother chose life, something that a great many Christians and pro-life organizations beg women to do. Looking at single-parent families from that perspective, each baby born to a single mom is a win that should be celebrated.

Some would argue that the decision to have sex outside of marriage was still a bad decision. Maybe it was, but people are going to make bad decisions. Let he who has never made a bad decision cast the first stone.

If we’re being honest, I would not be surprised if a lot of the people clucking about premarital sex didn’t engage in similar behavior when they were younger but were fortunate enough not to find themselves pregnant. Or maybe, if we count months from wedding dates to children, we might even find that isn’t even a safe assumption for a lot of couples.

A post that I saw recently made a big impression on me. It said that God doesn’t need us to fight for him and he doesn’t need our help in judging people. God wants us to show his love. That’s scriptural.

Single parents don’t need to be judged or reminded that they made a mistake. They have plenty of reminders. What they need is help.

Living in a post-Dobbs world, we are going to find that out-of-wedlock births are increasing. That was already a trend before Dobbs, but making abortion illegal or inaccessible is going to mean that more babies are born to single moms. It’s cause and effect.

The church has a choice here: It can be judgmental and preach about how people must face the consequences of having sex outside of marriage or it can show the love of Christ and reach out to these single parents and help them raise their children.

And that’s going to have to include social programs as well. Single parents need assistance with insurance, food, clothing, childcare, and education. The amount of money required is beyond the financial means of most churches.

Supporting single parents is a good deal for society. When we help families avoid poverty and keep kids from being unsupervised, it makes it less likely that they will engage in bad behavior themselves and perpetuate the cycle of impoverished broken families. Whether a father is present in a family or not is one of the best predictors of good or bad outcomes for children. Making sure that children have access to a good education is an investment in America’s future,

Churches should make it easier for single parents to choose life. That will include both assistance and acceptance as well as encouraging marriage. Ultimately, the best way to make sure that a child grows up in a stable home is to encourage the tried-and-true two-parent family unit.

A Freakonomics episode from last year detailed how a liberal economics professor came to the conclusion that the best way to combat income inequality is to promote marriage. It wasn’t a popular message in liberal circles, but the episode is worth a listen.

I’m going to say a word about marriage here as well. We may need to reconsider what marriage is. Going back to biblical times, marriage was a religious ordinance. Today, it is both a religious and government matter. Churches may need to think more deeply about how to define marriage.

I had a good friend, who I won’t name, who had severe health problems. He was on government assistance for health care services and medications that he could have never afforded on his own. He wanted to work, but if he took anything more than a menial job, he would lose his benefits. He wanted to have a normal life, but if he married and his wife worked, he would lose his benefits. Ultimately, he and his girlfriend lived together in a committed relationship, but they couldn’t get the piece of paper from the government without upending their financial life, which wasn’t great to begin with.

In our society, the piece of paper from the government comes with certain benefits, but I think that the church should bless other relationships as committed marriages. Churches should offer simple religious marriage services without a government marriage certificate to couples who don’t want the government involved in their relationship but still want a religiously blessed commitment.

Such services would also benefit couples who don’t want (or can’t afford) to spend massive amounts on lavish weddings. Or maybe they just want to save up for a fancy wedding/vacation later.

These days, the wedding industrial complex has turned the purpose of marriage on its head. Couples scrimp and save (or go into debt) for extravagant weddings when they might be better off putting the money toward a house, a car, an education, or a rainy day fund. The average cost of a wedding is about $20,000 and most newly married couples could put that money to much better use than a champagne fountain, especially if they already have children.

I often hear couples talk about not being able to afford to get married when one of the real purposes of marriage is to create stability (including financial stability) in the family. If you’re going into debt and eating ramen noodles to be able to afford a princess wedding, you’re doing it wrong. It’s the commitment that matters, not the ceremony.

The pro-life movement has won the war on Roe v. Wade. Now it’s time to shift the focus to helping to care for the babies that won’t be aborted under the new reality. That can include education and encouragement about premarital sex and contraception, but it also needs to include partnering with both private organizations and the government to provide assistance to poor families.

Just as important, pro-lifers need to be accepting of people who choose life and become single parents. After all, isn’t that what we wanted?

DAVE IN THE CHRISTIAN POST: A few days ago, Michael Gryboski of the Christian Post contacted me about an article that I had written back in December detailing a Rasmussen poll that purported to show massive amounts of voter fraud in mail-in ballots. The Heartland Institute was talking about the poll again and Gryboski wanted to look at their allegations so he asked me for comment. The Christian Post article is now out and I’m quoted extensively. I appreciate Michael’s effort and his balanced approach. You can read his piece here.

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