In the wake of Roe’s overturning, the pro-life movement has shifted focus toward eliminating root causes of abortion, including economic hardship and lack of postpartum support. In addition to pushing back on calls to enshrine abortion into national law, pro-life groups and politicians are drawing up an agenda that would expand Medicaid and the Child Tax Credit, among other government programs, and provide paid leave and home visiting programs for mothers. While such an agenda certainly addresses some of abortion’s causes, it doesn’t get at the glaring omission in the national abortion conversation: the role of men.
Where Is The Man In All This?
Delano Squires, a contributor to Blaze Media, recently made the point in The Institute for Family Studies blog that men are just as responsible for the birth of the child as are women. While pro-choice people are quick to point out that ultimately it’s about women’s choice, and a man’s contribution has little to do with abortion rights, this ignores the reality that babies are the natural product of sex, and that the kind of relationship between a man and woman is a significant factor in whether or not a child is accepted into their lives. Squires regards the “absence of the words ‘father,’ ‘marriage,’ or ‘husband’ in even the conservative grand vision for family life in America” as problematic, since it means ignoring the cultural and spiritual sickness resulting from a dysfunctional approaches to relationships and family formation.
A Pro-Life Agenda Must Be Pro-Marriage
As Squires notes, “most women seeking abortions are unmarried” – therefore, conservatives should continually highlight marriage and responsible fatherhood as part of their pro-life agenda. Ultimately, people should have caring relationships before they require the distant “care” of government. Leading the pro-life charge with a pro-marriage message, while proving controversial in some quarters, will likely bring clarity to pro-life efforts. It will make urgent the prospect of building up young men and women with the understanding that they together have the capacity to create new life – and therefore a great responsibility to steward their sexuality with prudence. It will clarify to parents the role they have to play if they wish to pass on a truly pro-life outlook to their children: that sexuality is less about sex and more about the human person, relationships, and family life – not what we can take for ourselves, but what we can give to others. When children know that they are gifts to their parents, rather than burdens, it is likely that they will understand and approach sexuality more realistically as well.
A Father and Husband Is A Witness to Life
Fathers have a particular role to play in shaping their children – boys and girls – for responsible sexuality. The foremost way they can do this is by taking responsibility for their paternity in the first place, as opposed to running away out of fear or laziness. Fathers who do take basic responsibility for the upbringing of their children can do so with even greater zeal, day after day, teaching their children through instruction and example what virtuous manhood looks like. Fathers also do this effectively by choosing to be husbands, committing to one woman for life. A truly loving, respectful, self-giving relationship between husband and wife does even more than words can to engender in the child a basic respect for marriage, the differences between men and women, and the basic goodness of life itself. It makes a child feel loved and affirmed to know that his or her parents love each other too. Perhaps so much of the dysfunction young people experience in relationships, which leads so many young single women to seek abortions, could be alleviated by this primal, familial experience of love – and save lives in the process.
