pro life movement leads to rise in single parents

[lilah]

Not breaking the link since it's slate. Very interesting article about how the prolife movement has spawned increasing rates of single parents

http://mobile.slate.com/articles/double ... _moms.html

[greek_chorus]

I read this yesterday and thought the authors made several good points. Unfortunately, I think the implications of this are going to be lost on the people who need to read it the most. I also wonder what the numbers would look like like if women in Red states had the same access to safe abortions as women in Blue states. Mississippi only has one abortion clinic in the entire state. When your access to healthcare is limited the number of choices open to you become drastically more limited.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Reaction #1: Well, DUH!

Reaction #2: Bang-on observation, first seen in Red States, Blue States.

Reaction #3: The corollary is that many in the pro-choice movement can be surprisingly conservative/traditional in their views of childbearing, in that there is a very common view that children should be planned and be born to parents who are in a stable, committed relationship and who have the means to provide for them. It's safe to say that among most of my non-Orthodox friends, premarital sex wasn't a big deal but a teen pregnancy resulting in a birth would have been seen as something positive.

I wouldn't be surprised if single parents find more initial acceptance in pro-life circles and fundie-lite churches. If so, that's a challenge for those of us who are pro-choice.

[Anise]

It does seem rather obvious, but the implications of it are rather amazing.

If my mother is any example, most conservatives are still of the thinking that young people should have shotgun weddings as in the past. Rising non-marital birthrate? Lalalalala!

[MyNameIsJonas]

I think this is interesting when you consider some of the pro-life Facebook pages talked about here. Many of those young women are firmly pro-life, don't believe in birth control, probably had very poor (or no) sexual education or even basic public education, and then ended up having a baby in their teens (with a man who is either not there or detached from the relationship.) They end up alone with their babies in a miserable situation. The fanaticism over pro-life does nothing to solve the problems associated with poor sexual education, pre-marital sex when people are young (like high school age) and offers no solutions or resources for these young women besides, "Here are some formula coupons."

[2xx1xy1JD]

Not sure how to edit here - the last line of my prev post should have said that in the overwhelmingly pro-choice community in which I grew up, premarital sex wasn't a big deal but a teen pregnancy would NOT have been seen as something positive.

I'm wondering if there are emerging trends and divisions as follows:

Fundie-lite: will it be made up of ever-increasing numbers of single parents? Will it be seen as the most welcoming and least judgmental place for single parents to be (since there is more active outreach than mainline churches, there would be more single parents, the decision to become a single parent over choosing abortion would be applauded and there would be less judgment about being unprepared for parenthood, plus there's a religious doctrine about being born-again and wiping away previous sins)?

Hard-core fundie: Will they grow increasingly strict, and justify the rules by pointing not only to "the world" in general, but also to the more liberal fundies and noting the large numbers of single parents? Will the message be, "if you don't homeschool and wear frumpers, but think that faith in Jesus is enough, your daughters may also end up pregnant before the end of high school"?

[debrand]

In Red Families v. Blue Families, we pointed out the irony that blue states, despite their relatively progressive politics, have lower divorce and teen birthrates than red states. In fact the college-educated middle class, partly by postponing having children, had managed to better embody the traditional ideal: that is, a greater percentage of children being raised in two-parent families.

How ironic. Sometimes I think that we'd all be better off if the red states really did just separate from the blue.