Catastrophic stat: 4 out of 10 births out of wedlock

By Bryan Fischer

Government health officials reported last week that out-of-wedlock births have climbed to an all-time high of 37%, largely due to a dramatic rise in births among unwed mothers in their 20s. Although births to teenage mothers actually declined to the lowest level on record, the U.S. still has the teen birth rate among all the industrialized nations in the world. Out-of-wedlock births have been rising steadily since the late 1990s.

To make matters worse, fathers are rarely present in the homes of these unwed mothers. About 20 percent of teenage mothers were living with the father at the time of birth, while only 13 percent of new mothers ages 20-24 were living with the father.

My friends, this is a catastrophic statistic, and the profound impact of this cultural change cannot be overestimated. One historian concluded, based on his study of civilizations down through recorded history, that every culture whose illegitimacy birth rate exceeded 25% went into inevitable and irreversible decline. It is possible we have passed the tipping point in the U.S., and unless we make dramatic changes in every system in our public life, our society may be doomed to increasing destabilization.

Here are some facts Gary Bauer pointed out last week:

• 35% of children in single parent households live below the poverty level. Cohabitation actually makes it worse, with 40% of children with cohabiting parents living below the poverty level. The percentage of children in married households living below the poverty level — 8%.
  
  
• 11% of children in single parent households were found to have high levels of behavioral and emotional problems, compared to 9% of children with cohabiting parents. The percentage of children with high levels of behavioral and emotional problems in married households — 6%.
  
  
• 23% of kids in single parent households have been suspended or expelled from school in the past 12 months and it's the same for children with cohabiting parents. The percentage of children in married households suspended or expelled from school in the past 12 months — 10%.
  
  

Engineers aboard the Titanic recognized almost immediately after its collision with an iceberg that the ship was doomed to sink because the walls between bulkheads were open at the top, which meant that seawater would inevitably fill one compartment after another until the ship was plunged to certain death. Well, our culture has a gash in the hull, and the seawater is pouring in unabated. By God's grace, it may not be too late to right the ship, but changes must be made and they must be made soon.

Here are some of the changes that must be made:

• Every system in our culture — family, church, government, school, business — must unapologetically affirm that sex should be reserved for marriage — no ifs, ands, or buts — and that marriage is the only relationship in which children should be conceived, brought into the world, and raised to maturity
  
  
• Abstinence-only education must become the exclusive option in our school system; after all, we don't teach a "safe" use message when it comes to drugs or cigarettes;
  
  
• We must reform welfare programs so that we no longer subsidize immorality; having children out-of-wedlock is a result of sexual immorality in 99% of the cases (rape and incest comprising the other 1%), and sexual immorality is still against the law; no benefits should be awarded to couples who flout the law and in so doing endanger the welfare of children
  
  
• Living together apart from marriage and having children out-of-wedlock must again become a matter of social shame and embarrassment — we must care enough about the welfare of children to express public disapproval of behavior that is demonstrably harmful to them
  
  

These sentiments may seem shocking and abrupt. Yet desperate times call for desperate measures, and we must have done with dancing around such issues or finessing them in any way. The motivation for these changes has nothing to do with prudishness or legalism or judgmentalism. Rather, it has everything to do with a commitment to providing optimal nurturing environments for children who are utterly dependent on those who bring them into the world and virtually defenseless if raised in sub-optimal settings.

© Bryan Fischer