Very interesting oped piece in today’s New York Times by its token conservative columnist Russ Douthat, Red Family, Blue Family. It uncannily describes what I observe on the other side of my desk talking to husbands, wives and parents about their domestic problems.
When Douthat writes, “Today, couples with college and (especially) graduate degrees tend to cohabit early and marry late, delaying childbirth and raising smaller families than their parents, while enjoying low divorce rates and bearing relatively few children out of wedlock,” he uncannily describes not only my own household but the households of my siblings and most of my friends: classic “Blue Families.” Yet he correctly notes that this family model is predicated upon low regard for pre-marital chastity and easy access to abortion.
In contrast “Red Families” appear more chaotic and unstable but resort to abortion at a much lower rate. Given that many Americans sincerely regard abortion as murder, creating a society that predicates stable family formation upon easy assess to abortion is morally untenable. Yet creating a culture that leads to stable families without this reliance upon abortion is a Gordian Knot I’m not smart enough to untangle.
