Loved Into Existence

Loved Into Existence
By Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. Dr. Morse gave this speech at Hong Kong Baptist University, April 23, 2011, at a conference of Western and Chinese scholars, entitled The Family and Sexual Ethics: Christian Foundations and Public Values. China is experiencing numerous problems due to family breakdown, including the one child policy, high divorce rates, and an imbalanced sex ratio. This conference was convened because many in China, even in the Academy of Science and in government, are interested in what Christianity has to say about marriage, family, sexuality and society. The conference papers will be translated into Chinese and published in book form. We have been invited here to describe the Christian view of family, love and marriage. I am honoured by the invitation, and somewhat overwhelmed by the task. I will take it as my duty to present the ancient Christian teaching, and show how it might inform our policies of today. First, I will explain what the Church teaches: God loves each and every person into existence, and desires that human beings love the next generation into existence. This means that children should be begotten by their parents within an institutional context of permanent committed love, in other words, in marriage. Second, I show that science supports the broad outline of Christian teaching. The human person is meant for love. Children thrive as
individuals within married households. Society needs people who have developed consciences and self-control. This takes place in childhood, by being in a relationship with a loving adult. The economy and the political system, actually depend on love. Finally, I show what this Christian understanding of the family implies for public policy. Before I begin, I should make one clear distinction. I will be describing the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. I do this for several reasons. First, I am a Roman Catholic, and this is the tradition I know best. Second, nonCatholic Christians may differ from the Catholic Church, and indeed may differ among themselves about some of the points I raise here. Non-Catholic Christians are free to associate themselves with what I say here, as they see fit. I do not want to presume to speak for all Christians of every denomination. I will leave it to each of you, whatever your faith background may be, to associate yourselves with what I say, as you see fit. Indeed, I hope that all of you, Christian and nonChristian alike, will wish to associate yourselves with what some of what I say here. At the very least, I hope you will have gained some respect for the ancient Christian teachings. Part 1: What Christians believe So what is the ancient teaching of Christianity? We believe that God created the universe out of nothing, as an act of pure love. He did not need to create: He is completely sufficient in Himself. But the Divine love among
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078 www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-9278
2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the Ruth Institute.
the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit gushed out into the series of creative acts recorded in Genesis. God declared everything He had created to be good. (Gen 1:10) After the creation of man, God declared His creation to be very good. (Gen 1:31) It is an article of our faith that everything God created is good. God did not create anything evil. Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.... So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Gen 1:26) What does it mean to be created in the image and likeness of God? Christians believe God is love, (1 John 4:8) and that God is a communion of persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To be created in the image of a Trinitarian God, is to be created for love and for communion with others. Because it is not good for man to be alone, God created woman. Upon seeing her, Adam exclaimed, this one at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. (Gen 2:23). Eve is not a clone of Adam, nor is she so different that she is another species. She is like him but not identical with him. Genesis continues, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Gen 2:24) With these words, God created marriage, the first human social institution. He told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, which is the first of His commands. (Gen 1:28)
God created Adam and Eve out of love, and for love. God intended them to love Him and to love one another. But love cannot be coerced. Love must be freely given. Therefore, God created us with the capacity to choose to love or not love. All other choices pale before this basic choice: to love or not to love. It is the unbroken teaching of the Catholic Church, that God created us with freedom. With that great gift of freedom comes the possibility of choosing wrongly, of choosing against the love of God. And that is exactly what our first parents did. The serpent convinced them that You shall be as gods, if they choose against Gods one simple rule not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Gen 3:5) Of course, they became no such things as gods. We men and women are not gods, but creatures of God. The story of the Fall of Man in Genesis says that sin came into the world through the misuse of human freedom. And this continues to be the story of the human race. We are created very good by God. But we choose not according to the deep and unending love that He has for us. Instead, like petulant children intent on getting our own way, we choose our immediate desires over our deepest needs. Then we lie to ourselves. We try to squirm out of it, by blaming others, just as Adam tried to blame Eve, and Eve tried to blame the serpent. Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand. But God cannot be fooled. He understood that Adam and Eve had made a fundamental choice to try to go it alone. His love continued:
He didnt destroy them or the world He had made. He permitted them to go their way. The human race continued in existence, and continued to have responsibility for creation. God never abandoned them, nor ceased loving them and their children. Human Love in the Divine Plan Human love is part of the divine plan. God, the author of all life, could have created us differently than He did. He could perform an act of special creation with each and every new person, without requiring any human participation at all. But as a matter of fact, in the world in which we actually live, the sexual act between a man and a woman can bring forth new life. Human participation in procreation is part of an act of love between the man and the woman. The love of human parents for each other gushes over into the creation of a new life, just as the divine love within the Trinity gushed forth into the creation of the world. It is also a simple matter of fact that we cannot completely control the creation of new life. The creation of a new human being requires the cooperation between man, woman and God. There is a random element to every act of intercourse. Even artificial reproductive technology, which seems to be the ultimate in human control over procreation, has a large random element to it. It has been said that random acts are Gods way of remaining anonymous. But I dont think that description does justice to Gods participation in the creation of new life.
Gods part in the creation of new life is always love. A man and woman may conceive a child by accident, or through rape. They may conceive a child in a drunken stupor or in the back seat of a car. They may conceive a child without having any relationship with each other at all, using artificial means. But Gods participation is always love. No matter what our motives or behaviour, no matter how careless or violent or unjust or unprepared we may be, Gods participation in the process is always love. God loves each and every child conceived, no matter how they were conceived. Therefore, no matter what wrong we may have done, we must never regret the child that results. God loves the child and wills his or her existence. This view of love in the Divine Plan, provides great hope and imposes great responsibility. Each of us can know that God wills our existence. This can be a source of great hope for those of us who have had conflicts or disappointments with our parents. No matter how disappointing our human parents may be, no matter how flawed they are, no matter how selfish and unloving they may be, we can know that God loved us into being. We Christians are not so naive as to believe that every pair of human parents loves us like God loves us, or loves us as God would want them to. We know full well from our own experience that some parents do not bring their children into being in the fullness of love as God intended. We are all too aware that some of our parents love for one another dissolved or never
existed, and even that their love for us dissolved or never existed. In spite of the sins of our parents, we can be confident that God loves each of us into existence. From the childs perspective, this belief is certainly a source of comfort and hope. From the adults point of view, however, the situation is a little more complicated. Believing that God wants us to love as He loves imposes some serious obligations on us. The human sexual act was designed by God, as something similar to, but more than animal reproduction. As far as I know, our species is the only one that copulates face to face. As far as I know, our species is the only one in which the female is willing and able to participate in sex, even when she is not fertile or in heat. These observable facts from the natural world point to the idea that we participate in procreating through love. God wants our participation in the sexual act to take place inside marriage. Getting married places the couple in a position to be relationally prepared for parenthood. Their relationship will be the foundation for their childs life. By getting married, they make themselves ready for a child, even if they are poor in material things. I know of a young man who became a father as an unmarried teenager. Many American men in his situation would have left the girlfriend to become a single mother, or would have encouraged her to get an abortion. But this young man married his girlfriend. They were poor in material terms. When the baby was born,
they had no special crib or equipment for the baby. They brought her home from the hospital, and had her sleep in a drawer of a dresser that they had lined with blankets. Their love for their baby and for each other was more important than their prosperity. They now have four lovely daughters. By getting married, the man and woman also pledge to a love that is greater than mere emotion or sentimentality. They vow to permanence and sexual exclusivity, promising to foreswear all others. They promise to share the whole of their lives, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do they part. This love is consummated in the sexual act, in which the two become one flesh. We often chafe at these obligations. Yet in the civilizations shaped by Christianity, people have come to see that living up to these responsibilities is a great adventure, and worth the effort. God wants us to love our children into existence, as a by-product of loving our spouses. How science is consistent with the ancient Christian teachings Now after all this theology and philosophy, you may be astonished by my next move. I am going to show that science now substantiates many of the important claims that Christianity has been making since the beginning. Let me begin with the most basic. The human person is meant for love.
The human person is meant for love: sexual attachment Since we have been talking about sex, lets start with that. Men and women attach to each other, through the sexual act. Men secrete vasopressin, which creates a feeling of bonding. This hormone is sometimes called the monogamy hormone, because higher levels of it are associated with greater loyalty in some kinds of animals. This hormone helps to counteract the male tendency to pursue multiple sex partners. 1 When women are being sexual, we secrete a hormone called oxytocin. This hormone creates feelings of attachment, relaxation and contentment. Our levels of oxytocin surge during sexual activity, childbirth and nursing. The title of one of the early papers on this subject tells the story, The Role of Oxytocin Reflexes in Three Interpersonal Reproductive Acts: Coitus, Birth and Breastfeeding.2 A
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womans body responds to these communitybuilding acts. The flood of oxytocin increases her desire for further touch with both her mate and her child. The hormone itself connects her to her child and her childs father. We tend to attach to the man we are being sexual with. We also secrete oxytocin when we are nursing our babies. The sexual act itself creates an involuntary chemical commitment. Becoming one flesh is not so easily undone as getting a divorce from our husbands or moving out from our boyfriends. We often experience significant attachments to our sex partners, long after reason would have told us to move on. You could say this is natures way of creating a family. Or you could say that this is Gods way of writing our need and capacity for love into the human body itself. The human person is meant for love: infant attachment Lets turn now to the most universal of all human experiences: infancy. The human infant is born helpless and dependent. It is worth noticing that this is not true of all animals. Some species are born more or less ready for life: snakes hatch and slither away from their parents. But human infants have a long period of dependency before they are prepared for adult life.
The Alchemy of Love and Lust, by Theresa L. Crenshaw, (New York: Simon and Schuster, Pocket Books, 1997), pg. 94; 102106. Matt Ridley, Nature via Nurture:Genes, Experience and What Makes us Human, (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), pg. 42-46. 2 Niles Newton, The Role of the Oxytocin Reflexes in Three Interpersonal Children who are abandoned by their Reproductive Acts, Clinical families often end up in orphanages. Their psychoneuroendocrinology in reproduction, experience reveals some things about human L. Carenza, P. Pancheri, and L. Zichells,eds. development we might otherwise overlook. (New York: Academic Press, 1978) pp. 411Children who are deprived of human contact 18. (Cited in Crenshaw, pg.97.) Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078 www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-9278
during infancy sometimes fail to gain weight, or to develop. This failure to thrive syndrome is well documented. Some scientists now believe that the presence of a nurturing figure stimulates the growth hormones.3 All the bodily, material needs of the child are met in these orphanages. The child is kept warm and dry. The child is fed, perhaps by having a bottle propped into the crib. The child contracts no identifiable illness. Yet the child fails to thrive, and may even die. The widely accepted explanation is that the children die from lack of human contact. 4 Their plight is reminiscent of the monkeys that are deprived of their mothers. The baby monkeys who just get food and no mommy develop some weird behaviors, head-banging,
rocking and other forms of self-stimulation. Orphanage babies sometimes do this too. 5 The human childs brain is not fully developed before birth: if it were, the infants head would be too big to make it down the birth cannel without harming the mother. So the brain continues to develop after birth. The brain has three basic parts, the reptilian brain or the brain stem, the cerebral cortex and the limbic brain. The brain stem governs basic biological functions and runs pretty much on auto-pilot. The cerebral cortex is the part of the brain that does algebra and balances check books and plays chess. The limbic brain governs the persons ability to be in relationship, to intuit peoples emotions, and read peoples faces. And it is the limbic brain that develops in the first year after birth, by being in a relationship with the mother. The limbric brain is unique to mammals, and allows us to have the kind of social life that is unique to animals whose young are born alive, and dependent. The
This syndrome is known as the Kaspar Hauser syndrome, or psychosocial dwarfism. See Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry/VI, Vol.2, Sixth Edition, Harold I Kaplan, M.D. and Benjamin J. Sadock, M.D., Editors, (Baltimore: Williams 5 and Wilkins.) See Chapter 40, and sections Deborah Blum, Love at Goon Park: 43.3, 47.3. Harry Harlow and the Science of 4 See Ibid, Section 43.3, Reactive Affection, (Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, Attachment Disorder of Infancy or Early 2002), especially pg. 214, where John Childhood. The locus classicus is the work Bowlby tells Harry Harlow, Harry, I dont of John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss. know what your problem is. I have seen Vol. 1: Attachment, (New York: Basic more psychopathy in those single cages than Books, 1969). Also, Mary Ainsworth, Mary Ive seen anywhere on the face of the earth. Blehar, Everett Waters and Sally Wall, The monkeys were sucking themselves, Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological rocking back and forth, cuddling their own Study of the Strange Situation, (New bodies. Youve got some crazy animals. Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1978). Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078 www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-9278
limbic brain is the part of our physiology that controls our bodily responses to other people. This is the part of the brain allows us to respond to touch, proximity, and other peoples emotions. This is the part of the brain that makes a hug feel good. It is this part of the brain that makes watching a movie in a crowded theater a different, more intense experience than watching it at home by yourself. The close contact with all those other people makes the scary parts scarier, the funny parts funnier, and the exciting parts more thrilling. The responses of the limbic brain make physical contact with other people a healing experience. This is why bringing pets into nursing homes and hospitals can help sick people get better. The sick people pet the animals, and talk to the trainers. Both those forms of contact can help people feel better. The limbic brain allows us to read other peoples feelings. Our brains are capable of responding to the emotions of other mammals. We can look at each other and sense whether another person is angry, happy or fearful. These basic facial expressions are remarkably invariant across cultures. We can read many of the same cues among other mammals. 6 This is why we prefer mammals for pets.
for the baby, and his relationship to his mother. The human brain is so large compared with the rest of our bodies that it is not fully developed before birth. If our brains were fully developed in utero, our heads would be too big to make it out of the birth canal without killing our mothers. Much of the development of the limbic brain takes place after birth. The limbic brain develops in response to being in a relationship with the mother. We can see the physiological impact of the relationship between and infant and his mother by looking at other mammals, as well as at the behavior of humans. Infant mammals have a predictable pattern of reactions to separation from their mothers. The babies first go through a protest phase, and then a despair phase, after a prolonged separation. Each of these phases can be easily observed. And the physiological attributes associated with these phases can be readily measured. 7 In the protest phase, the youngsters cry out, run around and search for their missing mommy. A scientist or lab technician can measure more subtle, but hardly surprising responses. The babys heart rate increases. So does his body temperature. His little body
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A General Theory of Love, by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, Here is the part that is really important (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 2001), pp. 77-78; Deborah Blum, Love at 6 A General Theory of Love, by Thomas Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, Science of Affection, (Cambridge: Perseus (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, Publishing, 2002), Chapter 8, The Baby in 2001), pp. 39-40. the Box. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078 www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-9278
produces elevated levels of cortisol, the bodys stress hormone, and elevated levels of catecholamine, an adrenaline-like hormone that increases alertness. The baby can not sustain this heightened level of alertness and tension indefinitely. If the mother is absent long enough, the infant enters the despair phase. He stops running around crying for his mommy. He may slouch, huddle himself and look sad. The scientist observer discovers that the infants heart rate and body temperature decrease. His consumption of oxygen decreases, his immune system is impaired, his sleep rhythms change. His little body produces less growth hormones. This is why children raised in orphanages or who have prolonged hospital stays lose weight, and fail to grow, no matter what their caloric intake. This is the physiological source of the failure to thrive syndrome, also called hospitalism by its discoverer, Rene Spitz. 8 The good news is that most people can be reasonably good parents, just by doing the ordinary things that literally, come naturally. Rocking the baby, feeding the baby, looking at the baby, imitating their little noises, bouncing them on your knee, all these things help develop the limbic system of the brain.
A relationship is in part, a physiological event. In the process of rocking the baby, feeding the baby, looking at the baby, responding to the baby, the mother is helping the babys limbric brain to continue its development. This is probably why the problems of the little orphanage children are so persistent. These kids are completely deprived of either a mother or even a mother substitute. They are not only psychologically damaged, but their brain development has been hampered as well. In fact, some physicians have defined a new syndrome to describe the complex of symptoms these kids have. The doctors call it institutional autism. 9 When an infant is born, he or she is looking for someone: their mother. When the mother returns the childs gaze, she is helping the child to make sense of the world. She is also helping the brain itself to develop. The brain begins to make the neural connections that allow the child to make the human connections with others. But if the child is looking out into the world and no one looks back at him or her, the brain does not develop properly In other words, the human infants physical and mental well-being depends upon their being loved. Hence, my claim: science is consistent
Ronald S. Federici, Help for the Hopless Child: A Guide for Families (With Special 8 A General Theory of Love, by Thomas Discussion for Assessing and Treating the Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, Post-Institutionalized Child), Second (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, Edition, (Alexandria VA: Ronald Federici 2001), pp. 79-80. and Associates: 2003). Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078 www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-9278
with the ancient Christian teaching that the human person is indeed meant for love. Or consider another possible disastrous outcome for the badly neglected child: attachment disorder. When infants experience an episode of neediness, they cannot solve their problem themselves. They cry out for help. In the ordinary course of an ordinary childs life, someone comes to help them, to feed them, to hold them, to change their diaper, to play with them. Every time the mother does this, she is building up the childs internal and unspoken sense that the world is a safe place, that he deserves to live, and that he can safely entrust himself to others. But for the badly neglected child, no one comes. The orphan cries out, no one comes. The child of a drug addicted or otherwise preoccupied mother cries out, no one comes. Eventually, these children stop crying. They stop asking for help. They turn inward on themselves. They trust no one. In the worst case scenario, the seriously attachment disordered child never develops a conscience. We often think of conscience development as the process of children learning right from wrong. But that is actually one of the last steps in a very complex process. Children dont begin with abstract concepts. Moral development starts with something as simple as My mother will punish me if she sees me doing X. Then, my mother will punish me if she finds out after the fact that I have done X. The process advances to My mother wont like it if I do X. And then, My mother might find out,
and if she finds out, she will be disappointed. Then I will be disappointed in myself if I do X. And finally, Im not the kind of person who even thinks about doing X. At this stage, the person has a fully mature conscience. They have internalized the voice of the parent. No one needs to try to control them. They control themselves. But for this process to get started, the child must have a loving adult present in their lives, someone whose good opinion matters to them. The conscience is the voice of the loving parent, a voice the child internalized long before he or she was capable of giving reasons or explanations for anything. And the child without a conscience, the attachment disordered child, is a social problem. This is a child who only responds to threats and punishments, carrots and sticks. The parent can never turn his or her back on such a child. Of course, as the child gets older, you cannot watch him or her constantly. A four year old, you can pick up and carry out of trouble. For a fourteen year old, you cannot. These are children who will lie, cheat and steal if they can get away with it. As they age, they become more and more scary, and more and more expensive to supervise. Ultimately, these are the sociopaths of society, the remorseless criminals. Society depends on people having consciences. The system of economic markets depends on people keeping their promises and contracts, and cooperating with each other. The market is one giant system of mutual cooperation.
That is why it is no exaggeration to say that the economic order requires love. The love of the parents for the infant motivates them to give far more than they receive directly in return. The parents make the generous first move required to begin the process of mutual cooperation. Infants grow into children who are willing to give in return, to cooperate, to restrain themselves, to trust. Without the vast majority of people having these skills, the market order is not likely to last long. The economic realm, which appears to be comprised of impersonal exchanges of material objects among strangers, is actually based upon love.10 Unmarried families are a financial burden to the state. The break-up of families, or the failure to form families, also leads to an expansion of state expenditure. Children from disrupted families do worse than the children of intact married couple households in virtually every
way.11 Children are more likely to have physical and mental health problems. Even accounting for income, fatherless boys are more likely to be aggressive12 and to ultimately become incarcerated. 13 A recent British study offers tantalizing hints about the possibility that the children of single mothers are more likely to
For useful summaries, see Do Moms and Dads Matter? Evidence from the Social Sciences on Family Structure and the Best Interests of the Child, Maggie Gallagher and Joshua Baker, Margins, 4:161-180, 2004; Marriage from a Childs Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children and What Can We Do About It? Kristen Anderson Moore, Susan M. Jekielek and Carol Emig, Child Trends Research Brief, June 2002; Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-up World, Jennifer Roback Morse, (Dallas, TX: Spence Publishing, 2005). Household Family Structure and Childrens Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children, Nancy Vaden-Kiernan, Nicholas S. Ialongo, Jane Pearson and Sheppard Kellan, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 23(5) 553-568, (1995) Father Absence and Youth Incarceration, Cynthia C. Harper and Sara S. McLanahan, Journal of Research on Adolescence, 14(3) 369397 (2004).
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Jennifer Roback Morse, Love and Economics (San Marcos, CA: Ruth Institute Books, 2009) pg 57. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078 www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-9278
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become schizophrenic. 14 And an extensive study of family structure in Sweden took account of the mental illness history of the parents, as well as socio-economic status. Yet even in the most generous welfare state in the world, with very accepting attitudes toward unmarried parenthood, the children of single parents faced double the risk of psychiatric disease, suicide attempts, and substance abuse.15 All these issues are expensive to the taxpayer, through health care, special education services, mental health services, substance abuse recovery, or the criminal justice system. All of these social pathologies are expensive to the taxpayer and painful to the individuals. A couple of recent studies calculated the taxpayer costs of family breakdown. One American study, prepared by the National Fatherhood Institute, announces its conclusion in its title: The One Hundred Billion Dollar Man.16 This
is their estimate of the taxpayer costs of fatherless. Another study, by the Institute for American Values, using slightly different methodology, concludes that the total annual cost of fatherlessness to federal, state and local taxpayers amounted to $112 billion.17 At the time this study was done, this amount, $112 billion, was the equivalent of the GDP of New Zealand. Speaking of New Zealand, the taxpayer cost of family breakdown there has been calculated to be around $1 Billion, or about $300 per year per taxpayer.18 Likewise, in the UK, family failure costs the government about 41.74 billion. This means failed relationships cost each current UK taxpayer 1,364 a year.19 In Canada,
Einolf, (Washington D.C.: National Fatherhood Initiative, 2008).

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The Taxpayer Cost of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-ever Estimates 14 for the Nation and All Fifty States, Schizophrenia much more likely in children of Benjamin Scafidi, (New York: Georgia single parents, Sarah Hall, UK Guardian, Family council and Institute for American November 2, 2006. Values, 2008). 18 The Value of Family: Fiscal Benefits of 15 Mortality, severe morbidity and injury in Marriage And Reducing Family Breakdown children living with single parents in Sweden: a in New Zealand, Report to Family First, population-based study, Gunilla Ringback New Zealand, October 2008, available onWeitoft, Anders Hjern, Bengt Haglund, Mans line: Rosen, The Lancet, 361(9354) (January 25, http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/files/docs/nz% 2003). 20report%20executive%20summary.pdf 19 David Wong, Counting the Cost of 16 The One Hundred Billion Dollar Man: Family Failure: 2011 Update; (Cambridge: The Annual Public Costs of Father Relationship Institute, 2011.) available onAbsence, Steven L. Nock, Christopher J. line: Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078 www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-9278
family breakdown costs the government about $7 Billion per year.20 These observations support the wisdom of the ancient Christian teaching that sex and childbearing belong within marriage. The alternatives to marriage are expensive to the taxpayer, as well as being a source of great unhappiness for individuals. Family breakdown burdens the government with trivial matters. The American experience with no-fault divorce illustrates that the dissolution of marriage involves the state in trivial family matters. This section of the talk may be somewhat surprising to a Chinese audience, because your society may very well have different ways of dealing with the problems I am about to discuss. Nevertheless, I think this discussion of the American experience with changing divorce laws will illustrate an important general point. In 1968, California removed the fault basis for divorce. The old rule had been that a couple could get a divorce, only in the case of
some marital fault, usually desertion, adultery or cruelty. No-fault divorce means that one person can get a divorce for any reason, or no reason. Presented to the public as a great expansion of personal liberty, no-fault divorce has led to an increase in the power of the government over individual private lives. That is because no-fault divorce frequently means unilateral divorce: one party wants a divorce against the wishes of the other, who wants to stay married. Therefore, the divorce has to be enforced. The coercive machinery of the state is wheeled into action to separate the reluctantly divorced party from the joint assets of the marriage, typically the home and the children. Family courts tell fathers how much money they have to spend on their children, and how much time they get to spend with them. Courts tell mothers whether they can move away from their childrens father. Courts rule on whether the fathers attendance at a Little League game, a public event that anyone can attend, counts toward his visitation time. Courts rule on which parent gets to spend Christmas Day with the children, down to and including the precise time of day they must turn the child over to the other parent. I have ever heard of a judge deciding what dress a teenage girl should wear to a dance. The estranged parents could not agree.
http://www.relationshipsfoundation.org/Web /OnlineStore/Product.aspx?ID=132 20 Private Choices, Public Costs: How Failing Families Affect Us All, Rebecca Walberg and Andrea Mrozek, (Ottawa: Involving the family court in the minutiae of Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, family life is hardly the behavior of an efficient 2009) Available on-line: modern state. In America at least, there is no http://www.imfcanada.org/article_files/Cost other agent of the government that we permit to %20of%20Family%20Breakdown%20final intervene in peoples private business, so HR.pdf Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078 www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-9278
intimately, so frequently, and so routinely. The activities of the family courts amount to an blurring of the boundaries between public and private life. People under the jurisdiction of the family courts can have virtually all of their private lives subject to its scrutiny. 21 Thus, the social experiment of no-fault divorce, which was accepted as an expansion of personal liberty has resulted in an unprecedented intrusion of the state into the private lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens. These observations too, support the wisdom of the ancient Christian teaching that sex and childbearing belong within marriage. The social experiment of no-fault divorce, which was accepted as an expansion of personal liberty has resulted in an unprecedented intrusion of the state into the private lives of ordinary, lawabiding citizens. Even the phenomenon of teen pregnancy can be better understood when viewed through the Christian lens. We believe the human person is meant for love. This helps us understand that many out of wedlock teen pregnancies are not really unplanned. In fact, some girls get pregnant precisely because they want to be loved. The sexual experience is for them, not so much a result of lust, but of the desire to be loved by their boyfriends. Some girls get Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage and the Family, Stephen Baskerville, (Nashville, TN: Cumberland House Publishing, 2007).
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pregnant because they believe that their babies will fill an empty hole in their hearts with love. Conclusion: What we ought to do This is what we believe: God loves each of us into existence, and wants us to participate in His creative process through love. I hope that this analysis helps you understand the Christian teaching about many policy areas that are now considered controversial. Why sex outside of marriage is so often so deeply disappointing, even if it is safely contracepted. How marriage itself prepares the couple for parenthood. Why marriage is properly permanent and exclusive. Why conception outside the womb is an act of injustice. Why Christians consider abortion a heinous crime. These beliefs impose obligations on us, obligations which sometimes feel onerous. Those of you who are not Christian may sometimes look upon us with scepticism: is it really possible to live the way Christians advocate? And even for those of us who are Christian, living the lifestyle may seem daunting. All too often, we know what we are supposed to do and to think, but we cannot completely explain why. Living up to the challenge of the full Christian teaching will be very difficult, if we do not understand the reason for that teaching. In the United States at least, I can say for sure that a great many Christians do not meet the challenge. This is partly because
they do not fully understand the depth and beauty of the reasoning behind it. At the center of the universe, is a deep abiding love. We are called to be part of it. We are not ashamed to believe this. We invite everyone to accept the challenge to live as if we are loved into existence. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is an economist and the Founder and President of the Ruth Institute, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to bringing hope and encouragement for lifelong married love. She is also the author of 77 Non-Religious Reasons to Support Man/Woman Marriage, Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village and Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World.

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Einolf, (Washington D.C.: National Fatherhood Initiative, 2008).

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