Grooms for Life: Marriage to Stop Abortion

Grooms For Life

By Denise Noe

The pro-life movement is, at least in America, allied with conservatism.  This leads to an inevitable contradiction.  Any additional law means more government.  This is especially ironic now that we are about to save taxpayer dollars through welfare reform.

Is there a way to radically decrease abortions without asking the government to do it?  Adoption is often suggested here and that is a good alternative but I think there is another as well.

Marriage.  I am not talking just about a return to the "shotgun marriage"; rather, I think an offer of marriage from a man who is not the father but will assume all the traditional responsibilities of fatherhood would be accepted by many unmarried pregnant women.  The motif of a man proposing marriage to a woman pregnant with another man's child is a common one on soap operas that are a fairly good gauge of female fantasy.  These stories represent the truth that many pregnant women don't really want to abort, and would not, if marriage and commitment were offered to them.

        

Grooms For Life could be facilitated on a practical basis by computerized matching of pro-life single men with unmarried pregnant women interested in carrying to term.  Certainly, the number of Grooms For Life would fall short of the million and a half abortions per year--but the government would be able to ensure birth quite imperfectly as well.  Additionally, female pro-lifers and married men could spend their time recruiting bachelors to their cause so that the screaming demonstrators outside abortion clinics would soon be replaced by swains in bow ties, holding rings and serenading the pregnant women.

Other objections are surely being raised.  Such couples would not be in love, so what chance would their marriages have of succeeding?  It is a peculiarly Western--and modern--idea that says marriage must be based on love. 

        

"Arranged marriages" are still common in many conservative cultures--and their record suggests that romantic love is not the only basis for a lasting marital union. 

        

Pro-life marriages would have major advantages over other unions: the men would know they have done a good deed in saving a baby from abortion and, thus, keenly look forward to the birth; the women would respect the moral sincerity of their new husbands. 

        

A second objection is that if men offer to marry pregnant women to insure the baby's birth, women will deliberately get pregnant in order to nab a pro-life hubby.  This is unlikely.  Most women are quite rational people and will realize that the number of Grooms For Life will not exceed the demand for them.  Additionally, most women are pro-choice and, therefore, will have no incentive to abandon their current practice (whether celibacy, lesbianism, or contraception) in hopes of marrying a pro-lifer.