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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, president of the Ruth Institute, speaking at a
symposium, "Demography and Public Policy: Can the Right Policy Mix
Reverse Family Breakdown?" with New York Times columnist David Brooks
(L), Dr. Charles Murray (R), the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute, and Dr. Allan Carlson (far right), president of
The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, Dec. 7, 2012,
Washington, D.C.
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By Napp Nazworth, Christian Post
Reporter; December 11, 2012|8:58 am
There is not a "war on
women," but there is a "war on women's fertility," Dr. Jennifer
Roback Morse, an economist and president of the Ruth Institute, believes.
Rather than view fertility as a problem to be solved, Morse argued Friday,
fertility should be viewed as a gift from God. Colleges and labor markets
should, therefore, adjust to the biological needs of women.
In a search for equality, Morse
insisted, women have been trying to fit themselves into a work/life cycle
developed for the male body. Instead, she said women should demand that the
education system and labor markets adjust to needs of the female body. Namely,
by recognizing that women's peak fertility is in their early 20s.
Morse delivered her remarks at a
symposium hosted by The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in
Washington, D.C., called, "Demography and Public Policy: Can the Right
Policy Mix Reverse Family Breakdown?" She was accompanied by Dr. Allan
Carlson, president of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, who
spoke about public policies aimed at reversing the declines in marriage and
birth rates.
Economic studies have long held,
Morse explained, that gender wage differences are mostly due to marriage and
children, not workplace discrimination. Comparing single women to single men,
there is no wage difference, or, in some professions women are paid more.
Marriage and children, though, tends to have a negative impact on women's wages
and a positive impact on men's wages. The reason, Morse said, is that when men
get married and have children they become more focused on workplace performance
and when women get married and have children they become more focused on caring
for the children.
In the typical male career path most
of the demands are placed early in the career. For women, though, this is the
best time to have and raise kids. When women follow the typical male career
path, they are past their peak fertility by the time they feel secure enough in
their careers to have children.
"Highly-educated women have
defined their goal as equal participants in a labor market designed for people
who don't give birth," Morse said.
This has led women to participate in
highly invasive procedures to adapt to the typical male-defined career path.
"We are allowed to participate
in a labor market, and in education, as long as we agree to chemically neuter
ourselves during our peak child bearing years. When our children are the
smallest and most vulnerable, we agree to place them in commercial care, that
is if we're lucky to have any children. And if we're unable to conceive when
we're finally ready, professionally and financially, we agree to submit our
bodies to the trauma of artificial reproductive technology, including the over
stimulation of our ovaries," Morse explained.
Alternatively, Morse described a
potential career path designed for a female body this way: "Go to college
for a liberal, not a vocational, education. Get married. Have your kids. Let
your husband support you. It won't kill him, or you. Then go back to school,
maybe, for an advanced degree after the kids are grown. Go to work. Then help
support the kid's college in your joint retirement. And since we women live
longer than men, we can be working longer than they are and let them relax a
little bit."
Morse said she is not opposed to and
finds nothing objectionable with women choosing not to have children. She also
believes, though, that a pro-woman policy would insist that the education
system and labor markets adapt to the needs of women who do not want to delay
childbirth.
Morse provided several anecdotes,
along with the empirical evidence, demonstrating that society views fertility
as a problem to be solved rather than a gift to be embraced.
The Department of Health and Human
Services' recent birth control mandate, requiring employers to provide birth
control in their health plans, for instance, referred to birth control as
"preventative care." The implication, Morse said, is that pregnancy
is a disease or illness.
"I deeply resent the
implication that the normal healthy functioning of my body is considered an
illness," Morse implored. "The mandate itself is offensive and is
evidence of a war against women's fertility."
Morse also complained that Medicaid,
a government health insurance program for the poor, has many anti-fertility
policies. Contraception is required, for instance, by program participants and
made available to minors without parental consent.
Morse does "not accept that
government has an interest in directing the fertility of poor people because
there are too many." Indeed, Morse views the anti-fertility policies as an
admission to the moral and fiscal failures of the welfare system.
"Change welfare policies to
make them more sustainable and compassionate," Morse said, and "stop
viewing the children of the poor as a problem for policy makers to solve by
preventing their existence."
Morse also appealed to her Christian
faith in defense of her position.
The typical secular feminist
viewpoint, Morse said, replaced stability in marriage with stability in the
workplace, and resents sex differences, "viewing them as some kind of
cosmic injustice."
"Modern secularists insist that
love, sex and reproduction be separated from each other for the sake of making
men and women equal. But that view places men and women at odds with each other
and encourages us to use one another – men using women for sex and women using
men as combination sperm banks and wallets," Morse complained.
The Judeo-Christian tradition offers
an alternative vision, Morse claimed.
"The Judeo-Christian vision insists
that marriage is the proper context for both sexual activity and child rearing.
The man's sexual desire for woman turns his love toward her. Christianity
insists that he love his wife as Christ loves the Church, which is to say,
completely self-emptying, self-giving love. His love for his wife builds upon
and reinforces their love for their children that they have together, and the
woman's desire for children turns her heart toward her children. Love, sex and
child bearing are integrated under the umbrella of marriage."
Before founding the Ruth Institute,
Morse taught at Yale University and George Mason
University and was a
research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Acton Institute.
article continues here
UPDATE TO ARTICLE
The following update was sent to me by a friend, who had originally sent the article to me. It reads as follows:
"One clarification: I spoke via e-mail with Dr. Morse (the
speaker in this article) to clarify one sentence appearing about mid-way
through the article. The sentence reads as follows:
"Morse said she is not opposed to and finds nothing
objectionable with women choosing not to have children."
I found this statement to be vague and a possible approval for married women to
choose to avoid having children, although I assumed that this was not Dr.
Morse’s perspective. When queried, she understood my concern and assured me in
her e-mail reply that the description of her views should not be summarized
that way, because she realizes that no one should practice contraception per
se, so perhaps the author of this article could have more clearly stated Dr.
Morse’s position as:
"Morse is not opposed to and finds nothing objectionable to women
choosing to remain single and thus not having children."
