The problem of the fatherless child II - social policy on illegitimacy - On The Right - Column

National Review, March 11, 1996 by Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 9

We pursue the social problem of one million children per year born into fatherless homes and review some of the letters from hundreds of readers who wrote in to make suggestions on how to deal with a problem that began its steep rise approximately in 1965. And many ask, Why ought it not to be a crime to father a child out of wedlock?

Indeed. It's a crime to drive when one has had too much to drink, though the statistical chances the driver will hurt somebody when his blood alcohol is 0.1 are less than that he will have hurt the child he sired. Two out of five black men in Washington, D.C., between the ages of 18 and 25 are in jail, on probation, or being prosecuted, in an area in which over 75 per cent of black children are born to an unmarried mother.

A fair question.

Several respondents remind us that there are laws against statutory rape. But the paradox is that if you have sex with a girl under 18 you can be jailed in most states, but if you have sex with a girl under 18 who becomes pregnant, the organically required 'rape' dematerializes. And over 30 per cent of the fatherless children are born to mothers under twenty.

The indignation, resentment, and scorn came in profusely, and from the tenor of most letters one could discern that they were not written by censorious temperaments. A great many wondered what has happened to the primary sanction against illegitimacy in the past, which has been shame. Shame before God, yes, but also before the community. 'She has to feel the pain of society's anger and disapproval of her irresponsible, selfish act. Pain hurts, there's a recoiling reaction to it.' 'Bring back the old stocks of the Puritan times . . . Wrongdoers could go to work and support their families but when not at their places of employment spend so many hours a day on public exhibition.'

Some call for compulsory national service for the father, penal in character . . . Yes, deny them what most desire intensely, a driver's license . . . Some would make the father the legal custodian of the child, taking the mother for special training.

Several decry the failure of black leaders sufficiently to emphasize the terrible damage done by wanton sex. 'If thirty years ago I were a Ku Klux Klan leader who would want to do major damage to blacks, I would invent the welfare system.'

Many favor biological intervention. Norplants, vasectomies, tubal ligations. Many caution against the facile alternative of abortions, but some, including self-professed Catholics, argue that abortion under the circumstances is merciful . . . Why not move against the lubricity of the rock and roll culture, by such measures as advocated by Senator Dole? Or, 'Establish public brothels in strategic areas where illegitimacy is most prevalent.'

The proffered approaches depended heavily on what respondents saw as the primary cause of the blight. The blame is, for some, primarily that of the government (welfare, lax law enforcement, the improper use of tax revenues). For others, the culture -- the movies, TV, rap music, pornography, ultra-feminism, divorce. And for others the evanescence of the idea of -- Sin.

'There is only one solution, and you know what it is. The moral law of the Supreme Being.' 'The deterrents you outlined in your column? You called them the equivalent of Pentagon contingency plans to invade Switzerland: i.e., they're not going to happen. You're right. The sad fact is that the one major success the liberals have had is the destruction of the family during the last 30 years. What worked for the first 190 years in this country is no longer possible or even worth writing about. The family is the basic unit of our society and it has a cancer. And yet the components of the cancer -- illegitimacy, promiscuity, adultery, increased divorce, homosexuality -- are accepted as 'lifestyles' and even exalted. . . . '

I reiterate my thanks to the 800 plus who wrote in. The research in hand will be made available to any responsible researcher or research organization willing to bear the cost of reproduction.