The Power of a Pro-Family Agenda

Family policy matters and engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council hi this is John Rustin, presidency, family, and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that you will for better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation, and now here's our house to family policy matters. Tracy Devitt Griggs thanks for joining us this week for family policy matters here at the North Carolina family policy Council is a state nation where God is honored religious freedom flourishes families thrive in life is cherished. We work hard to help lawmakers and citizens craft policies that will help that vision become more of a reality. Recently a group of scholars published a statement of principles offer political leaders all over the country. A sound foundation for a pro-life and profamily agenda following the overturning of Roe V Wade, Patrick T.

Brown, a fellow with the ethics and Public policy Center just today to discuss this statement, which is entitled envisioning a pro family policy agenda statement of principles.

Patrick Brown, welcome back to family policy matters sees the statement as a response to the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe V Wade, how did that Dobbs decision the summer create an opening or perhaps a necessity for a statement like this the movement to orient our politics in a more profamily direction has obviously been going on as you all have been on the ground floor and other groups as well. There's always been this movement to try to see where we can be strengthening families, not just as cultural institutions. But as economic ones as well. Those discussions have been going on but as you point out in the week of the Dobbs decision this summer. It really became clear to a lot of us that we need to be intentional about thinking about the ways that that new landscape calls on us to have a different type of politics and really be putting the needs of families first were addressing some the political questions of the day.

The criticism from pro-abortion groups that conservatives are not putting their money where their mouth is policy wise as far as supporting the family, especially babies after birth is is unwarranted criticism. Do you think you know, not necessarily conservatives have always understood the importance of strong families that something is at the core of our approach to the political landscape. We also want to invigorate where family life happens. The day-to-day interactions with civil society with your church groups with volunteer organizations that provide meaningful assistance to mom's needs and that is always going to be front and center of any conservative response to oppose Dobbs era, but I think there's a growing recognition that there needs to be policy response to sip that work as well not to take it over. Not to crowded out but you recognize there are some things that, for example, prenatal and postnatal care for mom's best needs to be done in the clinical setting in a well-meaning volunteer organization and it was good to have the tools to be able to provide that, especially in oppose Dobbs era in which there may be more women who need the services that were before, so that might give a place for government to be more proactive in finding ways that we can work together to build capacity and those institutions of civil society, I think that's where conservatives are moving toward and where I think putting our money where our mouth is is really coming to fruition. Okay so who were the scholars who got together to write the statement who are it's really a who's who of conservative family policy scholarship everybody from, Carlson is written more books than I can name on the history of the family's Robert George legal scholar Chris University Helen El Dorado legal theorist at George Mason University and some younger up-and-coming writers as well leave Nebraska. Sgt. is written for the New York Times on her experience as a pro-life mother whose experience miscarried and a more compassionate way of understanding what unplanned pregnancy situations go through dramatically during the editor of National review. People from across the conservative movement and then we also expanded as well other folks from across the spectrum that you're a person of Democrats for life of America wanted to join in as well. So we really had dozens of people who had influence on how we think about families and how we can about policy and where the next step of the conservative approach to some of these things should be oriented going towards.

Did you say that the Democrats for life were a part of the statement as well is a pretty small group unfortunately but they do have some board members and recheck us about one design we can have these bipartisan conversations about not just restricting the supply of abortion, although that will always be front and center of what we do as pro-lifers but also addressing the demand for abortion the feeling that some women feel like there's just no other choice because they can't afford it or because they aren't sure if they're to be alone but have child. We'll continue to work if they have a child. Those type of situations.

I think there can be some room for bipartisan work on and in that frame of reference were happy to have me join with many pressing issues in our country. I mean the list is so long right now. Why do we prioritize public policy surrounding families. Why is it important because the family is the cornerstone about driving society. As I think he is. You guys know if you don't have strong families. You have all these other social ills that spin up or not, whether that's crime or gun violence or anything like that. And so, especially in this new era that were in. It's going to be essential for us to be thinking about families front and center. And there's a political angle as well be seen that Republicans have Into a lot of unrest from parents over what's being taught in their schools and the messages that are being pushed out to kids these days recognizing that some of the challenges that face parents are ultra but also economic as well can help us position.

This kind of agenda in a way that response to what parents need and so the idea that we should be thinking about the needs of babies and moms in those first critical postpartum months as a new importance but also just making parents lives easier is always going to be important, and that goes beyond childbirth to the full 18 years of of what selves having families as are certain fundamental building block in a fundamental ones of analysis for public policy can push the conversation and a very helpful direction. The first key points of the statement is to seek to strengthen the bond of marriage. So this because this seems like it would be obvious, but in our society today. It's not necessarily is it right again when we think about the children that are being born. You want to give them the best chance of a healthy future that they can and we know not just from thousands of years of tradition, but also from fairly rigorous social science. The most stable place in the place where children thrive. The most is in a household with two parents properly to married parents who are committed to each other and were there for the long haul. I can give those kids the support they need and share the burden of raising children because it is expensive and it is time-consuming and can be challenging for people to balance that all those demand and there's always the need to recognize that the best chance of success for kids is going to be in a married household. So if were talking about kids and families encouraging marriage is the cornerstone of that effort is essential in authentically appropriately ones the statement also specifically addresses unique challenges facing men and boys. One is that an important thing to include in their two boys get forgotten. You think in our society. Yeah I think so. It takes two to tango right anytime you have unplanned pregnancy. There is always a man involved in creating that pregnancy and there are a lot of men out there who feel that they are unable to support a family because of their earning potential, or just they've never have the role models in their lives to show them what it means to step up and do the right thing and so an attention on the labor force participation for men it's been slowly declining over the last decades as a recognizing that the economy that were in it requires different skills than it did 40 or 50 years ago and so if you're a woman who's a nurse or something that is a great time to find a job. If your man is used to working in a blue-collar history. Sometimes those jobs are much more difficult to find a less stable than they used to be and so recognizing that men have a role to play their responsibilities to play and with those responsibilities come in obligation for us to be looking up to make sure those men can be the providers and the caretakers and the role models that their kids are right you don't only deal with social issues and the statement what are some economic principles that are also important for profamily policy agenda. You mentioned a few them at the beginning you have to be talking about both sides of the equation. Just talk about families is a cultural battle is leaving aside some of the economic stresses on family life and the easiest way to think about this is having children cost time because money is also the opportunity cost of having to get a drug a kid you can't be doing other things and so parents bear the cost of having a child and the benefits of there being children flow to society.

There is future workers or future innovators future job creators.

There's all sorts of reasons why we want there to be more kids and more people in this world because the just make the world a better place right though, thinking about ways we can be subsidizing the cost of family life, making it a little less burdensome for parents to have to buy diapers and buy food and pay for school and books and all that sort of stuff. Just give the parents a little more money at the end of the month or the beginning the month can help address a lot of those things and there are certain sectors of the economy, like improving the way the childcare operates making sure that parents have choices of childcare provider and outsider think that we can sort of attack discreetly.

But overall, just helping parents afford the cost of having a kid in this day and age I think should be a central point of the Republican agenda and receding Republican politicians like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah proposing policies that would do just that you respond to people who say we should not be encouraging people to have more children because we are overpopulated that is such a relic of the 1970s. That mindset really is outdated at this point because fertility rates are at an all-time low in the country of South Korea, for example, there'd having less than one child per woman. So it is not only not replacing the family unit but are actually on track to lose half of their population by the end of the century. This is catastrophic for societies and and thankfully the US isn't quite as forgone as suffering, but the trends are not heading in the right direction and there are so many economic and social consequences that come into play when you have a declining population that we should be considerably more worried about under population and in the negative population growth. We should be about overpopulation and again this isn't just about cranking out the birth rate as high as they can go. We also want to be concerned about the quality of life.

This visit and 1/2 and that's where we come back to stressing the family and stressing marriage as helping provide a stable environment for those kids so that is about helping support people have children. But it's also about making sure those children have the support they need. The statement says that public policy alone cannot transform family life for the better.

We as individuals have some work to do to improve our own communities in our own family life right totally.

There's only a limited amount of change that can be made from the federal level.

I get the government's regular writing checks. It is very bad when he gets into other areas of life.

So having it substitute child tax credit is a good thing, but having it play the nanny state of the bill back better approach that Pres. Biden was proposing last year where you basically have a federally run childcare program would be a tremendous disservice.

And so there are definitely ways that we can be supporting families through policy but ultimately the biggest change is becoming making our culture and our society are duties more family-friendly and that can look like a lot of different things. It can look like colleges and universities, making it more possible for people to get married and have kids when they're in graduate school, or even undergrad. It can mean workplaces become more family-friendly and prioritizing benefits for new parents over some of these other environmental justice goals that they like to talk about but really you parents are some of the ones that are going to need the most and will support especially in the early months of life, so is get a look different for different institutions in a different communities but orienting our society around supporting families is going to require a different way of doing business and again in a post jobs era that's going to be incumbent on all of us to be thinking about in the situation that I men are there steps. I can be making to make it easier on families and make it easier on parents and give them more options to live the life that they want to. I think that's gonna be the work that for all of us crank good point were about the time but less what you hope, policymakers are going to do so. Obviously, the first step you would like them to go and download this statement, but what are you hoping that they will actually practically do with the statement. First, go to EP PC.org and read it and internalize that it was intended to be a 30,000 foot statement of principles that was is not a detailed policy agenda. But I'm hopeful that more politicians will take it and apply it to the way that they think about policymaking. We were really excited to see the Republican study committee, which is some of the most conservative members of the House of Representatives came out with their own family policy agenda that adopted a lot of these principles and talks explicitly about addressing the cultural and economic stresses on family life.

The fact that they are talking about. I think you're gonna be seeing more of a drumbeat as we head into the new Congress and I'm hopeful that always will be thinking about putting families first when it comes to these topics. Patrick T.

Brown, a fellow with the ethics and Public policy Center. Thank you so much for being with us today on family policy matters. You been listening to family policy matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plenitude in again next week to listen to the show online and to learn more about into families work to an encourage and inspire families across from Carlotta go to our website@ncfamily.org that's into family.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family