Let’s Talk About Orphanages

Unfortunately, orphanages are often seen through the lens of Dicken's Oliver Twist, but the subject must be discussed if we're serious about stopping the killing of the unborn.

From Mundabor's Blog

It isn’t a very genial prediction that heartbeat laws and similar legislative instruments will be very big in the coming years. The Supreme Court will strike down the first variants, but I have no doubts that new versions will keep popping in to keep the cowards under pressure. As I have already written, this battle needs to be won outside of the courts first.

In my eyes, one aspect that has not been sufficiently explored is the orphanage system. It’s as if the mother were in front of the alternative between killing her own baby or being “burdened” (I know…) with him.

This has never been so and, actually, should not be so. For countless generations, unwanted children were raised in orphanages and monasteries or other religious institutions. The mothers deposited the children on a “wheel”, or took care the institution got the baby, and that was that. No questions asked, no DNA tests, no social workers army, no illusory pursuits of deadbeat “fathers” peddling marijuana on street corners.

This is the way it worked in Italy. Christian charity or efficient government structures, not wasteful, tax-subsidised busybodying, took care of the children. The double scandal of a child raised 1) by a single mother outside of wedlock, 2) at taxpayer’s expense and 3) on the street without any proper guidance, was not allowed. The mother herself, if so inclined, saw the unbloody end of her “burden”. The child received a Christian education.

Every Italian of a certain age will tell you how big orphanages used to be, and how proud the Country was of them. The system worked. The money for children was there, as it has always been with or without government involvement. The public purse was not used to give scandal, or to encourage professional single motherhood.

This is, I think, the alternative to abortion that should be presented and insisted upon. It’s not abortion or single motherhood. In fact, this should be positively avoided. It’s a) a heinous crime or b) “free” after nine months!

Also, the pro-life movement should push for a legal environment that encourages and makes possible to use a modern version of the “wheel”, even without any taxpayer subsidy. There would be no shortage of money to make these structure works; and, being private structures, they would work well at a fraction of the costs of many a public council.

Such an initiative was tried in Germany years ago. It failed, because the Goebbelsian, all-invading control of German society cannot tolerate that a child lives in a different way that Dr Goebbels decided it’s fitting.

I think this is a promising avenue for the pro-life movement. It would greatly help the perception of a post-abortion society. It would be attractive to fiscally conservative, albeit socially tragically liberal, pro-abortionists. It would promise a world where the chain of multi generational scrounging is broken. It would create an environment where children can be raised properly, with both a spine and a suitable religious guidance.

I think there should be much, much more talk about this.