This article reports the rise in pregnancies among unwed women. This report should be met with mixed emotions. On the one hand, more pregnancies among unwed women mean fewer women chose abortion as the way out of an ‘untraditional’ pregnancy. That’s good news: fewer murdered unborn babies.

The report also indicates support for conservative Catholic views in a quirky and paradoxical way: that is to say, more unwed pregnancies gives more evidence that artificial contraception and the ‘let’s just help the kids to use contraception more effectively’ mentality only means more single moms. In other words, more condoms actually means more babies, not fewer.
On the other hand (if you can have three hands) more unwed mothers means there are more people having sex outside marriage and more people who think its okay to have kids outside marriage and more people who don’t want to get married even if they (or their girlfriend) are having sexual intercourse regularly and are having babies. This means more and more people think marriage is not worth even starting up.
In addition to this, more unwed mothers points to wider social implications which are not good. Single moms are a drain on the social welfare system. They and their kids are a drain on the educational system. The deadbeat dads run off leaving everybody else to pick up the bill for their illegitimate kids. Furthermore, the psychological and spiritual bill is even heavier to pick up. Illegitimate kids are far more likely to be maladjusted, far more likely to underachieve at school, far more likely to be violent, unproductive and end up in prison.
Despite all this, when a woman is pregnant and is not married and she decides to keep the baby she makes the right choice. In the midst of these statistics and the societal breakdown that they reflect and contribute to, there are also heroic single mothers–women of faith and love and self sacrifice who keep their babies and give all to give them the best life possible. Often abandoned by the father and shunned by ‘polite’ society, they should be applauded and supported the best we can, and when a girl presents with a crisis pregnancy it is not the time for ‘tut tut’ and condemnation, but the time for forgiveness, support and love.