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With sanctity of life in focus, what if Steve Jobs never existed?

Star Parker Founder & President, Center for Urban Renewal and Education
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The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision changing the way states could manage abortion has become one of the country’s most divisive issues over the last five decades. With the recently leaked draft opinion poised to overturn the law, America’s debate over abortion has reached another key moment. Straight Arrow News contributor Star Parker argues that the America in the 1950s and 1960s — before Roe v. Wade — was more wholesome, and the state of faith, marriage and childbearing was far healthier than it is today:

In 1955, an unmarried pregnant University of Wisconsin graduate student left her home, traveled to San Francisco, went to this doctor who took in pregnant women, he delivered their babies, and helped arrange to adopt that child out.

The baby son, this particular college student, she delivered and put up for adoption grew up to become the legendary business and technology entrepreneur Steve Jobs. Had it been 1975 rather than 1955, there is a reasonable chance there would have never been a Steve Jobs.

In 1975 America, after Roe v. Wade became law, Steve Jobs’ mother could well have wound up in a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Looking around at the impact of laptop computers, iPhones, social media, and remote work, it’s hard to imagine what our lives would be like today had there not been that one genius born.

But the preciousness of every human life depends not on whether that life is a potential Steve Jobs. Each person brings their own unique and invaluable gifts to the world. And as the left goes berserk over the leaked Alito opinion pointing to overturning of Roe v Wade, we should consider that we’ll never know the gifts of the 63 million killed in their mom’s womb since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

If objecting to an aging America without married fathers and mothers and without children makes you a member of the MAGA crowd, is where you think our future lies, so President Biden is your man.

We’re going back to the future. More Black Americans, and all Americans, are seeing that rooted in the American ideal of freedom is sanctity of life and family.

In 1955, an unmarried pregnant University of Wisconsin graduate student left her home, traveled to San Francisco, went to this doctor who took in pregnant women, he delivered their babies, and helped arrange to adopt that child out.

The baby son, this particular college student, she delivered and put up for adoption grew up to become the legendary business and technology entrepreneur Steve Jobs. Had it been 1975 rather than 1955, there is a reasonable chance there would have never been a Steve Jobs.

In 1975 America, after Roe v Wade became law, Steve Jobs’ mother could well have wound up in a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Looking around at the impact of laptop computers, iPhones, social media, and remote work, it’s hard to imagine what our lives would be like today had that there not been that one genius born.

But the preciousness of every human life depends not on whether that life is a potential Steve Jobs.  Each person brings their own unique and invaluable gifts to the world. And As the left goes berserk over the leaked Alito opinion pointing to overturning of Roe v Wade, we should consider that we’ll never know the gifts of the 63 million killed in their mom’s womb since the Roe v Wade decision in 1973

The Kaiser Family Foundation – it’s a family foundation it does reports and it reported in 2019 that 38% of those abortions done were black.  Using this figure, 24 million blacks – roughly half the current black population in America – was removed by abortion since 1973. 

The United States in 1955 was a nation before the passage of the Civil Rights Act.  So There was aggressive segregation, there was aggressive racism, there was aggressive poverty.

According to the rhetoric on the left, there was nothing good about America of 1955 because of segregation, because of the racism, and because of the poverty. 

But this is not true. The state of faith and  marriage and childbearing, was far healthier than it is today, among whites and among blacks.

According to Gallup, as we show here at CURE in a State of Black America report we recently published, in the early 1960s, 70% of Americans said religion was “very important” in their own lives.   By the late 1970s this was down to 52%.

Going back to 1955, the national fertility rate – the average number of children birthed by women of child-bearing age – was 3.42.  Today this is down to 1.78. The rate needed for a population to replace itself and not shrink is 2.2.

In 1960, 9% of black adults and 8% of white adults had never been married. By 2012, this had increased to 36% among blacks and 16% among whites.

In 1960, less than 5% of white babies were born to unwed mothers. By 2010 this was up to 29%. And Among blacks, in 1960 a little over 20% of babies were born to unwed mothers.  But today by 2010 this was up to 72%.

The secularization of the country in the 1960s did not produce more freedom.  It produced more dependence on government. Blacks, in this regard, have been hurt the most.

In 1950, the federal government took 15.3% of the national economy.  By 2020, this was up to 32%. President Biden, now presiding over a nation drowning in debt, drowning in inflation, and sclerotic growth, said the other day that “The MAGA crowd is the most extreme political organization that has existed in American history…”

If objecting to an aging America without married fathers and mothers and without children makes you a member of the MAGA crowd, is where you think our future lies, so President Biden is your man.

We’re going back to the future. More Black Americans, and all Americans, are seeing that rooted in the American ideal of freedom is sanctity of life and family.

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