Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning New, June 24, 2024

At a minimum, I would love to see Texas begin a Department of Child and Family Flourishing wherein more dollars would flow to families; where philanthropy and the private sector could share best practices and pool resources; where policymakers could have access to more frequent data on the well-being of young children and parents in our state; and where pilots of all types to improve child poverty and maternal and infant health would be encouraged.

Right now, red states can use permissive abortion policies in blue states to distract from the need to care for mothers and babies. Most blue states have robust services for women and children and yet seem proud of their few limitations on abortion, even after the point where a fetus can feel pain. President Joe Biden seems to think that because I find Trump dangerous, then I must be all in for abortion on demand. The extremes of both sides act as a safety net for the other.

I’m reminded of that old G.K. Chesterton quote from Orthodoxy: “The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”

These days, conservatives are keen to emphasize justice and protection; liberals to emphasize equity and autonomy. But untethered to love and unbound from each other, we get to strange places.

And so, even with marginal progress, I am still waiting on the state that can support life and love on both sides of the womb. That is where we are on this anniversary.