In my last column, I strongly criticized the 2024 Republican party platform for capitulating on the issue of abortion. In its endorsement of in-vitro fertilization and misreading of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, I suggested that the Republican Party is no longer either pro-life or anti-abortion. I do not retract that judgment, and I encourage the GOP to amend the platform to reaffirm a strong commitment to a federal pro-life policy. The nomination of Senator J.D. Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate might be an opportunity to do just that. Moreover, from the perspective of the entirety of Catholic moral theology, Senator Vance has articulated policy positions related to the family that are hopeful.
As a threshold matter, it is disappointing that Senator Vance has endorsed the “availability” of mifepristone for elective abortion. My criticism applies no less to him than to the Republican platform on this issue. Mifepristone and similar drugs are the agents for the chemical abortions that comprise the majority of abortions in the U.S. If Trump and Vance were to prevail in November, I am hopeful that Vance might lead the administration in consistent and robust pro-life federal policies. This might begin with removal of federal funding for any procedure, therapy, or drug regime that causes, facilitates or promotes abortion, including chemical abortions.
While I hope he will rethink these issues, Vance might otherwise be the most pro-family-policy candidate that either party has ever nominated for national office. In my recent book, “Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America,” I suggest three family-friendly policies that Catholics should embrace as consistent with the entirety of Catholic moral doctrine, including that branch called Catholic social doctrine. Two of these policy proposals are not typically associated with the Republican Party, but have been advanced to some degree by Senator Vance: free or highly subsidized birth; and direct financial support for families, especially those with young children.
Encouraging childbirth
The dramatic and persistent decline in live births in the U.S. (and other developed nations) has been well-documented. In 2023, the total fertility rate in the U.S. fell to 1.62 births per woman, below the replacement rate. According to The Wall Street Journal, this is the lowest rate ever recorded since the federal government began tracking in the 1930s. The number of children born in the U.S. in 2023 was the lowest since 1979. While a number of factors have contributed to this decline, the escalating costs of prenatal medical care, child delivery, and early childhood expenses are high among the reasons that couples have delayed having children.
This is a public policy crisis. As the population ages and retires, financial burdens will shift to a new generation that will not be sufficient to sustain the burdens. Lower birth rates translate to older populations. The decision whether to have children is a public policy issue, not merely a private decision. Children are public goods. Good public policy, including federal policy, must look for ways to reverse this decline. Options such as free birth and subsidies to young families should be chief among them. This is an attitude that J.D. Vance brings to the Republican ticket.
For example, Vance has endorsed a proposal for making birth free that I discussed in my book. He has said, “I have been explicitly on record as supporting this policy.” He has noted that the prohibitive cost for some families to have children is something that “has gone terribly wrong in American healthcare, especially for young mothers.” It is a policy failure, he has noted, to be on the side of insurance companies rather than young mothers. As I discuss in my book, how to pay for a national policy of free birth is open to reasoned debate. But, as Vance has articulated the point, the economics must follow the policy, not vice versa.
Supporting mothers and families
Vance has also endorsed a robust federal policy that would provide young mothers with options for early childcare other than putting children in child-care centers. This includes increased child tax credits and other kinds of wealth transfers that encourage and subsidize mothers to stay at home with young children. He has endorsed a monthly “parent credit,” for example. This is a subsidy that could be used for child-care outside the home — if that is the parents’ choice. But it would give the parents flexibility to use the credit for expenses (including opportunity costs) for staying at home with young children.
This is not to condemn mothers who choose to return to work and use second-party child care. But good family policy will include programs that give mothers the option of staying at home if that is the choice that works best for them. The point, again, is that the economics must yield to the policy, not the policy to the economics.
This column should not be construed as an endorsement of the Trump/Vance ticket. I do not think Donald Trump is morally, psychologically or temperamentally fit to be President of the United States. And both Trump and Vance have articulated immigration policy that is highly questionable from the perspective of Catholic social doctrine. But at least on issues related to pro-family policies, J.D. Vance is a welcome voice on the national stage. And, in contrast to the candidates in the other party, it is at least hopeful that he would move in the right direction on abortion.
