Fewer Canadian Mothers To Celebrate Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to those Canadian women who have fulfilled their godly responsibilities to "be fruitful and multiply."

Unfortunately, that biblical expression [actually God's FIRST commandment to mankind] engenders more than a little hostility from far too many Christian women. Nevertheless, to be truly Christian is to embrace ALL the commandments of God and to hold in high regard the expression of Christian tradition over the past 2000 years.

Yesterday, Margret Kopala, columnist for The Ottawa Citizen, wrote a piece entitled The decline of motherhood [subscription required], with the introduction

As we celebrate Mother's Day, we should pause to consider the social factors that keep more and more women from having children.

Margret tells of Canada's demographic decline and its likely consequence for most of us:

With 1.5 children per couple, our best hope is a quiet death in a clean facility where the immigrant workers speak our language.

She notes that Canada isn't the only country in this predicament and refers often to America Alone, Mark Steyn's self-described and penetrating rant on "demography, Islam and civilizational exhaustion."

She discusses the phenomenon of infertility as a contributing cause to Canada's demographic crunch but then confronts the "choice" mindset:

Nor do infertility statistics take into account those deciding not to have children or those resigned to missing the boat. On this front, Mark Steyn blames the "progressive agenda" -- abortion, gay marriage, endlessly deferred adulthood -- and he's right. He doesn't get into many specifics but they are easily identified. In the U.S., 48.5 million abortions since Roe v. Wade only slightly exceeds the estimated 47 million civilians lost in the Second World War. And, as the University of Calgary's Rainer Knopf predicted, gay marriage means any public distinction between procreative and non-procreative sexuality is now totally abandoned. The latest sad example? A hero's welcome on MTV for porn king and intersexual sodomy "expert" Ron Jeremy.

So we pump our young with pills, wrap them in condoms and, coming soon, jab them with vaccines hoping to prevent unwanted pregnancies, STDs and, now, cervical cancer. This in the name of denying their capacity for personal responsibility by advocates who wouldn't shake hands with each other if they had a cold.

Margret touches on some political realities as well and the huge obstacles to achieving the kind of changes that might rescue us from our own awful behaviour.

Universal screening may be the only solution for the STD epidemic. And if smoking can be stigmatized, so can other behaviours. Cleaning up our air, water and food and, while we are at it, the airwaves too, would also help. Those who want pornographic services should be required to fetch them elsewhere.

Parents need meaningful support from civil society as well as government. Housing prices that require two incomes make starting a family untenable -- a problem exacerbated by immigration policies that raise real estate prices while ostensibly compensating for the children we aren't producing. But within one generation, immigrants adopt our reproductive habits.

As Canadian Christians we should be disturbed by the picture that Margret paints for us [and increasingly more Canadian journalists bring to us] because by every measure it points to a tragic and bleak future.

Yet the greater tragedy would be for Christians to be resigned to such a future or to imagine there is nothing which can be done about it. Granted, it will require nothing less than a great conversion, a huge revival, in the hearts of Christians throughout Canada, but the big question, and only important one, is: Will you allow God to start that revival in you?

This question is bigger still for the Canadian Christian woman who is not yet a mother but who is held back by choice.

As I said, such comments can engender hostility, but considering our future, it's worth the risk.