Single and Pregnant: Now What?
e-mail
Resources
Staying Healthy During Your Pregnancy
Choosing Adoption
Profiles of Hopeful Jewish Adoptive Parents
Find Jewish Professionals
Legal Issues
Maternity Homes
Forums
It is an issue that has come up numerous times since I was ordained as a rabbi. A young woman calls me to tell me that she is pregnant. If she were married it would be a time for great rejoicing. But she is single. Sometimes she is merely a teenager; other times a college student. Sometimes she is a single professional woman, sometimes a recent divorcée who reentered the dating scene. In each case the pregnancy was unexpected and unwanted.
Most Jews may be pro-choice, but Judaism is certainly not pro-abortion. Unlike the Catholic Church, it does not equate abortion with murder. However, it does consider abortion a serious moral issue and unequivocally permits it only to save the mother's life. Some authorities allow abortion if it threatens the mother's health or in cases of severe fetal abnormality. No religious authority permits the casual abortion of a healthy fetus in a healthy mother.
Jewish tradition would see the fetus as a significant entity that deserves to live unless there is overwhelming reason to choose otherwise. The Torah teaches, "I place before life and death, therefore choose life." (Deut. 30:19) In most of these cases, the woman is far more aware of the nascent life within her than the man who impregnated her. Most the men I have dealt with have told me, "She should just take care of the problem." The women, even those who chose abortion, have been far more reluctant.
Sometimes abortion may be the best choice. I only recommend it in those situations where carrying the baby to term will cause serious harm to the mother, physically or psychologically. Often there is long term mourning and guilt over the decision. It is a last resort which ought to be considered only after all the other choices have been explored. As an adoptive parent of three children, I believe that there is a special place in heaven for those few brave women who choose to make an adoption plan. Unfortunately, our society and our laws make it far easier to abort a pregnancy than to carry a pregnancy to term and place the baby for adoption. The woman planning an abortion merely needs to make an appointment at a clinic. Any waiting period, any counseling, any notification let alone consent of the man who impregnated her has been deemed improper by pro-choice advocates.
Adoption is another matter altogether. The woman cannot simply make an adoption plan. She has a long waiting period before she can legally sign papers, usually 72 hours after birth. Most states require her to meet with a social worker, and many such social workers see their task as convincing her to keep the baby. Often she has several months to reconsider before her rights are finally terminated in court.
Even if the birth mother agrees to the adoption plan, the birth father has legal rights that can be very disruptive, even if he has disappeared from her life and given her no support during the pregnancy. A number of tragedies have occurred around the country where young children have been removed from the only homes they have ever known to be returned to a birthfather. Our society deems biological ties created conception to be more important than the psychological ties of those actually raising a child. (Judaism teaches the precise opposite - that the true parent is the one who raises the child. See Sanhedrin 19a) Having said that, adoption is a painful choose. It requires great courage, supportive counseling, family support, and I believe more openness than has been practiced in the past. When hormones are raging, a woman must place her baby with strangers to raise. That is the reason that few make the choice.
In the past, an unwanted pregnancy often led to what was jokingly called a shotgun wedding. Those days are long past. Certainly there is something ennobling about a man marrying the woman he impregnates and legitimating the child. However, unless there has been a long term, mature relationship, such marriages rarely last. As I have written elsewhere, for a marriage to succeed there must be great care in choosing the right partner. Such important ingredients as personal values, shared vision, financial responsibility, sexual attraction, and of course love and affection are necessary. (See my booklet "The Seven Secrets of a Successful Marriage"). Marriage must be entered into with great care. An untimely and unexpected pregnancy is rarely a healthy ingredient for a successful marriage.
Most girls today choose single parenthood. Once again it is a far from ideal choice. I believe a child deserves a daddy as well as a mommy. Sometimes the daddy stays involved in supporting and fathering the child. In most of the cases I have seen, the man has stepped back and refused to take any responsibility, unless forced to by the courts. Afterall, he had sex with her looking for pleasure, not parenthood.
I recommend Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's article in Atlantic Magazine entitled Dan Quayle was Right regarding the many disadvantages of raising children without fathers. Certainly some women do admirable jobs as single parents, particularly if they have a supportive family. I always recommend finding a significant male figure to be part of the child's life, whether the birthfather, a grandfather, a brother, or hopefully someday, a husband.
These are the four choices, none ideal. Each woman must think out the consequences of these choices for herself. It is my prayer that with the help of God, she will make the right decision for her and her child.
© Rabbi Michael Gold
