The typical pro-life billboard displays an adorable picture of a baby’s face. Who could think this life isn’t valuable? But many women drive past such pictures in America today and still decide to abort their babies. 

I don’t believe they all think babies aren’t beautiful. Rather, many have been trained to believe that being a mother to this baby isn’t beautiful. 

To be successful, pro-lifers have to fight this narrative, too.

Yes, innocent human life is precious in the sight of God. But the glorious domestic position of motherhood is as well. Yes, a woman must recognize that the little life inside of her is a gift from God. 

But she must also see that the role of mother is also a gift from God.

There’s a famous quote in the infamous Supreme Court opinion Planned Parenthood v. Casey that upheld the so-called right to an abortion: 

“the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives” (505 U.S. 856). 

In other words, a woman’s pregnancy could endanger her career or other prospects in society if she doesn’t have the choice to end it. For those of us who oppose abortion, we have two options in response.

One, we could try our best to help childbearing women still “participate equally” in economic and social life. We could push for more daycare options so mothers can keep full-time jobs. We could try to make it as easy as possible for women to keep pursuing their education or careers without feeling the need to kill their children to make that happen.

So that’s one option—the pro-life movement could work hard to keep women in the workforce. But maybe, just maybe, is there another option? Perhaps women aren’t intended to “participate equally?” 

Do women—by any chance—have a different role than men in society? Dare I say it—perhaps God has given women a domestic role, one that’s better suited to raising children than this constant striving to participate equally in the business world?

This seems to be what Paul indicates in Titus 2:4–5, saying that young women should be taught to 

“love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled” (ESV). 

Consider that the word “domestic” comes from the Latin word domus, which means “home.” God has given women a glorious position—to make a dwelling into a home. The only way you could say this isn’t glorious is if you ignore the value of the home and treat the man’s duties outside the home as the only ones worth having. 

Sure, if you claim that a woman should act like a man, then of course, children are going to get in the way of her pursuing her purpose. 

But what if children are intended to be her purpose?

After all, a woman is physically and spiritually equipped to nurture children in a way men simply aren’t. Thus, Paul uses motherhood as a prime example of gentle caregiving: 

“But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thess 2:7, ESV). 

Taking care of children is one of the most important things a woman can do, and she can do it in a way that a man can’t. So if she’s striving to “participate equally” with men in the business world, and sacrificing her domestic calling in the process, she’s evaluating herself by the wrong standard.  

Advocating for more daycare—so that mothers can still have children but can act more like fathers from 9:00 to 5:00—is not a holistic solution. It subtly reinforces the narrative that a woman is at her best when she’s acting like a man. 

No wonder so many women don’t earnestly desire to be mothers. One of the best ways we can protect innocent life is by reclaiming the glory of motherhood, helping women want to be moms again.

Of course, this depends on a holistic view of the family. 

A mother can’t do all she is supposed to do unless she has a husband who is doing all he is supposed to do. This is why, to be pro-life, you must support the environment in which God intended that life to flourish: a lifelong commitment between one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage.

Now, when there’s no father in the picture, a single mom must adopt some of those fatherly roles in order to provide for her children, and so she simply can’t stay home. 

This article doesn’t judge her for that. 

Moreover, there are some situations in which, due to financial or other hardship, the mom and the dad both have to serve as breadwinners of some kind, and so again the mom simply can’t stay home. 

But there is a big difference between those who must be in the professional world for the sake of their family, and those who choose to be in the professional world at the expense of their family. 

The situations where a woman may be forced to assume a more husband-like role do not refute the fact that her fundamental calling is a domestic one.

All in all, the pro-life movement often emphasizes the beauty of the baby, which—to be clear—it should never stop doing. 

But in my opinion, we could also do more to emphasize the beauty of being a mother to that baby. 

When we cater to a culture that evaluates women according to men’s standards of success, lives are literally on the line.