20,000 babies or none. . .

In 2020, actress Michelle Williams stood on the stage of the Golden Globes to receive accolades for her performance and in her speech she described the abortion that had allowed her the chance to choose her career instead of motherhood.  It was heralded at the time as a political call to action for those places where abortions are not freely accessible and gave thanks that she lived where abortions were freely accessible.  Not being one to watch such events, I probably did not comment on it at the time.  It was more of the drivel that passes for feminist propaganda in a world where it has become normal among the elite, the educated, and the economically gifted.  Sacrificing children on the altar of fame, as the video put it, was and, perhaps, still is a sacred tenet of the woke.  How odd it was then when I found out after another such event six years later that an actress used her moment in the sun to laud motherhood.

Ironically, the headlines draw attention to her as the first Irish actress to win an Oscar—not to her own testament to motherhood, to her want to have more babies with her husband, and to her wish to spend her future helping her daughter discover the wonder of life.  I guess that part of it was not news but it should be.  For a long time now, motherhood has been portrayed as a curse, a drain on ambition, a sacrifice of career, and, worst of all, the loss of your very identity and personhood.  Daughters were listening and so were sons.  Now we live in a world in which the fertility rate in the US is about 1.6 children per woman (below the replacement rate of 2.1), and, lower still in most of Europe—around 1.2 to 1.5 in countries like Italy and Spain. 2026 will likely see for the first time deaths exceed births in the UK.  Nearly everywhere it is accepted that women choose not to have children, regret having them, or are embittered because of the sacrifice having a child means to their careers and perceived success in those careers.  Could it be that this is changing?  At least that the other narrative is being challenged?

There was one more thing.  The same kind of crowd that erupted in applause in 2020 for the pro-abortion speech erupted in applause for this tribute to motherhood.  Were they simply being nice or were they realizing that the old narrative was crashing down upon everything as birth rates drop and the world looks at the graying of the population as being the face of our future?  I could say a great deal about this in terms of Christian faith and life but I will let this stand for now.