Safety Net? Teen Pregnancies. Welfare Mothers. The Stae’s Role Is Now The Center Of A Nationwide Debate With No Easy Answers. We Offer Some Differing Views And Ideas On Theses Important Issues. Many Young Women Are Choosing To Marry The State Instead Of

A friend of mine has a daughter who recently got pregnant out of wedlock. It seems her young boyfriend did the deed, and now, rather than getting married, she’s simply going to go on welfare.

That made me think: The choice was just too easy. And it amounts to bigamy.

I know that sounds bizarre, but hear me out.

Every day young women get pregnant and face choices. There are really only three choices for them.

First, they can abort the child. Diverse opinions about abortion notwithstanding, the fact is that in the United States abortion is legal and it is a viable choice for some.

Their second choice is to marry the father of the child. Given the failure of marriages in general and teen marriages in particular that is often not much of a choice.

Finally, they can marry the state - in other words, go on welfare.

Why would someone choose the latter? It boils down to numbers. These pregnant little girls are not stupid, even though their actions in getting pregnant in the first place might suggest they are.

No. In fact, some are rather shrewd.

If the girl marries the father of the child she will probably have to put up with an emotionally immature husband whose best hope of employment is a minimum-wage job in some fast-food restaurant. She’ll probably live in a hotel somewhere in the cheap part of town. She might qualify for Medicaid, and then again she might not, depending upon the state in which she lives. Those are not great prospects and even a young girl understands it will take a committed love to overcome the obstacles they will undoubtedly encounter.

If she marries the state, she will get Aid to Families with Dependent Children, monthly cash assistance, Medicaid, a housing allowance, job training and, if some emergency arises in her personal life, a high probability of a cash grant to handle it.

If she marries the state she will not have to face a husband coming home drunk from a dead-end job blaming her for their situation. If she gets a headache she won’t get raped by her husband; instead the state will give her free aspirin.

If she marries the state she will get her monthly food stamps and cash assistance on time and not have to worry about the state losing its job. If she decides to have a little sleep-over with someone she finds attractive the state won’t get jealous as long as her friend doesn’t move in.

In short, the state makes a marvelous husband. All we need is vows. I can hear the ceremony now:

“Do you Jane Doe take this state to be your welfare law husband? To have and have more, the rich pay the poor, in sickness free health care, for better or worse?”

The bigamist state may not have gotten its many young brides pregnant, but is has done everything it could to encourage them to get that way, and it’s a national shame.

MEMO: For the opposing view see the story under the headline “Safety net? Teen pregnancies. Welfare mothers. The state’s role is now the center of a nationwide debate with no easy answers. We offer some differing views and ideas on these issues. The myths aren’t reality, and we need to deal with the reality.”

A sidebar ran with this story under the headline “Safety net? Quotes”

Paul D. Friend manages a business in Post Falls. He moved to Kootenai County from Montana in November.