If the problem in our country is the fact that children are portrayed as inconvenient and are justifiably purged when “unwanted,” we need more than a campaign that says, “Don’t do that.” We need to do more than shout down the wickedness of abortion. We need to rehabilitate an entire view of the world. That is to say, we need to go back to the God who has made us in his image and see what he says.

Past the grove of cypress trees Walter—he had been playing king of the mountain—saw the white truck, and he knew it for what it was. He thought, That’s the abortion truck. Come to take some kid in for a postpartum down at the abortion place.
And he thought, Maybe my folks called it. For me.
He ran and hid among the blackberries, feeling the scratching of the thorns but thinking, It’s better than having the air sucked out of your lungs. That’s how they do it; they perform all the P. P.s [post-partum abortions] on all the kids there at the same time. They have a big room for it. For the kids that nobody wants.[1]
In 1973, the Roe v Wade decision inspired Philip K. Dick to envision a world where children were unwanted and adults were free to alleviate their unwanted burdens with the help of the “County Facility.” In his short story, “The Pre-Persons,” Dick tells the story of Walter, the twelve-year-old boy who is traumatized by the thought that his parents did not want him. All around him, he knows children by name who have been taken, kicking and screaming, by the van. Fully legal, these children have the life sucked out of them, all because the parents did not want them.
Through the use of dystopian satire, Dick shows what happens when children are unwanted.
To date, white vans are not circling cul-de-sacs looking to pick up “the kids nobody wants,” but that doesn’t mean children are any more safe. Planned Parenthood “targets minority neighborhoods” to offer up their unwanted children. Walgreens and CVS just decided to stock its pharmacies with the abortion-inducing pill, mifepristone, so that unwanted pregnancies can end by a pill in the privacy of one’s own home. The Supreme Court of South Carolina just defended abortion by ruling that abortion is protected by the right to privacy. And in 2021, Senate Democrats blocked the passage of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, while this year 210 voted against a similar bill, which would protect children who have already been born.
Is our world much different than Walter’s for unwanted children? It doesn’t appear to be. And yet, it’s not just these direct assaults that endanger children, it is the social imaginary behind them.[2] A social imaginary is like a worldview, only with less thought and more feeling. And today, a predominant social imaginary is one that envisions a world unencumbered by children. That is to say, our culture’s images of human flourishing are those without kids. To give one example where childlessness is presented as a blessing, consider the ad campaign by Hilton’s Home 2 Suites.
On their Twitter feed, Home 2 Suites, has sold their brand by centering it around pets. Scroll through their timeline and you will find countless dogs and zero kids. And lest we think this is accidental, here’s their pet-centric mission statement: “From stylish suites w[ith] kitchens to free breakfast and amenities that focus on sustainability, Home2 Suites is perfect for guests and their pets.” Whereas families may have been the primary focus of hotels in another era, today Home 2 Suites envisions a different world. In fact, what alerted me to this branding was the picture I saw recently in a hotel elevator. In it, this same man, woman, and dog pictured above are found under the caption: “Bring your whole family.”
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Being an “older woman” is not for the faint of heart.  The older we get the more we realize the more flawed we are and the more we need every ounce of grace that God graciously gives –which is probably why God gives this command to us at this time in our lives.  But our young women are worth the investment.  And they need us now more than ever. 

Anyone paying attention knows that there is a national assault on our girls.  The most recent example is the amending of Title IX, a law that was originally written to protect young women and recognize their differences from men.  This law has been surreptitiously double-crossed by those who suggest that men can be women and therefore men should be protected as women and at the expense of the women it was originally meant to protect.  To add insult to injury, the feminine phenom of the day, Taylor Swift, who, like the Pied Piper, has sung her way into the hearts of our girls, released a new album that openly mocks the women who hold the line for our daughters in this crazy, disordered world.
I am grateful for the cultural warriors with large audiences who expose this attack on our girls and address it at the highest levels in our country.  But many of us don’t have that kind of platform.  For most of us, our circle of influence is small as we endeavor to live quiet lives and love our families, church community and neighbors.  We think, “What can we do that really makes a difference in this twisted, disordered world?”  The answer is one that has resounded throughout the generations: “Older women…teach what is good” (Tit. 2:3).
Direction for the Disorder
Unfortunately, what we see today is a generation of younger women who are increasingly vulnerable to the disorder promoted by those that hate God.  Many girls lack the foundation of truth which prevents them from standing as “corner pillars cut for the structure of a palace” (Ps. 144:12).  Will they be able to withstand the elements that are shaking the foundations of our society?  Do they believe what the Bible says about their identity and value as women?  Do they choose God’s truth over the worldly distractions thrown at them every day? Are they taken by the influence of the “Swifties” or by the influence of godly moms, grandmas, aunts and sisters? Importantly, do they see older women standing firm and engaging them in truth and in love and kindness?
Some days it can seem like disorder is winning the day.  Of course, this generation’s disorder is not a new story, but an old one from the beginning when the Author of Lies spewed the first critical theory of history: “Did God really say?” (Gen. 3:1).  The majestic order that God created out of the disordered void was corrupted by one who had a history of hating God.  It is not a new story.  And, it was not a new story when the Apostle Paul wrote to his disciple Titus, whom he left behind on the island of Crete to bring order to the church established there.  Paul wrote his letter to instruct Titus to “put what remained into order” so that the new Christians would live lives that flowed from a “knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life” (Tit.1:2).
Paul knew that order would come not only from establishing masculine authority in the church but also partnering with older women who would teach younger women what is good and in accordance with sound doctrine.
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Someone accused by his interlocutor of using the slippery-slope argument should reply that the debate should not focus on the notion that cause A could lead to cause B—which is unremarkable—but rather, on how likely it is that cause A could lead to cause B. If recent experience is any indication, the slippery slope against which that interlocutor had protested is likely to unfold in all its decadence as the years progress.

Every now and then, a piece of philosophical theory breaks into the popular consciousness, such that people without any philosophical education regularly refer to it. One such theory is the rejection of the slippery-slope argument, which holds that an event, A, will set off a series of events culminating in some dreadful consequence, B—and therefore A should not occur. “The supposed ‘slippery slopes’ are fake, silly rhetoric to placate the faithful,” a columnist recently wrote, pointing to how partisans on different sides of contentious issues like gun rights or abortion take extreme positions. True, such arguments can sometimes ignore a potential middle ground and overlook the fact that the dreaded consequence will not necessarily follow. But slippery-slope arguments are not always incorrect, and they offer insight about the nature of modern progressivism.
Usually, rejection of slippery-slope arguments occurs in the context of their claims that some policy will have bad consequences. These claims may be wrong, but the slippery-slope label does not prove their wrongness. Societies slide down such slopes all the time: history is full of examples of nations that moved in a progressive direction over time, tended toward decadence or exhaustion after altering rules for elites, and then relaxed moral standards. Indeed, the slippery-slope argument, especially in the context of social decay, has a noble pedigree. Plato observes in The Republic that democracy leads to authoritarianism; as freedom and equality expand beyond orderly limits, only hardheaded authority can rein them in. The fall of the Roman republic to authoritarian empire and the rapid collapse of French republicanism before the rise of Napoleon stand as examples.
Today’s slippery slopes are more familiar. Consider contemporary discussion over the nature of rights. While political conservatives generally define rights negatively (freedom from something), progressives define them positively (freedom to something). The preservation of negative liberties is definite and circumscribed, seeking to conserve a particular thing; the search for positive liberties is less bounded, aiming to widen the scope of what is alleged to be true freedom. Contemporary progressives tend not to be satisfied with certain political victories, which, once achieved, give way to new demands: for example, activists hoping to secure rights for sexual minorities initially made assurances that those who disagreed would be left alone; now they intend to stamp out dissent and expand the universe of rights beyond gay marriage.
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