Painting, "The Four Freedoms." Norman Rockwell (1943)

In 1947, two years after the United States won World War II, 96.4 percent of the babies in this country were born to a married mother and father.

Not a single American was on Medicaid that year. The program did not exist. Nor did Obamacare.

Traditional families — mom, dad and kids — were the cultural norm.

Was America a great country in 1947? Or was it lacking in socialized health care programs?

In 1965, 20 years after World War II, President Lyndon Johnson signed the law creating Medicaid.

That year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of American babies born to married moms and dads was 92.3 percent.

The traditional family was still the norm.

But by 2008, the percentage of babies born to married moms and dads was down to 59.4 percent — with 40.6 percent born to unmarried mothers. In each of the seven years on record since then, at least 40 percent of American babies have been born out of wedlock.

The last time more than 70 percent were born to married moms was more than a quarter century ago — in 1991.

The percentage of babies born on Medicaid is now above 40 percent, too.

In 1964, of course, not one baby was born on this then-nonexistent welfare program.

But a CDC study that looked at births in 2010 in 33 states and the District of Columbia determined that 44.9 percent of babies born in those jurisdictions were born on Medicaid.

A study published by Women's Health Issues concluded that nationwide in 2010, 48 percent of babies were born on Medicaid.

In 2016, the Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed the Medicaid programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. "On average," it determined, "states reported that Medicaid pays for just over 47 percent of all births."

"Eight states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia) reported that Medicaid pays for 60 percent or more of all births in their state," the survey said.

As America became a nation where a large percentage of babies were born out of wedlock and on Medicaid, it also became a nation where millions of babies were not allowed to be born at all.

In 1973, eight years after Johnson signed the Medicaid law, the Supreme Court declared it a "right" to abort an unborn child. Between then and 2014, according to the Guttmacher Institute, Americans aborted 55,541,800 babies.

That is more than the combined populations of California and Illinois.

The Republican leadership's weak and ill-fated plan to "repeal and replace" Obamacare included a provision that would have denied Planned Parenthood Medicaid (and other federal mandatory — but not discretionary — funding streams) for just one year. Calculating what it believed would be a diminution in the distribution of contraceptive services if Planned Parenthood lost this funding, the Congressional Budget Office drew the conclusion that "additional births" would cost the government money.

"The government would incur some costs for Medicaid beneficiaries currently served by affected entities because the costs of about 45 percent of all births are paid for by the Medicaid program," it said. "CBO estimates that the additional births stemming from the reduced access under the legislation would add to federal spending for Medicaid. In addition, some of those children would themselves qualify for Medicaid and possibly for other federal programs."

The government in a welfare state — with its materialistic view of life — sees the birth of a baby not as a net gain to the nation but as a net loss.

It does not recognize that all human beings — born and unborn — have a God-given right to life.

It does not see that mothers and fathers, in bringing a child into the world, may be inspired to work harder and achieve more not only for themselves but for their family.

Nor does it acknowledge that the wealth we have inherited as a people is the legacy of millions of babies born generations ago, when this nation still embraced the virtue of self-reliance and the sanctity of life.

Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor-in-chief of CNSnews.com.

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