The Daily Signal - Former NFL Star Ben Watson Offers Antidote to Abortion

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

If the number of marriages increased in America, the number of abortions would likely decrease, statistics show.  The Pew Research Center reported that in 2021, 87% of women who had abortions were unmarried, meaning that “marriage can make a huge difference if 87% of abortion-determined women are not married,” says pro-life advocate Ben Watson, a former NFL star. It's not only the unborn that benefit from a society that celebrates marriage, but all children, Watson says. “It's necessary that men be a part of raising a child and having a commitment to the mother in the form of marriage, because we see statistically that it produces that kind of children that we want in our society,” says Watson, who played for four NFL teams during his 16-season career.  Ahead of Father's Day, the former NFL tight end and current president of strategic relationships for the Human Coalition joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain how he and his wife have navigated some of the challenges of their own marriage, and whether being a father is what he expected. Watson also offers his predictions on the upcoming 2024-25 NFL season.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Nothing else is Rees. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, June 14th. I'm Virginia Allen. Did you know that the vast majority of women who have abortions are unmarried? If we want to see a decline in the number of abortions across America, the answer is strong, healthy marriages. That's according to pro-life advocate Ben Watson. Watson serves as the current president of strategic relationships for human coalition and is a former NFL tight end. He joins us on the show today to share about his own marriage and experience of being a father and a pro-life advocate ahead of Father's Day.

He also discusses a little bit about what we may see from the NFL this season. Stay tuned for our conversation after this. Hi, I'm John Carlo Canaparo. And I'm Zach Smith. And we host Scotus 101. It's a podcast where you'll get a breakdown of top cases in the highest court in the land. Hear from some of the greatest legal minds. And of course, get a healthy dose of Supreme Court trivia.

Want to listen? Find us wherever you get your podcasts or just head toheritage.org slash podcasts. I am so excited to welcome back to the show today, Benjamin Watson. He is a former NFL player, a husband, a father of seven, vice president of strategic relations with human coalition, author of multiple books, including the new fight for life, row, race, and a pro-life commitment. to justice. Benjamin Watson, thank you so much for being back with us today. Great to be with you, Virginia. Thank you. You recently wrote a great piece for National Review that's titled, Our Mothers Don't Need More Abortions. They need good marriages. And, wow, that cannot be more true. You write in this piece,

the typical abortion client is an unmarried woman with a low income who already has a child. She needs something that no policies can provide a loving husband. And I took a little bit of time to look this up. Pew Research reports that in 2021, 87% of women who had an abortion were unmarried. Why do you think that this is not talked about more, that connection between abortion and single unmarried moms? Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having this conversation.

And for talking about this topic, I think, you know, we think about marriage and you think about the importance of it, the fact that for millennia marriage has been the binding, social unit, really of society. Statistics show over and over again the way that marriage helps and supports children. And that's beyond politics, that's beyond religion. That's just what the data shows us that children who grow up with two parents that are married tend to fare better. It doesn't mean that a single mother or a single father can't produce a child that is productive in the world. We're not saying that at all. Just the data shows the benefits, I think,

of the social union, the covenant of marriage. And as it relates to abortion, again, just speaking about the numbers, you look at them and you say, wow, marriage can make a huge difference if 87% of abortion determined women are not married. The caveat always there is obviously if it's an abusive relationship, those sorts of things I talk about in the article. But to get to your question, why is it not talked about? I think in many respects, it puts some of the onus on men.

And we don't like that type of responsibility. We don't want to be pulled into the conversation. As you hear it repeated over and over again with abortion talking points, many of the time, it's the woman's decision. It's between her and her doctor. It's between her and her religion, her faith, it's her decision, it's her body. All those sorts of things pull men out of the equation. And what marriage does are talking about marriage is say, you know what, we are in this

equation, we are part of this. It's necessary that men be a part of. of raising a child and having a commitment to the mother in the form of marriage because we see statistically that it produces the kind of children that we want in our society. And it's not, I don't think it's not politically expedient many times on the fringes to talk about marriage,

but in the middle, I think a lot of people understand the importance of marriage, even in a culture where I would say the importance of marriage is starting to or has been declining, over the last, I would say, 50 years at least when you look at the data again, marriage rates dropping 50, 60 percent since the 70s. Yeah. Yeah, we're at a point right now where fewer than 50 percent of U.S. adults are married

and individuals are getting married later and later. Right now, the average for men is the age of 30 and it's 28 for women, the average age when they get married for the first time. Do you think that this decline in marriage rates is in part because it's almost like a snowball that there's not good examples. And so individuals are growing up in homes. They're not seeing maybe a great example of a marriage. So then men especially are just deciding, yeah, I don't think I want to invest in that or I don't even know what that really looks like to pursue a healthy marriage. You know, there's a few factors, many of which I don't even know. I'm still

trying to ask myself that question, honestly. Where did we go wrong? Was it policy? Was it culture? or was it the church? And I think that there are lanes for all three of those areas, plus some extra lanes that we haven't even thought of why marriage is declining. I've encountered many men who, because they didn't see it growing up, they want to do the opposite. They feel like, you know what?

I didn't see a great example of a mother and a father. I didn't see a great relationship. I was talking to a gentleman the other day whose parents were divorced fairly early his childhood and he said, I want to do the exact opposite. And that's what he's doing with his kids. Then on the other hand, you have young men who didn't see it and they have a sense of fear. I can't do it because I didn't see it. I don't know how to do it because I didn't see it. I don't want to mess this up. I think this is really important. And I don't want to engage in this

relationship because I don't want to mess it up. And so I think you see a little bit of both. And then also, I think they're economic factors. you know, you look at how much it costs to raise, quote unquote, cost to raise a family and the perceived cost of raising a child. And you see unemployment or you see economic catastrophes in our own economy here in the United States. And a lot of people say, you know what, I don't know if I can afford to do it. You see educationally, you mentioned the fact that marriage is being delayed. A lot of times, a lot of that is because of educational attainment. More people are getting college degrees and furthering their education, which is a great thing. But on the other hand,

they say, well, you know what, I'll push off bearers until later. And then the full circle moment, which I think America has to come to a reckoning with, is that we cannot simultaneously downplay the importance of marriage, downplay the importance of child rearing, downplay the importance of fatherhood and motherhood, and still expect us to be able to maintain. in a society where birth rates are declining. We can't have both. And that's another topic that comes up a lot, the declining birth rates, not only the United States, but across many parts of the world. And you see a connection directly between an uplift in delaying the important, delaying marriage, downplaying the importance of marriage, a kind of free for all culture where

those type of bonds aren't that important. But yet, we want to be able to populate and maintain a certain sense of a normalcy in our culture. You can't have both. Yeah. What was your own journey to marriage? How did you meet your wife? And why did you decide to get married? I was terrified. I remember standing there. I was 24 years old when we got married. I met my wife Kirsten at University of Georgia. We met in an organization called FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athlete. She was playing softball at Georgia. I was playing football. And after a year or so, we started officially dating. And then we ended up getting married after my rookie year in the NFL, which that would have been 2005 is when we got married. So we're going on 19 years this July. And I remember being being terrified of getting

married. Why was I terrified? Well, I understood the importance of it. I understood that I didn't want to mess this thing up. I grew up in a household. My parents, they celebrated, I guess, I'm 43. They must have celebrated about 45 years coming up here this year in September. about 45 years. I saw in their friends, a lot of marriages around in our churches. I saw all these sorts of things growing up. And so while I knew that that's what I wanted, at the same time, I was scared of me, to be quite honest.

Yeah. And I think that part of me making this step, obviously, was understanding the importance of marriage, understanding, you know, God's blueprint for the relationship. before child growing, but also having different voices in my life to counter the other voices saying, don't do this. Why would you do this? You're too young. You can't handle it. Go play the field, all those sorts of things that I was getting from both sides. And so our journey, our first three years were tough, as many marriages are. We didn't know we're going to make it. We argued a lot. We still argue sometimes. She's sitting right next to me, so I can say that. But there was this bond and

commitment that you don't have if you don't step into the marriage relationship. It was tougher for us to go our separate ways than it was for us to hunker down and fight through this thing. What's been the greatest reward of marriage for you and your wife? The greatest reward of marriage from my wife and I, I would say is the growth that we've seen in each other and in our relationship over the past 18, going on 19 years, individually, but also collectively in how we treat each other, love each other, serve each other. You know, scripture talks a lot about marriage being a representation of Christ and his church. And I've seen that grow in our marriage, even in how we deal with conflict and the fact that we always said

that we wanted our marriage to be our ministry and we wanted to be transparent with the struggles that we've had, but also show that, you know, people can do this. This is how we have to consistently be on our knees. We talk a lot about us each having our own journey, you know, growing closer to the Lord and in essence, growing closer to each other. We talk about this triangle concept that we've kind of been a part of our marriage from the very beginning. I would also say part of the biggest fruit of marriage is unity. And a lot of times we think, especially as men that unity is only sexual,

we think about that part a lot, but unity is so much more than that. Unity and transparency, that's something that we've grown in. And we know each other. We're still young in our marriage. I ran into a guy, Virginia, not too long ago. We were at the Verizon store, getting a new phone because we had an old phone. And it was a guy that walked in. He was probably in his 80s.

And he just looked at us and said, you guys married? I said, you're married. I said, how long? I said, we're going on 19 years. He said, well, I was married to my wife for 60-something years. She recently passed away. And he had so many words of encouragement for us in the Verizon store about dating your wife, about how you treat her, about all these sorts of things. And those are the types of conversations, I think, that couples, men, women, independently need to be having with other married couples. Like so often we quarter ourselves off amongst our peer group,

people that are in our same age group, which is great. But to have elders talk about the journey they've had and pour into us, and then us do the same thing for others, I think that that's how you in many ways turn the idea of what marriage can be around from something that is to be feared and not desirable to something that is our biggest asset, not only individually, not only spiritually, emotionally, but also just as a culture. Yeah, that does have a huge cultural impact, really, really significant.

Those little conversations can't be overstated how significant those are. Now, you and your wife have seven kids together. Has fatherhood been what you thought it would be? fatherhood, man, that is, you know what's funny? So I'm the oldest of six kids. And I said, I never want to have six kids. Like, it's too many. It's too many.

There's just chaos. Like, everybody's fighting for food. You know, I don't want to have six kids. And then the Lord gives us, we go from five, and then we have twins, and then we go to seven. That's awesome. So I need to be more specific in what I pray for. But fatherhood has been rewarding in a different way because we're at the point now where our oldest is going to 10th grade and then our youngest are going to kindergarten next year. They're just finished pre-K.

And you start to see kind of the fruit of some of the disciplines that you've tried to instill in your kids. And you also get to celebrate them. One of the things I love the most is celebrating the success of my children. One of our kids read the most words for the entire elementary school, like four. million words he read this year, something like that. So celebrate that. Celebrating when the child runs track and wins a state championship, celebrating the dance. So, you know, there's all these sorts of things, I think, in fatherhood. But one of the, I would guess, things that I didn't expect was that we're just, we tell our case all the time, we're just trying to do the best

we, I've never parented anybody your age. I've never parented a teenager. I just haven't done it. And so you see so often kind of how the Lord looks at us and we make mistakes and then he cleans stuff up and forgives us and tries to bring that relationship back. I've learned to be humble. I've learned to be honest with them and say, you know, I don't have it all together. But I've also realized the generational impact and opportunity that parents have, as fathers have especially in how we raise and train our kids because we are literally raised. raising somebody else's mother and father.

Yeah. That's what we're doing. And the time goes by very quickly. It does. It goes by so fast. When we consider the big picture of, okay, how do we move forward? How do we create more healthy marriages in America? How do we create more moms and dads in the home raising great kids?

I mean, we've talked about those low marriage rates. We've talked about people pushing marriage back. We've seen an increase in cohabitation in America. A lot of couples just choosing to live together. What are the ways that whether it's churches, whether it's just individuals and within their own community can be a part of actually saying, okay, I want to help to foster a culture that values marriage, that values family. What does that look like?

That's a million dollar question. And like I said, I wrote the op-ed. know, and I'm always careful when I do those things because I don't have the answers. Yeah. But I do think it's complicated. I don't think we got here without policy, you know, for example, that while being well, meaning perhaps may have incentivized removing dads out of the home. I don't think we got here without churches, which when you look at divorce rates inside,

you know, churches and outside of churches, many times they're similar. I don't think we got here without, you know, faith-based institutions, churches, not speaking truthfully and honestly in demonstrating what it means to fight for marriage. I don't think we got here without culture, perhaps being allowed to elevate cohabitation or sex outside of marriage, all these sorts of things that we know are detrimental, but are things. that in our own flesh we want to do, I don't think we got there without that aspect of it. And so there are all these different lanes

that I think have contributed to where we are now. And I also think it's gonna be all those sorts of lanes that are going to have to be entered into in order to write the shift. For example, in the church, are we strategically and purposefully praying for marriages? Not only in our church, in our church, but outside of our churches? Are we creating content? Are we demonstrating

from the front what it means to have a marriage that's not perfect at all, but a marriage that is centered and is pointing in the right direction and is trying to live in the right way? Are we demonstrating those sorts of things? Are those who are in the halls of Congress creating policy that incentivizes marriage, that incentivizes childbirth, that cares for families. Going back to the abortion determined woman who is low income, probably has a child already, and it's probably not married, what are the ways we can support her and also incentivize marriage with that? I don't know all the ways, but there are ways to do that. So I think that there's a lot of different avenues that we have to address when it comes to marriage, but also know this.

Information is important as well, and a lot of people don't understand the impact on not only families, not only their children, but on culture at large of marriage being disincentivized and marriage not happening until much later. many times we think our decisions only impact us. And what the data would show us, that outside of any, like I said before, outside of any religion, outside of any political, you know, agenda, these sorts of issues impact all of us. Yeah, they do. They have broad implications. Well, and Benjamin, we want to thank you for the work that you're doing to just speak out on this issue. And as someone who has a platform that you're willing to say, hey, marriage is awesome.

And it's a powerful solution to some of the things that we're seeing in culture and society today that need to be righted like abortion. I do want to end on a little bit of a lighter note. I have to ask you, given your career in football, in the NFL, playing for UGA, what are the teams? First, let's do a college team that you have your eye on as we move a little closer to the season starting here in a little bit. what team do you expect the most from this year, college-wise, and then what NFL team are you expecting the most from this year? Well, the college team is easy. University of Georgia is a team.

And not just because I love them. Not biased at all. I'm not biased. I'm not a fan. Of course, I am a big fan, a big fan. But you look at their roster, you look at the fact they've got a quarterback coming back in Carson Beck, what they've done in the portal.

you know, Kirby Smart has really built a machine, and they're going to be in the national picture. Now, I could go on and on about them, but I will pick another team that I think we should have an eye on, and that's the University of Texas. And I say that for some of the same reasons. Coming into the SEC this year, they've got a quarterback that played last year, which is always important. You know, you have to have an established starter at quarterback really to make a difference. And they have that some of their transfers. They got a lot of transfers in from Alabama with Nick Saban leaving. A lot of those guys went over to Texas.

They've got a huge recruiting base. They were in the playoff last year. I think Texas Longhorn fans should be expecting great things from their team. The NFL side of it, look, you can never go wrong with the Chiefs. That's never a bad bad bet because last time I checked, last time I checked, they still got my home. They still got Kelsey. They still got Andy Reid. And they're just adding on and adding on.

And nobody seems to have an answer for them in the playoffs. You look at their playoff runs of the last couple of years. Regardless of what happens in the regular season, they get to the play. I think they're bored in the regular season, honestly. They're like, let's just get to the playoffs, not have any injuries. And we'll go on the road if we have to as a wild card and beat everybody and make it to the dance. So it's hard to bet against that team either. Yeah, yeah, it is.

As a New England Patriots fan, I must say it's a hard, it's a hard time for us. It's a hard reality. It's a hard reality. It is. Hard reality. I remember talking to you last time about the Patriots and, you know, the last four years, they've had one winning season, one playoff appearance in the last four years. Yeah. Now you've got a new head coach, not a new coach.

I think Gerard is, you know, we played together in New England. I think he's fantastic. He's perfectly situated for a. to lead that team. But anytime you change head coaches, change a lot of assistant coaches, they're going to have a new quarterback situation. And it's just hard to win consistently

and definitely hard to go deep into the playoffs without that guy at quarterback. Yeah, takes a minute. Well, I hope and pray we'll see another winning streak for the Patriots in my lifetime. We'll see. I think every dog has their day. and it might be a little bit until the Patriots get back to, you know, where they were,

but, you know, you can be one of the ones to say, I remember when. I remember when, that's right. Benjamin Watson, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. Thank you. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode. A very happy Father's Day to all of our dads listening, including my own dad, listening from Boston.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. We hope you guys have a great Sunday. feel so loved and appreciated by the amazing kids that I know you have all raised. Thank you, dads. We couldn't do it without you. Be sure to leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. If you like what you heard today, we love hearing your feedback and hit that subscribe button. You never miss out on new shows from the Daily Signal podcast. Have a great weekend. Happy Father's Day. We'll see you right back here for Top News around 5 p.m. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are

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