No government … can afford … the police necessary to assure our safety unless the overwhelming majority of us are guided by an inner, personal code of morality. And you will not get that inner, personal code of morality unless children are brought up in a family—a family that gives them the affection they seek, that makes them feel they belong, that guides them to the future, and that will build continuity in future generations. We know that greatly increased crime among young people is because so many of them are born to single parents … Indeed, I would say, the greatest inequality today is not inequality of wealth or income. It is the inequality between the child brought up in a loving, supportive family and one who has been denied that birthright.

—Margaret Thatcher. Speech given at Brigham Young University, March 5, 1996.

Children with upbringings that do not properly cater to their emotional and moral needs will naturally be sent down the wrong path. To avoid providing incentives for illegitimacy:

  • Welfare programs that provide financial incentives for women to have children out of wedlock should be abolished;
  • Fathers should be made to pay their share of their child’s upbringing;
  • Fathers who are unable to support their existing children and who have abandoned their children, should be required to submit to vasectomy.

This article is an extract from the book ‘Principles of Good Government’ by Matthew Bransgrove