Because it’s a cruel term that denigrates the dignity of the innocent child. I will never understand the pleasure some people get out of calling a baby, whose parents were not married at his or her birth, a bastard. People who engage in reckless, careless or immoral behavior should be the one called bastards: bastard parents. When you put the shame on the child, it creates an environment where the child is unwanted and shunned. Shame can be a motivator into getting adults to do the proper thing, but it is an evil thing to shame an faultless child.
The Roberts aren’t doing anyone favors by calling their firstborn an bastard. Marriage after a child’s birth or adoption of a child by others because the parents were unmarried does not make a child “illegitimate.” I also will never understand why some view children of divorce as an acceptable casualty of the modern world, but “illegitimate” children can be reviled for what they have no control over. Address the comments to the parents, not the children.
you have identified the reason for abortions during prior decades. Some shame was placed on the woman, some on her family and if the child was not aborted, he or she was burdened with the total shame of being ‘a bastard’.
Seems as if there was no shame attached to the sperm donors.
Young couples who were caught and scared - rushed to the altar and called their first-borns ‘premature’.
With the removal of ‘shame’ for unwed mothers you would expect fewer abortions.