Jonalyn Grace Fincher offers a long and nuanced (though unquestionably pro-life) Christian perspective on abortion and body sovereignty in this post entitled “Listening to Both Sides.” She links to and quotes from the post I wrote one week after Heloise’s birth: Pregnant women, personhood, and paternal reflections. She had some nice things to say about my piece, but took issue with the central thrust of my argument, which revolved around women’s right not to be forced to endure pain.
I wrote: Giving birth — whether by ceserean section or vaginally — hurts. The recovery hurts. That point is being driven home to me daily as I watch my wife recover. She considers the pain well worth it, well worth it because this baby was longed for and wanted. But we both shudder, more than ever now, at the thought of compelling a woman to go through this process against her will.
Jonalyn responds by noting that the real pain isn’t just in pregnancy and childbirth.
During pregnancy I slept long and well. I easily coordinated elaborate outfits with accessories and make-up. I worked out or spend hours reading and writing without leaking milk. Then I had a baby.
It’s not merely the pregnancy that women must count as a cost, it’s the life after the birth.
I believe more women would refuse an abortion if they could serve nine months and be done with it. It’s not the pain of the nine months; it is the idea of a life to be responsible for, to be guilty about, to wonder as to the painful, happy, fruitful or fruitless future of your offspring.
That’s right, I think. It’s certainly not an argument against the legal right to choose an abortion. My point was not that abortion should be legal solely so that women can avoid the discomfort of continuing a pregnancy, nor that it should be legal only so that a woman can avoid the pain of birthing. Indeed, I support abortion rights for precisely the reasons Jonalyn mentions: “the idea of a life to be responsible for, to be guilty about”, and so forth. Whatever moral arguments can be brought to bear on the issue, I believe the state has a clear interest in not compelling women to take up those particular burdens against their will. And while a birth parent can surrender a newborn for adoption, it is simply an unconscionable overask to insist that every pregnant woman unready for motherhood choose adoption.
Jonalyn’s views on sex are deeply traditional; like so much conservative Christian writing on sexuality these days, they resonate with the vocabulary of John Paul II’s odious “theology of the body”, with the insistence that sex be focused on sacrifice and radical openness to new life. Jonalyn writes:
My concern is that pro-choice advocates remain intent upon driving a wedge between procreation and sex. I don’t think this is appropriately human, nor that God created our bodies and souls to permanently cleave sex away from procreation.
For the religious right (a group of which Jonalyn appears to be a member, albeit a winsome and reflective one) sex that isn’t procreative, or sex with the use of contraception, is a rejection of self-evident natural law, a rejection of both the design and the Designer. I come from an alternative Christian tradition, one that honors what Marvin Ellison calls “erotic justice”, something I wrote about at length in this post. I wrote:
Our sexual desires are indeed powerful. They can easily be misdirected or warped. But they can, by God’s common grace, be used as an instrument for justice. More than that, our bodies can be used to worship the aspects of the divine we find in each other. In the old Anglican marriage ceremony, a husband and wife would pledge their lives to each other, saying “with my body I thee worship.†We are called to worship only that which is of God; blessedly, God is found in each of us. When we have sex that is grounded in justice, grounded in enthusiastic and mutual desire, we are engaged in an act of worship. Not every act of sex in marriage is an act of worship, as most married folks can attest. And sex outside of heterosexual marriage, can be deeply worshipful.
The purpose of lovemaking is not to make babies. Pregnancy is simply an ancillary and occasional consequence of one particular kind of sex. Folks who say that procreation and sex can never be separated are like those who say that the primary function of the tongue is to prevent us from choking on our food. It is true that one function of the tongue is to protect large chunks of dinner from being lodged in our throats. But our tongues are there to taste, and we taste both to discern what is rancid and to delight in what is pleasurable. Our tongues are also necessary for speech. And sexually, tongues can bring delight to others. The tongue has many uses, many purposes, all important, all wonderful. We cannot discern a single purpose behind the Designer’s design. It is hubris — poltiicised and pleasure-hating hubris — to suggest that we can.
I know how we made Heloise. I’m fairly certain I remember the specific night she was conceived. After years together as lovers, after still more years of all kinds of sex with all kinds of other people, my wife and I were ready and open to the possibility of conceiving a child. What we had worked assiduously to prevent was now something that we ardently sought. This wasn’t a contradiction, or a sign of hypocrisy. We were at a new season in our lives, emotionally and spiritually and financially equipped to be parents. Was the sex we had when we were trying to conceive different than the sex we had had when we weren’t? Of course it was. But we weren’t magically transformed into better people because after so many years of being sexually active humans, we were finally having intercourse to procreate.
Pleasure still mattered. The opportunity to worship the divine in each other still mattered. The fact that I wasn’t wearing a condom (always, for umpteen reasons, my favorite form of contraception) didn’t mean that I loved my wife anymore than the times I’d been inside her with one on. Sex made the daughter whom I love with all my heart. But as wonderful as she is, as wonderful as all the little darling babes of the world are, they are not the only reason, should not be the only reason, need not have anything to do with the reason why we bring our hands and mouths and genitals together with those of others.
As a husband, a father,a teacher, and a Christian, I know this as I know few other things.
If I understood your post correctly you believe sex that isnmt just for babies is ok. Are u also saying that outside marriage sex is ok in your view? And, if you are how are you ok with it when the ten commandments don’t allow it? I’m just curious on your views.
“And while a birth parent can surrender a newborn for adoption, it is simply an unconscionable overask to insist that every pregnant woman unready for motherhood choose adoption.”
Not all women who choose abortion do so because they are unready for motherhood. “61% of women obtaining abortions in 2008 already had children, including 34% who had two or more.” http://blog.archny.org/steppingout/?p=1024
Eve, agreed, and didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
The commandment against adultery is not a blanket prohibition on all sexual activity outside marriage. Properly understood, it is a prohibition on breaking the covenant of marriage once it has been entered. Extramarital sex is adultery, pre-marital sex isn’t, and it badly misconstrues the original Hebrew to conflate two very different things. The former clearly falls short of the mark. It isn’t at all clear that the latter always does.
Thank you Hugo, for this very insightful piece. I especially appreciate your thoughts on the unconscionable overtask of giving one’s baby up for adoption. The glib remark of “well she can just give it up” is incredibly insensitive and unrealistic. Without contraception, without abortion services, women by virtue of biology, are absolutely subject to their own reproduction. As radical as it may sound, I think the term “slave” to one’s reproduction is more appropriate and is essentially the reason for which women seek the means and support to control their own wombs. No one wants to be a slave.
Thank you Hugo for this great post. A wonderful restating of things that should be obvious to anyone concerned with this complex issue by now. Of course we need to do this restating all the time to counter the same old, tired but persuasive (by appealing to our basest fears and habits) arguments presented by those who see sex and procreation in very limited and damaging ways. What is NOT stated all the time is the concept of erotic justice which needs to be. So I am off now to read the post you linked to her. Thanks
I often wonder what the various conservatives who are so insistent on the connection between sex and procreation think of various fertility treatments. They tend to focus on sex without procreation but what about procreation without sex?
I have always heard, read and thought that when something hurts that means something is wrong. So if there was a designer (which I don’t think there was), the human body must have been one of its first student-projects, or possibly dumped on an assistent with even less of a clue. It seems, for instance, that in old age half the population will be peeing its pants when it laughs and the other half will be finding it hard to pee at all. If this is the result of some sin then it seems to me that a better idea would be to make everyone sin-proof in the first place.
Anyway, Rebecca made a good point, and I just wonder what the development of exo-gestation will do for the anti-abortion contingent. Will they be okay with it, or will it shine a light on how they (some of them)are really less interested in saving babies than in punishing women?
And Katie was right too–no one should be enslaved, by people or by nature.
Biblically understood, it is a prohibition on a married woman having sex with a man other than her husband.
I get Jonalyn’s point about how many people think of childbirth in the way that they think of ‘happily ever after’ at the end of a fairy tale, but it’s tiresome to hear her say that because her pregnancy was easy-peasy then pregnancy is really no big deal. Being pregnant is not simply ‘serving time’ for nine months.
Indeed, Mythago, that is the traditional interpretation. It’s that understanding that Jesus rebukes famously in John 7, when he suggests that adultery laws ought to apply equally to both sexes.
It’s not the “traditional interpretation”, Hugo, it’s Jewish law as it existed at Jesus’s time (and exists now).
I think it’s interesting that Jesus notes that a man gazing on a married woman with lust ‘makes her an adulteress’; Jesus didn’t say ‘he commits adultery’. Where in John 7 are you finding this passage on adultery?
Sorry, type in haste and repent in leisure. John 8. I really ought to look these things up to confirm. What Jesus says to the Pharisees about to stone the woman to death is, as many New Testament scholars have suggested, “let any man here not guilty of her same sin cast the first stone.”
As for making her an adulteress, not quite — are you talking about Matthew 5:28? That’s not what Jesus says: “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (NIV) The onus is all on the man, not on the woman.
Which New Testament scholars are those? My Greek is virtually nonexistent, but none of the English translations I can find refer to the same sin, merely to sin. The “same sin” interpretation is also rather bizarre. It only makes sense if we assume that every one of the Pharisees was having extramarital sex. Whereas “he that is without sin” is Jesus telling them, in effect, where do you get off, Mister Sinner, executing judgment on this woman?
Nothing about the passage suggests that Jesus is saying that he abolishes the then-current view of adultery. Frankly, while Jesus said many things suggesting equality of men and women, this ain’t it.
And you’re right about the wording of 5:8, but again, nothing to suggest a change in the Law. Jesus is saying that you don’t even have to have sex to make it adultery; the intention is enough.
It’s F.C. Grant who is best known for this, and I’m gonna hunt and see what I can find online, or maybe in google books, to help with this interpretation of John 8. If not, after finals I’ll dig out the actual book for the specific explication.
Well, no rush. It’s just a pretty tortured explanation of a pretty straightforward story: sanctimonious jerks rush to condemn someone whose sins are no worse than their own, and slink away when Jesus ‘innocently’ points out their hypocrisy (really, it’s a wonderful narrative, uncharacteristically so for the NT).
Back on topic, Jonalyn is either misunderstanding the point of pro-choice or is disingenuous. Is she saying that the only appropriate form of sex for a married couple is vaginal intercourse during the wife’s fertile period?
Eve: “Not all women who choose abortion do so because they are unready for motherhood. “61% of women obtaining abortions in 2008 already had children, including 34% who had two or more.†http://blog.archny.org/steppingout/?p=1024”
Not ready for additional motherhood, then.
Unless you think “in for a penny, in for a pound” is an unlimited categorical imperative, so for example “ready to teach” means “ready to teach 5,000 people something I don’t know anything about.”
I wonder how anti-choicers who go on about sex only for procreation feel about sex between a hetero, married couple DURING pregnancy?
Hugo,
I’m honored that you would respond. Thank you for taking the time.
Your post made me grin mainly because we agree on so much. This is encouraging to me.
I wanted to respond to the way several commentators (mythago for instance) assumed I think sex is wrong or bad if pregnancy is not intentionally sought.
There is not ONE single purpose to sex, neither I nor for that matter John Paul II think this way (BTW I’d be interested in reading why you find his The Theology of the Body so distasteful, do you have any posts critiquing him?).
As I understand it, the Catholic view, according to Thomas Aquinas, finds three purposes God placed in sex. My paraphrase:
1- recreation
2- procreation
3- unity
While I am not Catholic I find some helpful ideas in this triad. If you find erotic justice one of the purposes of sex (a provocative idea to say the least), how can you accuse me of finding other purposes? Aren’t we both guilty of hubris?
I would not say these three purposes are exhaustive, but you seem to be saying erotic justice is.
Sure the tongue can be used for holding back food from choking us as well as eating as well as some great genital stimulation. I’m not saying one is better than another (e.g. having sex to have kids is not more blessed than having sex for a good time) HOWEVER, wouldn’t you say a tongue that only licks genitals is somehow missing out on something?
In the same way, I’d say the various prongs of purpose within sex help us round out our experience and help us become more appropriately human.
As I’d be worried about a person who refuses to listen to the multiple meanings of the tongues purpose, I’d also be worried about a person who refuses to find the multiple purposes of sex.. even more so as we know sex is potent, beautiful and good. I’d say even more than eating.
Let’s get all we can out of this vibrant experience. I want a good run for my money!
My main concern is not enforcing every sex act as a time to try to have a child. My concern is that ONE of sex’s purposes seems to be procreation. Not all the time, of course, but there is a natural and I’d add God-given connection between sex and children.
I don’t want to divorce the two without having a very good reason.
Is your reason that sex is also fun?
For instance, I think infertile couples or elderly couples love having sex. Yet, procreation is missing.
In my experience most infertile couples feel this void acutely, feeling broken or inadequate on some level for being unable to have children. They may not grieve this, they may even accept it as a gift to live married with less distraction (for children do distract). However, the way infertility (barrenness) stuns and wounds couples is an argument in and of itself that procreation cannot be completely severed from the sex act
This means that God was excited that sex included more than fun genital play time (recreation). It doesn’t mean EVERY act must be intentionally procreative, but I believe sexual intercourse (all vagina/penis meet-ups) are most fully satisfying when they include all three purposes of sex.
To my mind this doesn’t mean God is against oral sex, anal sex, sex while one or both members is practicing birth control (be it withdrawal, the pill, IUD, condom, etc), elderly people having sex, etc. However, I currently believe that if we consistently remove one of the three purposes of sex WE miss out.
I’m not concerned with pushing this idea on all people, I’m more concerned with understanding the purpose of sex. Why? I want to enjoy it fully.
I think we can see the way we expect sex to have multiple purposes if we imagine removing one of the other purposes (the ones our culture finds uber-sexy).
For example, if a couple ONLY had sex to have children and never enjoyed themselves (recreation), I’d be concerned something is wrong or lopsided.
Or
If a couple ONLY had sex to have fun and never to unite with the other, I’d be concerned something is wrong or lopsided.
In the same way…
If a couple ONLY had sex to have fun and unite but never to open themselves to the possibility of children, I’d be concerned something was wrong or lopsided.
Of course this doesn’t mean the the couple is automatically evil or in sin. But I’d hope this couple had reasons to permanently cleave one of the reasons for sex away from the other two.
We were very nearly in this boat.
I know couples who intend to never have children because of health reasons, or because of callings that make children difficult. But they’ve also accepted that their sexual intimacy will be different, perhaps even paler because they’ve separated sex permanently from procreation.
I hope this sheds some light and prevents some of the straw men arguments here. It would be rewarding if we could generate more and more light on this topic and less heat.
On that note, I was saddened to see you slightly assuming I’m part of the Religious Right simply because I lean more pro-life. To my mind being part of the Religious Right includes much, much more than one’s belief about abortion. I’d request that next time you consider this before branding me or anyone else.
Jonalyn, I withdraw the remark about the religious right. My apologies.
It seems to me that you’re taking the stance that on some level, all couples want children sooner or later. Can you imagine the possibility that a heterosexual couple could want very much to be together, be together for life, and not believe that they are called to have children? Do you think an openness to one’s partner requires an openness to procreation? I know many couples who have been together for years, have considered having children, and have decided it against it. It is grossly presumptuous to assume that on some level they would invariably regret that decision. (Anecdotally, as much as one can ever know the mind of others, I know that they don’t.)
Is homosexual sex, in your mind, always defective because it has no possibility of procreation? (A position held by religious conservatives, but one that is increasingly, thankfully, rejected by the young). Or what of a straight couple who, hypothetically, decide that “penis in vagina” intercourse isn’t particularly satisfying compared to oral sex. Is there preference for non-procreative sex, if it leads to a decision not to have PIV intercourse, falling short of the mark?
The heat comes, Jonalyn, from the staggering presumptuousness — I’m sorry, there is no softer term — of suggesting that those who permanently separate sex from procreation have an experience that is “perhaps… paler” than those couples whose sexual practices and identities leave open the possibility of conceiving a child. Can you imagine, for a moment, how fundamentally dishonoring that position is to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, to their lived experience, to the validity of their physical expression of love?
Certainly, procreation is one purpose of sex, and a fine one at that. What I object to is the monumental the leap from “one possible purpose among many” to “something that is intrinsically connected to the best and holiest sort of sex”. Reason, experience, tradition — and even Scripture — suggest to me that that is indeed an unjustified leap. To you, any separation of the possibility of procreation from the sexual act diminishes, however slightly, the two people who are doing it. (Correct me if that doesn’t describe your views!) I reject that for the reasons I’ve made clear in my posts on erotic justice.
Quite frankly I’m a regular reader of Hugo’s blog and I found much about Jonalyn’s post to be not only presumptious, but also very offensive.
“I know couples who intend to never have children because of health reasons, or because of callings that make children difficult. But they’ve also accepted that their sexual intimacy will be different, perhaps even paler because they’ve separated sex permanently from procreation.”
How do you know their sexual intimacy is PALER? How could you possibly know and what makes you an authority on their sexual experiences anyway! For what possible reason is it necessary to procreate in order to enjoy sexual intimacy.
The fact is, most women I know feel greater sexual fulfillment and also openness, which enhances intimacy when they are not consumed by the constant worry of unplanned pregnancies. As for how men feel, I don’t know. I gather many of them enjoy the experience more when they are not worried either about unplanned pregnancies too.
Hugo’s response is spot on and I’ve always found Mythago’s observations spot on as well.
What I find particularly amusing about Jonalyn’s post is the assumption that all couples are of childbearing age and either want to have children, or can’t and never will. Presumably those of us who have children, but whose childbearing years, are past, don’t exist. Or, if we do, we have really unfortunate sex. The arrogance of youth, it is adorable.
“Presumably those of us who have children, but whose childbearing years, are past, don’t exist.”
Yeah…and yer jus’ a whippersnapper, Myth. Dunno if you remember my confessions of “uptightness” because of my ridiculous fertility…but the welcome loss of that fear has made conjugal relations infinitely more VIVID!
Paler? Methinks not.
Oh yes. As I remember we had a pissing match about how little our respective husbands actually had to do to risk us getting pregnant.
Hugo,
I’m very grateful for your willingness to remove the Religious Right label. Thank you.
I think I’ve been unclear about my position. I don’t think all couples should or do want children. I know my husband and I very nearly decided to never have children. We are close friends with couples who decide against children and all for good reasons. i don’t assume or presume that they’d regret that decision, just as I would be discouraged by people who assume we’ll regret our decision to only have one child.
Let me try to explain my position again. I believe that sex has many purposes. It seems that since semen and egg are a part of our reproductive PIV encounters that we cannot dismiss the procreative side of sex too flippantly or easily.
When I wrote that I think sex without ever wanting children is paler I by no means meant it was less fun, less holy, less stimulating or less free.
First, so much depends on why we do what we do. Would you agree that a couple COULD refuse to open themselves up to the possibility of children for poor reasons? If so, are you against conjecturing about what these reasons could be?
If you write so well about erotic justice being a good, even holy, point of sex, aren’t you also concerned about people who might use erotic justice to mask their less honorable reasons for avoiding children?
When I write that sex is paler, I meant paler in that one of the purposes of sex was removed. And just like a rainbow without the blue is paler, so is sex paler. However, I think couples do (and I know my husband and I do) enjoy sex very much when we’re not concerned that a child will be produced, especially now that we know the work a child involves. But we’re willing to see that one purpose of sex has been barred.
Are you avoiding the idea that sex without procreation is paler because this hurts our gay brothers and sisters? or because you find that removing a purpose of sex does in no way change sex itself?
Maybe an analogy would help. If someone told me my tongue would never taste saltiness, but would be able to enjoy sweetness in more intensity, I would feel some purpose of my tongue was gone.
As I’ve asked friends about this “paler sex” idea, one made an interesting comment. Perhaps when one purpose of sex is removed, he said, the others grow stronger. To draw on the rainbow analogy, if you didn’t have the blue, you might notice the other colors more. So if you are a married couple who doesn’t want children, perhaps recreation or pleasure or erotic justice becomes more intense.
I see this is good if avoiding children is for a good reason. Who decides that?
I leave that to the couple and God. But I will not shy away from stating that a couple may have some horridly small reasons for refusing to have a child.
Please do not misunderstand me to mean that couples who are past child-bearing years cannot enjoy sex, or that their sex is tainted or less than holy. I mean nothing of the sort.
Homosexual sex is a matter I’m not prepared to comment about, yet. I’m formulating my ideas on this as I dialog with my gay, evangelical, psychologist cousin. So I can’t use this argument for or against as of now.
Even if I grant that sex between a gay couple is good and fitting with God’s design, surely we would admit that homosexuals also long for children. Some (at least those I know and love) wish their sexual encounters could produce a child. I feel we must honor that desire in them, balanced against those who feel uninhibited and grateful that gay sex is not procreative.
As far as PIV sex, I think that if a couple only and ever enjoys oral sex, then their sex is also paler. Perhaps you would accuse me of being wrong, but you cannot call me presumptuous since you are also ascribing rules for what makes sex meaningful.
I think our sexual organs were designed for more than oral stimulation. You think sex was designed for erotic justice. So far we both ascribe ideal sexual practices. So we both are presuming the Designer’s intent from the design. For example, your post describes the delight you had in making Heloise. Doesn’t this prescribe pleasure as one purpose of sex. I would agree with you, but let’s me honest that we are both prescribing the ingredients for “good sex.”
My position comes not from wanting couples to only have sex MY WAY, but from a deeper interest in wondering why God likes sex in the first place.
Here’s a question I’ve been pondering and would be very interested in hearing what you and your readers think: If procreation were not a result of some sexual acts, would God have created sex in the first place?
Put another way: Will sex exist in the new earth, when we have resurrected bodies?
Karen – I know that sex is paler only from my own experience. I do not want to assume I know all couples sexual experiences. As my husband and I practiced birth control for eight years and then opened up to the possibility of having a child for three months I noticed a different texture to our sexual encounters. The wonder and possibility of creating a life added something to our intimacy.
Now, with no other plans for children, our sexual intimacy is stronger toward what Hugo would call erotic justice, as we march intently away from procreation. This changes what I feel emotionally, spiritually and intellectually when we make love. I have no better word than “paler” to describe it. I see that ahunt finds this word unhelpful. I see how paler might connote less intense, but the degree of “mind-blowing orgasmic” sex is not what I’m talking about.
The potential to create life has been intentionally removed, by us. This removes something very powerful, hence my use of “paler.”
However, I completely agree with you that the freedom to enjoy sex would definitely increase were I to know that we could not longer have children. I can see post-menopause as a comfortable, delightful, safe time.
But please do not assume that by paler I mean less enjoyable or less free. I would refer you to the rainbow analogy above.
Mythago – I don’t find post-childbearing-years-sex to be unfortunate sex. I’m disappointed I’ve been so unclear as to communicate that.
Jonalyn – you’ve been very clear. The problem appears to be that you don’t really want to insult people or tell them their sex lives are inferior, yet you still want to convey that sex without the possibility of reproduction is inferior to sex with. These are not compatible positions.
“Sex is paler for me” is different than a sweeping generalization about what sex is. I don’t think you’d have gotten half the heat you did if you had simply said that, for you, sex without procreation, ever, would be less meaningful and powerful.
Jonalyn,
You’ve been very clear and I appreciate your explanation. I find the use of the word “paler” problematic too. I also agree with Mythago’s observation.
As to some of the other issues and questions you present I do not have the time to respond more fully.
Jonalyn,
“If you write so well about erotic justice being a good, even holy, point of sex, aren’t you also concerned about people who might use erotic justice to mask their less honorable reasons for avoiding children?”
I think you’ve directed this question for Hugo, however since I’m a regular reader of his blog I’d like to say that I don’t like to judge other people’s reasons for “avoiding children”. I tend to accept that they have their reasons and that it really is none of my business–to criticize or to judge. I personally don’t feel it is my place or even yours. In fact, if they do not desire children I see no reason why I should impose my beliefs on them nor do I see any valid reason for why anyone would want to try to influence, manipulate or judge them. Why would I want to pressure people into becoming parent’s if they don’t want to be or they are not ready to become parents? Sadly, I’ve seen lots of parents behave this way to their adult children when they want to become grandparents and I think it very selfish conduct.
My beliefs come from repeated exposure to unhappy people who I feel have children for very selfish reasons and who I think made poor choices which impact their children negatively. What kind of mother would one be if they felt they caved into pressure (bullied) to have children to meet the expectations of others anyway? In fact, I’ve encountered far more people who made selfish and poor choices who impose their unhappiness onto others and especially their children. Sadly, I’ve met more of these types of people rather than people who I respect and admire. I truly wish that was not the case, yet that is my experience. I also wish that there were more people who thought long and hard about what parenting entails before they became parents.
So “less honorable reasons for avoiding children” is just not something I feel compelled to discuss. I just don’t feel comfortable criticizing people for their reasons not to have children.
How does one assess and judge what constitutes “less than honorable reasons for avoiding children” anyway? Why would anyone want to try to coerce someone into having a child that they may not want to have or be ready for anyway? Do you really think this would lead to a favorable or happy outcome? I certainly don’t.
“But I will not shy away from stating that a couple may have some horridly small reasons for refusing to have a child.â€
WHY NOT? I say, leave them alone. They have their reasons and maybe it’s good that they don’t have them if they don’t want them. I’ve personally met people who have some horridly small reasons for having children—people who act and behave like children themselves, which poses all kinds of problems not only for the children they have, but for society in general. Just because people can have children, doesn’t mean they should.
I’m not qualified to talk about gay sex either, so I won’t. I don’t really have an opinion about it, since I’m not gay, however I don’t really feel it is my business anyway. I think gay people can speak for themselves, if they want too and it’s up for them to decide to whom, if and when.
I find it quite offensive that people feel compelled to stick their noses into other people’s sex lives anyway. I don’t know why they would as I’ve never really felt the need to be so nosey or intrusive. It tends to really piss me off when people behave that way towards others.
I don’t have much to say, except thank you to all who are participating in this discussion. As a 21-year-old who has been raised in a traditional Catholic family all of her life, it is incredibly enlightening and exciting to get to hear so many different sides of an issue all at once from those who have a great deal more perspective on different sides of issues than I do.
This isn’t meant to please anyone, but rather to say that I sincerely appreciate the (intelligent) openness and honesty that occurs in the comments on this blog. By being unafraid to share your present opinions you allow for a dialogue that creates deeper truth and understanding for all.
Cheers