Polyamory -- The Perfectly Plural Postmodern Condition

Albert Mohler reports on the latest trend in our decent into the abyss on his blog at http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_print.php?id=4211.

Mohler, in reference to the recent Newsweek report, available at http://www.newsweek.com/id/209164 writes:

Once a sexual revolution is set loose, it inevitably runs its course through the culture. While the current flashpoints of cultural conflict are focused on same-sex marriage and gender issues, others are biding their time. As Newsweek magazine makes clear, some new flashpoints are getting restless.

Polyamory, reports Newsweek, is having a "coming-out-party." Polyamory is the current "term of art" applied to "families" or "clusters" comprised of multiple sexual partners.

* * *

Perhaps the best way to understand this new movement is to understand it as a natural consequence of subverting marriage. We have largely normalized adultery, serialized marriage, separated marriage from reproduction and childbearing, and accepted divorce as a mechanism for liberation. Once this happens, boundary after boundary falls as sexual regulation virtually disappears among those defined as "consenting adults."

How did we get started down our descent into this seemingly bottomless pit?

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.

When did Christians Begin Accepting Birth Control?

It is very common to read that no orthodox Christian denomination condoned the use of contraception until the Anglican Communion accepted its use at its 1930 Lambeth Conference. That is true, as far as I have been able to discover. However, the Anglican Communion did not simply one day make a 180 degree turn without anyone within their denomination or the broader Christian world advocating for this. For several years, I have researched on this subject, trying to discover examples of pastors, theologians or smaller denominations which condoned the practice before 1930.

To date, the earliest example I can find of a nominally orthodox Christian (Gnostics and other widely acknowledged heretical groups don't count) condoning the use of contraceptives is "the prominent American radical clergyman, Moncure Conway," who in 1878 preached a sermon in London on the subject. Flann Campbell, Birth Control and the Christian Churches, Population Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Nov. 1960), p. 131, 133. "Seven years later the Christian Socialist parson, Stewart Headlam, condoned the practice. . . . It was among the Nonconformist Churches that a more broadly-based movement developed in favour of birth control." Ibid.

I would welcome any information (citation preferred, but not required) of earlier examples of an orthodox (at least nominally) pastor, theologian or denomination which condoned the use of contraception. Please post any suggestions as replies to this post. Thanks.

NY Times: Aging Nations

See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/opinion/08iht-edbowring.html

August 8, 2009

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Aging Nations

By PHILIP BOWRING

HONG KONG — Shanghai has plenty of achievements to boast about but one record suggests a bleaker future — the world’s lowest fertility rate, with 0.7 births per woman of child-bearing age.

In an era in which one frequently hears dire warnings that overpopulation will one day overwhelm the planet, this may not seem like an insurmountable problem. But low fertility rates in Asia, as in Europe, have created an economic time bomb, in which aging populations will be dependent for survival on a rapidly diminishing number of working age people.

In recognition of this demographic crises, which has been developing in Shanghai since birth rates began falling in the 1980s, officials announced recently that the city was selectively easing China’s one-child policy to encourage some families to have two.

Shanghai’s situation is extreme, but it reflects a trend. A recent U.N. report estimates that China’s total population could peak as early as 2020. The median age was forecast to rise from 34 today to 37 by 2020 and 50 by 2050.

And this pattern has been developing in other Chinese societies. Hong Kong has a fertility rate of about 1.0; Taiwan and Singapore are at 1.2. All of these are below the lowest fertility rates in Europe (Italy and Greece both have a rate of 1.3), and the rate of 1.4 for South Korea and Japan.

Although Japan and Europe are usually the focus of talk about the demographic crisis, urban East Asia shows a more consistent pattern.

In China, the Communist Party’s brutal population policy reduced the national fertility rate from 4.8 in the 1950s to around 1.8 today. However, several Asian countries saw almost equally sharp declines without having resorted to state thuggery. Moreover, it seems unlikely that easing the one-child policy now will do much to change practices, at least in urban China, where fertility is well below the national average. Indeed, Shanghai first announced an easing of the one-child policy in 2004, aiming to double the number of newborns by 2009. Those from one-child families or on second marriages were permitted to have more children and official enforcement of the policy relaxed. But the impact has been zero.

* * *

But underlying all this may well be the cost of children for families with high housing costs that need to save for health care and retirement because of limited government programs. The decline in extended-family support-systems has not been compensated by other social networks or the state. Thrift is valued but the future worth of children to parents and to society is forgotten. Societies that claim to have strong communal values resist tax funding for nursery schools as dangerous welfarism.

In addressing the problems, officials are reluctant to look at the example of longer-urbanized Western societies, where fertility rates are now close to replacement levels. The United States is one, though its birth rate is more due to recent immigrants than the fertility of older-established populations. More significant are those like the Netherlands, Scandinavian countries, France, New Zealand and to a lesser degree Britain. All are characterized not only by generous welfare and maternal leave provisions, and infant care systems, but also by high levels of sexual equality as measured by incomes and social position. They also happen to have a high proportion of births out of wedlock. This suggests that welfare and tax systems that support childbearing are important in bringing fertility back toward replacement levels.

Perhaps Mr. Bowring misses the real lesson here. While it may take a village to raise a child (or a community, but certainly not a nation state or the UN -- which is what our current Secretary of State really had in mind), it most definitely takes families for a society to function at all and to sustainably provide necessary care during all stages of life, especially at the beginning and the end. The state is no substitute for moms and dads during the early years of life and no substitute for children and grandchildren during the last years.

From Christian Infertility to Muslim Dominance

From the Asia Times:

The closing of the Christian womb has ensured eventual Muslim dominance.

Precise data are unobtainable, for demographics is politics in Lebanon, but Lebanon's Christians became as infertile as their European counterparts. Muslims, particularly the impoverished and marginalized Shi'ites, had more babies. In 1971, the Shi'ite fertility rate was 3.8 babies per female, against only 2 for Maronite Christians, or just below replacement. Precise data are not available, but Christian fertility is well below replacement today.

Even before the 1975 Lebanese Civil War, infertility undermined the position of Lebanon's Christians . The civil war itself arose from the demographic shift towards Muslims, who saw the Christian-leaning constitution as unfair. Christianity in the Levant ultimately failed for the same reason that it failed in Europe: populations that are nominally Christian did not trouble to reproduce.

NY Times: Birth Rate Is Said to Fall as a Result of Recession

See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/us/07births.html?_r=1&hpw for the complete article. A brief excerpt:

August 7, 2009

Birth Rate Is Said to Fall as a Result of Recession

By SAM ROBERTS

For the first time since the decade began, Americans are having fewer babies, and some experts are blaming the economy.

“It’s the recession,” said Andrew Hacker, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. “Children are the most expensive item in every family’s budget, especially given all the gear kids expect today. So it’s a good place to cut back when you’re uncertain about the future.”

In 2007, the number of births in the United States broke a 50-year-old record high, set during the baby boom. But last year, births began to decline nationwide, by nearly 2 percent, according to provisional figures released last week.

Those figures from the National Center for Health Statistics, indicate that births declined in all but 10 states in 2008 (most of them in a Northern belt where the recession was generally less severe) compared with the year before. Over all, 4,247,000 births were recorded in 2008, 68,000 fewer than the year before.

* * *

“More than 80 percent of the job losses in this recession have been borne by men,” Professor Coontz added. “There are a lot of families where a maternity leave would mean that no income at all was coming in.”

Historically, birth rates have fluctuated with the economy. Record lows were recorded during two economic crises: the Depression in the 1930s and the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s.

By the 1970s, birth rates were also affected by the rise of feminism and easier access to contraceptives and to abortion. But would they have dropped as low as they did, Mr. Haub asked, without “the added impetus of inflation, not to mention long lines at the gas station?”

“While that question can never be definitively answered,” he said, “we do know that the economic setting hardly seems conducive to starting families or having additional children. Double-digit inflation during the 1970s made two-earner, two-career families a virtual necessity for many.”

* * *

“It is certainly too soon to tell if this economic crisis will result in a sharp drop in the birth rate,” he said, “but all the measures and indicators, along with the collapse of the mainstays of the economy, are much worse than in the 1970s.

Luther On the Importance of Educating Children

In volume 46, page 251 of Luther's Works, we find Luther giving a sermon on the duty we owe our fellow human society in providing our capable sons with a classical liberal education so that at least some may become pastors, leaders, and good citizens. I couldn't help also applying his basic argument in this regard to the sin of preventing of these servants of God from even being conceived in the first place. Here is Luther:

You ought also to know the harm that you are doing if you take the opposite course. If God has given you a child who has the ability and the talent for this office, and you do not train him for it but look only to the belly and to temporal livelihood, then take the list of things mentioned above and run over the good works and miracles noted there, and see what a pious hypocrite and unproductive weed25 you are. For so far as it is up to you, you are depriving God of an angel, a servant, a king and prince in his kingdom; a savior and comforter of men in matters that pertain to body and soul, property and honor; a captain and a knight to fight against the devil. Thus you are making a place for the devil and advancing his kingdom so that he brings more souls into sin, death, and hell every day and keeps them there, and wins victories everywhere; the world remains in heresy, error, contention, war, and strife, and gets worse every day; the kingdom of God goes down to destruction, along with Christian faith, the fruits of the suffering and blood of Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit, the gospel, and all worship of God; and all devil worship and unbelief get the upper hand. All of this need not have happened and could have been prevented, things could even have been improved, if your son had been trained for this work and entered it.

Suppose God were to address you on your deathbed, or at the Last Judgment, and say, “I was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, imprisoned, and you rendered me no service. For in that you have not done it to people on earth and to my kingdom or gospel, but have helped put them down and allowed men’s souls to perish, you have done this to me. For you could have helped. I gave you children and material means for this purpose, but you wantonly allowed me and my kingdom and the souls of men to suffer want and pine away—and you thereby served the devil and his kingdom instead of me and my kingdom. Well, let him be your reward. Go with him now into the abyss of hell. You have not helped to build but to weaken and destroy my kingdom in heaven and on earth; but you have helped the devil to build and increase his hell. Live, therefore, in the house that you have built!”26

How do you think you will stand then? You will not be tainted by little drops of sin, but inundated by whole cloudbursts of it—you who now give no heed but just go nonchalantly along as if you were doing well in keeping your child from an education. But then you will have to say that you are justly condemned to the abyss of hell as one of the most odious and vile men who ever lived. Indeed, if you were to consider these things even now, while you are living, you would be truly horrified at yourself. For no conscience can bear to be found guilty of even one of the things that have been mentioned; how much less can it bear it if suddenly all these things, more than can be numbered, fall on it all at once? Your heart will then have to cry out that your sins are more than the leaves and the grass, indeed, greater than heaven and earth; and you will say with Manasseh, king of Judah, “The sins I have committed are more in number than the sands of the sea; my transgressions are multiplied” [Pr. of Man. 9]. Even the law of nature tells you that he who is able to prevent injury but does not do so is guilty of the injury because he certainly desired and willed it and would have inflicted it himself if he had had occasion or opportunity. These people, therefore, are certainly no better than the devil himself because they are so angry with both God and the world that they help to ruin both heaven and earth, and serve the devil faithfully. In a word, if we cannot adequately denounce the devil, neither can we adequately denounce these people who hinder the work and office of God, for they are the devil’s servants.

In saying this I do not mean to insist that every man must train his child for this office, for it is not necessary that all boys become pastors, preachers, and schoolmasters. It is well to know that the children of lords and other important people are not to be used for this work, for the world also needs heirs, people without whom the temporal authority would go to pieces.27 I am speaking of the common people, who used to have their children educated for the sake of the livings and benefices but now keep them away from learning to earn a livelihood. Even though they need no heirs they keep their children out of school, regardless of whether the children have the ability and talent for these offices and could serve God in them without privation or hindrance. Boys of such ability ought to be kept at their studies, especially sons of the poor, for all the endowments and revenues of the foundations and monasteries are earmarked for this purpose. In addition, though, other boys as well ought to study, even those of lesser ability. They ought at least to read, write, and understand Latin, for we need not only highly learned doctors and masters of Holy Scripture but also ordinary pastors who will teach the gospel and the catechism28 to the young and ignorant, and baptize and administer the sacrament. That they may be incapable of doing battle with heretics is unimportant. For a good building we need not only hewn facings but also backing stone. In like manner we must also have sacristans and other persons who serve and help in relation to the office of preaching and the word of God.

Even though a boy who has studied Latin should afterward learn a trade and become a craftsman, he still stands as a ready reserve in case he should be needed as a pastor or in some other service of the word. Neither will such knowledge hurt his capacity to earn a living. On the contrary, he can rule his house all the better because of it, and besides, he is prepared for the office of preacher or pastor if he should be needed there. It is especially easy in our day to train persons for teaching the gospel and the catechism because not only Holy Scripture but also knowledge of all kinds is so abundant,29 what with so many books, so much reading, and, thank God, so much preaching that one can learn more now in three years than was formerly possible in twenty. Even women30 and children can now learn from German books and sermons more about God and Christ—I am telling the truth!—than all the universities, foundations, monasteries, the whole papacy, and all the world used to know. Ordinary pastors, however, must be able to use Latin. They cannot do without it any more than scholars can do without Greek and Hebrew,31 as St. Augustine says32 and canon law even prescribes.33

But you say, “Suppose things turn out badly and my son becomes a heretic or a knave? As they say, ‘The learned are daft.’ ”34 Well, you have to take that chance. Your diligence and labor will not be lost. God will have regard for your faithful service and count it as though it had turned out well. You simply have to take the chance as you would in any other occupation for which you might train your son. How was it with the good Abraham? His son Ishmael did not turn out well; neither did Isaac’s son Esau, or Adam’s son Gain. Should Abraham therefore have given up training his son Isaac, or Isaac his son Jacob, or Adam his son Abel for the service of God? How many bad kings and people there were among the holy and chosen nation of Israeli With their heresies and idolatries they brought on all kinds of trouble and killed all the prophets. Ought Levi the priest to have let the whole nation go on that account, and no longer trained anyone for the service of God?

1957 CPH book says "Sex is all wrapped up with God's way of creating people"

Two years before CPH published Planned Parenthood and the Christian, by Concordia Seminary theologian Alfred M. Rehwinkel, CPH published Walter Reiss's Teenager, Christ Is for You (1957). After promoting abstinence until marriage, Reiss concludes (p. 44):

And when you do marry, you'll find out that sex means a lot more than just fun or excitement. Sex is all wrapped up with God's way of creating people -- more temples for His presence [1 Corinthians 5:19]. When you take your first look at your first baby, someday -- whether you're a young man or a young lady -- you'll be mighty glad you handled sex with respect and used it with love.

Marriage: Why? When?

Wow! This article hits the nail on the head in my opinion. Ummm... No, sorry, that's not quite right... Actually, it hits several nails on the head, and drives them all the way into my thick skull. Yes, alright, that's more honest.

Now, I would also apologize for the author's frank references to sex, but the Bible itself is quite explicit in exposing sexual sin. In fact, it is rather counterproductive to sanitize our discussions about what has gone wrong with the postmodern relationship(s) of man and woman.

In any case, when reading this article, be prepared for it to challenge our typical blind acceptance of societal norms in favor of a Biblically informed view of marriage.

*The photo above from 1902 is the wedding photo of my wife's great-grandparents, Joseph Albert Gomoluch and Mary Irene Duda, wed at 26 and 15 yrs of age respectively. My own mother was 17 when she married my father, who was 27, in the photo below from 1957. And, yes, they are still happily married. My mother is 70, and my father will be 80 this August 31st.

Demographic Bomb

From the same people who produced the Demographic Winter DVD, we now have Demographic Bomb, available at http://www.demographicwinter.com/index.html.

The Case Against Having Kids

A reader just sent me this article from Canada’s current affairs magazine, Macleans.

Excerpt:

“Are you planning to have children?” is a question Statistics Canada has asked since 1990. In 2006, 17.1 per cent of women aged 30 to 34 said “no,” as did 18.3 per cent of men in the same category. The U.S. National Center of Health Statistics reports that the number of American women of childbearing age who define themselves as “child-free” rose sharply in the past generation: 6.2 per cent of women in 2002 between the ages of 15 and 44 reported that they don’t expect to have children in their lifetime, up from 4.9 per cent in 1982.

. . . Laura and Vincent Ciaccio are spokespeople for No Kidding!, a social club for non-parents founded in Vancouver in 1984 that now boasts more than 40 chapters in five countries. Laura, a 31-year-old attorney in New York City, refers to children as a “calling,” one that she and Vincent, a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology at Rutgers University, have decided isn’t for them. “I didn’t want to make such a major lifestyle change just because it was something society expected of me,” she says. “Children should be something people have because they really want them.”

Speaking up on the subject can elicit a smackdown. Last February, the 37-year-old British journalist Polly Vernon wrote a defiant column in the Guardian enumerating the reasons she didn’t want children: “I’m appalled by the idea,” she wrote. “Both instinctually (‘Euuuw! You think I should do what to my body?’) and intellectually (‘And also to my career, my finances, my lifestyle and my independence?’).” The response was terrifying, she reports: “Emails and letters arrived, condemning me, expressing disgust. I was denounced as bitter, selfish, un-sisterly, unnatural, evil. I’m now routinely referred to as ‘baby-hating journalist Polly Vernon.’ ”

Lui, who observes celebrity for a living, rejects what she sees as a pernicious retrograde swing back to the ’50s in which motherhood was celebrated as women’s highest calling. . . .

Pregnancy and Flu Pandemics

Lisa Krieger writes for Mercury News, quoting Dr. Steven Parodi, regional chief of infectious disease with Kaiser Permanente:

Although pregnant women have many of the same initial virus symptoms as other people, they face greater odds of complications, Parodi said.

"During pregnancy, the immune system has different components. A pregnant woman's immune system shifts away from the ability to fight off viruses and shifts more toward fighting bacteria," Parodi said. "It puts them at higher risk of viral influenza."

The growth of the baby compresses a woman's lungs, so her breathing capacity is reduced. "With less lung capacity, you're more likely to get sick," he said. "And if you get an infection, it's harder to clear."

Flu seems to also increase the risk of delivery complications, such as spontaneous abortion and preterm birth, especially among women with pneumonia.

Additionally, it poses problems for the baby, if the woman has high fever. Studies show that maternal fever during the first trimester doubles the risk of neural tube defects and other birth defects. Maternal fever during labor is a risk factor for seizures, encephalopathy, cerebral palsy and infant death. Doctors recommend treatment with acetaminophen to reduce a pregnant woman's fever.

In England, initial hysteria over infection caused the nation's Department of Health to advise women to consider delaying conception until the pandemic passed. The Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also advised pregnant women to avoid rush hour, stay indoors and restrict the movement of other children so the virus didn't get brought home. But both groups have since softened their stance.

Pregnant women should feel free to work, play and do other normal activities, Parodi said.

"Pregnant women should avoid people who are coughing or actively ill," he said. "And if we're ill, we should protect them, by not going to work. It's a way we can all help."

An elevated number of influenza-associated deaths among pregnant women were reported during the pandemics of 1918-1919 and 1957-1958. In a study of 1,350 women who had flu during the 1918 pandemic, about half the women got pneumonia and about half of the women with pneumonia died — a case-fatality rate of 27 percent. During the 1957 flu pandemic, pregnant women accounted for half of the flu deaths in a study of Minnesota women of reproductive age.

I wonder if the Vatican (or even Lutherans) would consider this current pandemic a "serious" and "grave" reason to avoid conception.

A Baby Cut from Her Mother's Womb ... Survives!

FoxNEWS reports that "A baby cut from the womb of her murdered mother in Massachusetts was found alive in New Hampshire."

The murder victim was eight months pregnant.

The child, fortunately, survived and is now receiving proper medical care.

This is a good reminder to those who favor late-term abortions that a child in the womb is a living child. But how sad it is that such a reminder should even be necessary, and how sad it is that the baby's mother did not survive and that the father's identity is uncertain.

Read about it here.

May God our heavenly Father care for this precious orphan among us.

Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over?

Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over?
What the battle for traditional marriage means for Americans—and evangelicals.
Mark Galli | posted 7/24/2009 10:27AM

at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/july/34.30.html

An excerpt with my comments:

One could become wistful about the time in history when marriage was a settled affair, when everyone agreed on what it was, when no nation on the planet would have entertained the idea of legalizing same-sex marriage. But wistfulness is usually reserved for times long ago and places far away—not for a state of affairs that existed less than a decade ago.

In December 2000, the Dutch parliament became the first to pass legislation that gave same-sex couples the right to marry, divorce, and adopt children. On April 1 of the following year, the mayor of Amsterdam officiated, for the first time in human history, at the ceremonies of the first four gay couples. In the ensuing eight years, Belgium (2003), Spain (2005), Canada (2005), South Africa (2006), and Norway (2008) followed the Netherlands' lead, and Sweden may now not be far behind.

* * *

[T]raditional Christians feel like the armored tank of history is rolling over them, crushing traditional marriage under its iron treads, impervious to argument, the ballot box, or judicial logic. Even more disheartening has been to witness how, in each mainline denomination, and even in some evangelical seminaries, fellow Christians lobby hard for gay marriage.

* * *

David Blankenhorn, president of the New York–based Institute for American Values and author of The Future of Marriage, argued this in a nonreligious way in a September 2008 Los Angeles Times op-ed. There is one constant in the constantly evolving understanding of marriage, he says: "In all societies, marriage shapes the rights and obligations of parenthood. Among us humans, the scholars report, marriage is not primarily a license to have sex. Nor is it primarily a license to receive benefits or social recognition. It is primarily a license to have children."

Further, he says, "Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. Marriage says to society as a whole: For every child born, there is a recognized mother and a father, accountable to the child and to each other."

The argument is nuanced, and goes on to take into account heterosexual couples who will not or cannot have children. But he grounds marriage not in two people, but in two communities: the family and the state.

McGill University law professor Margaret Somerville, in a 2003 brief before Canada's Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, argued in much the same way. She says that to form a society, we must create "a societal-cultural paradigm." This is a constellation of "values, principles, attitudes, beliefs, and myths" by which a society finds value and meaning, both individually and collectively.

"Reproduction is the fundamental occurrence on which, ultimately, the future of human life depends," she says. "That is the primary reason why marriage is important to society." Thus, it is crucial that societies protect marriage as a fact and as a symbol, as that institution that fosters human life, doing so in the context of family and society. "Even if a particular man and woman cannot or do not want to have a child, their getting married does not damage this general symbolism."

Again, the argument is involved and nuanced. Both Blankenhorn and Somerville ground marriage in something larger than two selves who wish to find fulfillment. Marriage is inescapably connected to children and thus family, and family is inescapably connected to society.

The fact is that "if a particular man and woman [choose not to] have a child [as opposed to cannot], their getting married does . . . damage this general symbolism" and, indeed, the very foundation upon which marriage is built. I posted the following comment in to the article"

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony . . . duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained. First, It was ordained for the procreation of children . . . . Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication . . . . Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort . . . ." By accepting the licitness of contraception in the past century, "against almost unbroken [Christian] disapproval", as C.S. Lewis noted, Christians have undermined one of the three foundations upon which marriage is built. If we are to offer a coherent defense of traditional marriage, we must be open to life in our marital intimacy, returning to the accepted understanding of all Christians prior to the 20th century that contraception is gravely sinful. Matt. 7:1-5. May the Lord have mercy and forgive our sins.

Most of the other comments on the article rend one's heart.

Kyrie Eleison.

Ginsburg Perceives Eugenic Motivation to Legalized Abortion

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a NYT interview published July 7, 2009:

Q: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda?


JUSTICE GINSBURG: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.


Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?


JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong. (Emphasis added.)

Can it Get Any Worse?

You decide.

Yesterday (July 14, 2009), I posted on President Obama's appointee to head the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, who favors "a stance of 'respect for [patient] autonomy' and 'nondirective counseling'" when a mother "indicate[s] an interest in aborting" a child who is diagnosed in utero with a disability, such as Down Syndrome. See Dr. Collins versus Dr. Porter at http://lutheransandcontraception.blogspot.com/2009/07/dr-collins-versus-dr-porter.html. It is hard to imagine how it can get any worse than that. But . . .

In yesterday's (July 14, 2009) Washington Examiner, available at http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obamas-science-czar-suggested-compulsory-abortion-sterilization-50783612.html we read the following:

Obama's science czar suggested compulsory abortion, sterilization

David Freddoso reported,

Internet reports are now circulating that Obama's Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren, penned a 1977 book that approved of and recommended compulsory sterilization and even abortion in some cases, as part of a government population control regime.

Given the general unreliability of Internet quotations, I wanted to go straight to this now-rare text and make sure the reports were both accurate and kept Holdren's writings in context. Generally speaking, they are, and they do.

The Holdren book, titled Ecoscience and co-authored with Malthus enthusiasts Paul and Anne Ehrlich, weighs in at more than 1,000 pages. Of greatest importance to its discussion of how to limit the human population is its disregard for any ethical considerations.

Holdren (with the Ehrlichs) notes the existence of “moral objections to some proposals . . . especially to any kind of compulsion.” But his approach is completely amoral. He implies that compulsory population control is less preferable, because of some people's objections, but he argues repeatedly that it is sometimes necessary, and necessity trumps all ethical objections.

* * *
Holdren refers approvingly, for example, to Indira Gandhi's government for its then-recent attempt at a compulsory sterilization program:

India in the mid-1970s not only entertained the idea of compulsory sterilization, but moved toward implementing it. . . . This decision was greeted with dismay abroad, but Indira Gandhi's government felt it had little other choice. There is too little time left to experiment further with educational programs and hope that social change will generate a spontaneous fertility decline, and most of the Indian population is too poor for direct economic pressures (especially penalties) to be effective.

When necessary, then, compulsory sterilization is justified. This attitude suffuses the following passage, in which the possibility of putting a “sterilant” into a population's drinking water is seriously discussed. Holdren and his co-authors do not recommend this particular method, but their objections to it are merely practical and health-related, not moral or stemming from any concern for human freedom.

* * *
Holdren and his co-authors . . . look with more favor on [a] “milder” form of coercive sterilization:

Of course, a government might require only implantation of the contraceptive capsule, leaving its removal to the individual's discretion but requiring reimplantation after childbirth. Since having a child would require positive action (removal of the capsule), many more births would be prevented than in the reverse situation.

Holdren and his co-authors also tackle the problem of illegitimacy, recognizing that it could be one consequence of a society which, in its effort to limit births, downgrades the value of intact nuclear families and encourages lifelong bachelorhood:

[R]esponsible parenthood ought to be encouraged and illegitimate childbearing could be strongly discouraged. One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption -- especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone...It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.

So, while Dr. Collins favored no efforts to dissuade a mother from aborting her disabled child, John Holdren favored involuntary sterilization and even abortion in some cases. The reader can decide which is worse. These are examples of those whom our nation now has directing our health and science programs.

Kyrie eleison.

Dr. Collins versus Dr. Porter

As readers may be aware, Dr. Francis Collins, an Evangelical Christian, has been appointed by President Obama to head the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Collins does not hold views on the sanctity of human life which one would hope from a man who is known for being a devout Christian. For example, David Klinghoffer's article at Beliefnet notes that Dr. Collins:

considers [in a book he co-authored in 1998] a bioethical situation where a genetic counselor is discussing with a (married) mother, 8 weeks pregnant, whether to abort her child because there's a 7 to 8 percent chance the child will have a mild learning disability. Should the mother indicate an interest in aborting, Collins and his two co-authors commend to the counselor a stance of "respect for [patient] autonomy" and "nondirective counseling."

See "Francis Collins on Abortion: Obama's Pick for NIH and His "Devout" Views on Terminating Down Syndrome Children," available at http://blog.beliefnet.com/kingdomofpriests/2009/07/francis-collins-on-abortion.html.

Contrast this with the view that handicapped children are gifts from God to bless their parents expressed on the first hour of the July 13, 2009 episode of Catholic Answers, "Raising a Handicapped Child," available at http://www.catholic.com/audio/2009/mp3/ca090713a.mp3.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.

May God open the hearts of our people to love the children made in His image with which He so graciously blesses us and not to contemn the gifts of God.

Sell your eggs for a free Indian Vacation!

From an email sent to me from a friend, commenting on the depths to which we have sunk and how our "liberated" age has just opened new avenues for women to be exploited.

http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/8642/

When I first heard about the Indian "rent-a-womb" industry, I couldn't believe Oprah was promoting it as a good thing for women. And yet she presented it as a great opportunity for women. I am still mystified as to how she could see this as anything other than what it is - the exploitation of poor women of color for the benefit of wealthy westerners. The industry in Inda is still almost completely unregulated and has now started advertising on college campuses here.

OK, so I'm not allowed to eat Big Macs, Twinkies or GM corn, but if I am 20-something, smart and healthy, I can pump my body full of chemicals that will likely leave me infertile with a greatly increased risk of cancer and may even cause a stroke or death -- all for the benefit of some rich couple. What do I get out of it? A few bucks in the bank and a free vacation to India.

Yea, I am woman, hear me sell myself.

Kamilla Ludwig

ht: Jennifer Lahl www.cbc-network.org

(I also hope to have my own post up this weekend: www.bravelass.blogspot.com )

Arjuna on the Destruction of Family

I have joined a reading group at the Christian university at which I work on Indian literature as part of the university's programs in India. We are meeting today and I am finally getting around to reading The Bhagavad-Gita (as translated by Barbara Stoler Miller). For those unfamiliar with the work, it begins with a war between family members competing for a kingdom. Arjuna is torn by his duty to the kingdom and his duty to his family and asked Krishna to advise him. Some wise words from that work (even if based on a false religion) which have application to our time and place:

How can we ignore the wisdom
of turning from this evil
when we see the sin
of family destruction, Krishna?

When the family is ruined,
the timeless laws of family duty
perish; and when duty is lost,
chaos overwhelms the family.

In overwhelming chaos, Krishna,
women of the family are corrupted;
and when women are corrupted,
disorder is born in society.

. . .

The sins of men who violate
the family create disorder in society
that undermines the constant laws
of caste and family duty.

Krishna, we have heard
that a place in hell
is reserved for men
who undermine family duties.

Kyrie eleison.

Whom Are You Receiving?

“So, what are you having?”

Call it a rite of passage. Every pregnant couple goes through it. Friends, relatives, and even those less familiar—the cashier at Wal-Mart, the teller at the local bank, or the Schwann’s deliveryman—ask, “So, do you know what you’re having?”

Customary responses include “a boy,” “a girl,” “we don’t know yet,” and “we’ve decided to keep that a secret.” I know of one couple who replaced “we don’t know yet” with “Yes, we know what we’re having—a Lutheran, of course!” (Their Lutheran pastor baptized the baby within hours of birth.)

The question “what are you having?” may seem innocent enough, and no doubt most who ask it have no ill intentions. Nonetheless, there is something unsettling about the question itself. This becomes clearer with each new pregnancy.

“Are you hoping for a ... this time?”

Consider, for example, the typical experience of a couple whose first child is a girl. With Baby #2 now in the womb, the question “so, what are you having?” is joined by “Are you hoping for a boy this time?” The question makes sense in a culture where some parents do hope for a boy when they already have a girl (or for a girl, when they already have a boy). But the question also normalizes this attitude, as if “hoping for” one sex or the other is an attitude worth encouraging.

“Are you trying for a ... this time?”

After two or more girls, the question becomes, “Are you trying for a boy this time?” The phrase “trying for,” as compared to “hoping for,” suggests a greater degree of agency on the part of the parents—as if there is something mom or dad could do to determine the baby’s sex.

King Henry VIII unfortunately blamed his wife for failing to bear him a son; ignorant of genetics, he did not realize it was his failure to contribute a viable Y chromosome that resulted in the child’s feminine sex.

“What are you technologizing into existence?”

As Francis Bacon quipped, “Knowledge is power.” Now that we know about X and Y chromosomes, among other things, technology has empowered us to choose sons over daughters, or vice versa. Men and women (I won’t quite call them fathers and mothers, since in vitro fertilization technicians assume part of those roles) can now quite literally “try for” and even “obtain” a boy or a girl at will—and for a hefty price tag, too.

Having morphed from “what are you having?” to “what are you hoping for?” to “what are you trying for?” to “what are you biotechnologizing into existence?”—alas, the question no longer appears so innocent.

Broadening our horizons, increasing our cross-cultural awareness, only reveals the problem more deeply. In China, for example, a one-child government policy and a cultural preference for sons over daughters (or, son over daughter—singular) has encouraged the deployment of surgical abortion for purpose of sex selection. As for sex selection in the United States, it perhaps is more common to “terminate the spare embryos” at an IVF clinic, or else to freeze them indefinitely until a more convenient time.

“May I take your order, please?”

Extreme examples, perhaps. But even the original question already stands at the edge of the proverbial slippery slope. “What are you having?” Is that really how we speak of children? Such a question is more appropriate for a restaurant. The wife peers over her menu, asking her husband, “So, what are you having?” Then the waitress arrives, inquiring, “May I take your order please?”

“Yes, I’d like one of each, please.”

Similarly, “Now that you have three boys, are you hoping for a girl this time?” follows a grammatical pattern more appropriate for a buffet line. People pass through, loading their plate with at least one of each kind, and going back for seconds if they have a favorite. But in the “buffet line” that people have misconstrued pregnancy to be, God sometimes serves several helpings of one sex before bringing the other sex to the table. How rude of Him, says our culture. We’d rather start with one of each.

And many would prefer to end with one of each, too. Perhaps all of those children’s books from the 1960s have brainwashed Americans into envisioning the perfect family as Dad, Mom, Brother, and Sister, plus maybe a cat or dog.

“We’re finished now, thank you.”

Those who came of age in the 1960s are prone today to assume that a family with, say, four daughters, would embark on the journey of pregnancy once more only to be “trying for” a son. A fifth (or more) pregnancy just does not make sense in this Era of Planned Parenthood, unless birth control failed or the parents really, really were hoping for a child of the other sex this time.

The buffet analogy strangely fits here, too. “We’re finished now.” Those who don’t call it quits after about seconds or thirds attract glares, ranging from curiosity to ridicule. “Don’t they know when to quit?”

But let’s press the question a little further. Quit on what basis? We’re talking children now, not the buffet line. Should a couple intentionally stop having children after being blessed with at least one boy and one girl? Or after having three or four or five children all of the same sex—as if it’s time to give up “trying”? But if it was proper to be “trying for” one sex or the other in the first place, why does it become less appropriate as the family expands? The logic seems to be this: try for one boy and one girl, but stop trying once your family size starts to impinge upon your lifestyle. Follow that rule, and no one will stare at you when you take your (two or three) children out in public.

Fortunately not all see family size in terms of "trying for" and then quitting. I rather like the slogan the Concordian Sisters have adopted – entrusting one’s family size to God means that “your family size determines your lifestyle rather than the other way around.”

“Whom are you receiving?”

In Holy Scripture, of course, children are not regarded as buffet servings. Nor does the Bible teach that children are things to be had, hoped for, tried for, or biotechnologized into conformity with one’s narcissistic dreams. They are persons to be received. Perhaps next time you talk with someone who is pregnant, you could try asking “What do you know about the one whom are you receiving?” rather than “What are you having?”

Receiving, of course, requires a sender. That makes it different than merely “having.” God sends. We receive. Or so the Lord intends it. As Christ instructed his disciples, “whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:5). Suggesting that this attitude toward children properly extends back to conception, The Hausvater Project has encouraged “that husbands and wives welcome all of God’s procreative blessings in their marriage, recognizing children as a heritage of the Lord.” This concisely captures the attitude expressed in Genesis 1:28, 24:60; Psalm 127, 128, etc.

“Whom have you rejected?”

Too often we receive, but begrudgingly. (Dare a parent ever admit to a child, “We decided to have a fifth, because we were hoping for a girl, but then we ended up with five boys instead”?) Sometimes we reject rather than receive—whether preemptively through contraception or after the fact through surgical abortion and the several forms of hormonal birth control that also function abortifaciently. Sinful actions stem from sinful thoughts (cf. James 1:14-15). Receiving begrudgingly is the first step toward rejecting murderously. Neither attitude welcomes children.

“I tell you the truth,” said Jesus in anticipation of the Day of Judgment, “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (Matthew 25:45).

“Who has forgiven you?”

Thankfully, Jesus also said more. He did not take on human flesh and walk this earth merely to condemn us for sinning endlessly against him and our neighbors in thought, word, and deed—although he surely had plenty of solid evidence at his disposal had condemnation been his game plan. “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). This includes cheating tax collectors (the immediate context of the verse just quoted) as well as reluctant or picky parents. Indeed, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). (How frequently I have been comforted by that little word all—Christ purifies us from all unrighteousness. Hebrews 9:12 similarly emphasizes the all-sufficiency of Christ’s forgiveness for us.)

“Who has called you into parenthood?”

“With the help of the LORD,” said history’s first mother, “I have brought forth a man” (Genesis 4:2). And so it has been thereafter. God “opens” and “closes” wombs (Genesis 20:18, 29:31, 30:22). “Sons are a heritage from the LORD” (Psalm 127:3).

Parenthood is a divine vocation, as our Lutheran fathers testified (LC Fourth Commandment; LC Sixth Commandment; AC XXIII; AC XXVI, 10; Apol. XXIII [XI]—not to mention many other writings by Luther, Chemnitz, and the like).

Keeping this fact in mind may guide our conversations with others.

“How can you answer those who ask?”

“So, do you know what you’re having?”

“We know very little about the child whom we’re receiving. But we don’t worry so much about that. We know the One who has sent this child into our lives. The Lord our gracious God will take care of us, and help us to care for this child, no matter what may come. If we receive a son, we’ll raise him to be a man of God. If we receive a daughter, we’ll raise her for godly womanhood. Either way, we are grateful, and humbled, just to have the opportunity.”

J.W. Montgomery on "How to Decide the Birth Control Question"

In preparation for the Apologetics Academy in Strasbourg, I've been cramming the reading list for the course. One of the books I picked up in the final hours before leaving is "Slaughter of the Innocents: Abortion, Birth Control, and Divorce in Light of Science, Law, and Theology" (1981) by John Warwick Montgomery, founder and instructor for the Academy. His personal website is: http://www.jwm.christendom.co.uk/.

Dr. Montgomery resists a blanket condemnation of birth control but restricts it to marriage and the couple's consideration of their own physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual situation. "However he is led to fulfill his personal responsibility before the Lord of the church, the Christian stands free from the shackles of legalism and from the chaos of libertarianism. He suggests we present our bodies in a reasonable act of worship.

On the whole, Montgomery is condemning of both Rome for its view of marriage as "a means to the end" of procreation, and also of liberal Christianity which views marriage as "an end" unto itself.

Understood in the light of New Testament fulfillment [Eph 5:22-33], marriage cannot be regarded as simply a means ("Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth") or unqualifiedly as an end ("They shall be one flesh"). Rather, it is seen as an analogy - indeed, ss the best human analogy- of the relationship between Christ and his church... When, and only when, marriage is viewed as the type of which Christ-and-church are antitype can we avoid the Hegelian-like dialectic extremes of the Roman and liberal Protestant views of marriage and birth control."

To summarize, his following points highlight how Christ-and-church antitype inform the type of marriage. Namely:

1. Marriage is not viewed as simply procreative. Birth control can aid in "subduing the earth". Yet, NFP is rejected for its Manichean and Neoplatonic depreciation of the flesh and the psychosomatic wholeness of marriage and the woman's cycle.
2. The human love relationship is not an end in itself. "The love relationship between male and female must never be absolutized. It is truly meaningful only insofar as it reflects the Christ-relationship. Apart from this it becomes idolatrous, taking on demonic quality despite its lack of genuine ultimacy."
3. In light of the divine analogy, children are central to the marital union. "As the union of Christ and his church does not exist for its own sake, but to bring others to spiritual rebirth, so the marital union is properly fulfilled in natural birth. And since natural birth precedes spiritual birth, as creation precedes redemption, so the Christian home can be the greatest single agency for nurture in the twofold sense... The burden of proof rests, then, on the couple who wish to restrict the size of their family; to the extendt possible and desirable, all Christian couples should seek to "bring many sons unto glory."" (25)
4. "Sexual relations outside of marriage are unqualifiedly to be condemned, not for naturalistic (and logically questionable!) reasons... but because they violate the high analogy of Christ-and-church.

While we may find his permissive approach to birth control objectionable, Montgomery is right to caution against the extremes of legalism and libertarianism. Montgomery urges us to not condemn those who reject the antitype of Christ-and-church where they honestly believe it will afford a better human relationship, either in the family or community. (He has here in mind overpopulated areas though not in Malthusian terms.)

Yet, He states we should encourage couples to do all they can to make their marriages "evangelistic- generatively and regeneratively." Rightly, he encourages adoption, not at the expense of childbearing. Here the infertile couple is offered "a superlative privilege and opportunity." (27)

The text is an interesting read and worth the trip to the library.

• Montgomery, John Warwick. Slaughter of the Innocents: Abortion, Birth Control, and Divorce in Light of Science, Law, and Theology. Westchester, Ill: Cornerstone Books, 1981.