Sex is about reproduction. This is the natural function of sex, biologically speaking, and it’s odd how the same liberal fanatics who enjoy endlessly lecturing us about Darwinism and global warming — “The science is settled!” — are so unscientific about sex. Instead, the sexual enthusiasms of liberals tend toward sterile non-procreative acts, while they react with horror at the idea that someone might engage in the normal act of reproduction with the expected result. If they can’t prevent pregnancy, liberals want to kill the resulting baby, apparently believing that motherhood itself is a weapon of patriarchal oppression.
This mentality is what I call “The Contraceptive Culture.” I’ve written about the subject occasionally for years (see “The Pill at 50: Unhappy Un-Birthday,” May 8, 2010) and my emphatic pro-life stance has sometimes led to readers mistaking me for Catholic.
Proudly Protestant, I nevertheless recognize that the encyclical Humane Vitae identified the fundamental problem with artificial contraception: It separates functions that naturally belong together. Whereas love, sex, marriage and parenthood are normally part of the same bundle, The Contraceptive Culture divides them up in a decidedly abnormal way, and once this strange way of thinking takes hold, it becomes difficult for people to understand what’s wrong with it.
My wife and I have six children, so we’ve heard all the anti-“breeder” jokes that are common to The Contraceptive Culture. Sometimes, however, you encounter truly hateful expressions of the anti-natal mindset, as when someone posted a photo of the Duggar family’s appearance at a Ken Cuccinelli gubernatorial campaign event in Virginia:
“Expansive meat tarp”? Such vicious and perverted comments are a product of the hostility to normal sex that has entrenched itself in liberal rhetoric. Democrats are now the party of sodomy and abortion, and outright hatred of normal people — especially, hatred toward Christian families — is considered entirely acceptable to so-called “progressives.” Consider a question Time magazine recently asked an NFL player:
Six kids? Regardless of your profession, it’s impossible to
be a good parent to six kids. Not enough hours in the day.
Really? Are you saying that my wife and I are bad parents? Do you have any idea how healthy, happy and successful our kids are? Molly Hemingway has an excellent take on this subject:
Since when did having kids become something that Americans irrationally fear and loathe?
The media remind us regularly that the most important cultural value relative to family life is what’s euphemistically called “choice.” The choice of whether to have kids or not is held so sacrosanct that our laws permit the decision to be made many months after a new human life begins. Some even advocate extending the choice to a period of time after birth. So why the weird reaction to people receiving children as a blessing instead of fighting them tooth and nail with hormones, chemicals, surgery and scissors? Do we need some remedial courses in how babies are made? It’s entirely natural, of course, for babies to be conceived when men and women have sex. Treating the entirely expected procreation of children as something to be avoided at all costs — and an unspeakable atrocity if one has, say, three children already — would be weird even if our culture weren’t obsessed with sex at all times, in all places, in every context, at every moment. . . .
Please read the whole thing.
