One of the more difficult parts of my job is dealing with the personal problems that my students share with me, from relationship problems, to the death of a parent or significant loved one, or pregnancy. I don't mind when students come to me with problems, in fact I think of it as my ministry. I do my best to advise and or help them, while asking God for wisdom. But, some problems are more difficult than others to deal with.
One of the most difficult situations for me to deal with is when a student tells me they are pregnant and have an appointment scheduled to have an abortion. It is difficult because it feels like exactly what it is, a life and death situation. My first impulse is to yell "please don't kill your baby!" but, if my objective is to prevent the abortion, that isn't going to help. Instead I listen, I offer alternatives, I encourage them to not base such an important decision on feelings or circumstances while silently begging God to help me change their mind. Then I wait and pray that they begin to look pregnant. While waiting sometimes I lay awake at night asking God if I should have said or done something else. I'm not sure why students come to me, but a very wise person I know tells me that she believes they come to me because they want me to talk them out of the abortion. I pray that is true.
After some recent discussions about pregnancy on others' blogs I have been thinking about something women say, including my students, when telling me about their pregnancy: "It wasn't a planned pregnancy." It wasn't planned? Please correct me if I am wrong here, but isn't having sex and becoming pregnant and then saying it wasn't a planned pregnancy kind of like eating a whole pizza every day for a week and gaining a five pounds and then saying "it wasn't a planned weight gain"? Isn't it like washing your face and brushing your teeth and putting on your nightie and climbing into bed and falling asleep and then saying "I didn't plan on sleeping"?
It is like birth control methods and abortion have separated sex from pregnancy, and in so doing have removed the cause and effect relationship between the two. No longer is the conception of a child viewed as the logical consequence of sex, rather it is "an accident". Is it any wonder that the child conceived in this manner can be dismissed as a "mistake".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
yes, this is foundationally true. and for those unmarried, it is exactly true.
however, there are some other factors with married couples that make this more complex ... SOMEtimes.
for example ... infertility ... getting pregnant when you've been told it's impossible (i've known quite a few).
another example is a woman who is in menopause ... or who has had other gynocological issues.
intentionally having sex to achieve pregnancy is a planned pregnancy. this may seem simplistic and unrelated, but again if you factor in infertility and other possible issues, medical or otherwise, this can sometimes be more complex.
does it change the basic premise? no. it's just that, sometimes, it's more complex.
we were told that we would not be able to achieve pregnancy when i was two weeks pregnant and didn't yet know it. did we intend to get pregnant? yes. was it unexpected? yes.
again, for those who are unmarried, i think this is more concrete. for those who are married, sometimes there are more complex issues ... and, unintentionally, these kinds of statements can be painful for one going thru infertility.
should they be avoided in order not to hurt one going thru infertility? no. however, one might want to be thoughtful concerning one's audience when making such statements out of general curtesy.
in this place, however, this is completely appropriate.
Ame,
Thank you for pointing that out. My sister and bro-in-law struggled with infertility and the last thing I would want to do is hurt the women or men struggling with that.
I am in a place of severe writers block when it comes to my dissertation (please pray for me!) and so my brain is currently freaking out a bit.....meaning all my thoughts are not exactly connecting together as they should LOL :)
There is a thought in the back of my mind about the issue in this post that I am having difficulty expressing. I think in the minds of some people pregnancy is no longer the logical outcome of sex. I don't mean to say that if you have sex that you will definately get pregnant. I mean to say that pregnancy has become something to control instead of the logical outcome of "mating". If pregnancy is thought of as something to control instead of the logical result of sex then of course you would view it as something unexpected when it happens and you didn't "choose" it.
When telling me about their pregnancy these young women always say "it isn't a planned pregnancy" as though the important part of that statement isn't the fact that they are pregnant, but the fact that it wasn't their plan. Since it wasn't in the plan it is a problem to be "taken care of" instead of the logical consequence of having sex. Does that make sense? (that is not a rhetorical question!). :)
""It wasn't a planned pregnancy.""
Cause and effect is hard for some people.
"...the important part of that statement isn't the fact that they are pregnant, but the fact that it wasn't their plan. "
This is a huge statement and absolutely right in all aspects!
It's all this planning that gets women in so much trouble. Not only with an unplanned pregnancy, but when they don't find a boyfriend/husband as planned, get impregnated as planned, or have children as planned, they get POed. Of course they plan for all this stuff to happen in the narrow time span between getting established in a career and when your ovaries shut off. How will your plan account for all those variables?
It's all this planning that gets women in so much trouble....How will your plan account for all those variables?
It's all about the pursuit of "control" I suppose. Of wanting things to be a "certain way" instead of trusting God with the plan.
Learner,
You know where I stand on this issue, so I shall simply say this: with all the various means of birth control out there (women have what, 10-12 available to them), a woman doesn't get pregnant unless she WANTS to get pregnant-end of story.
MarkyMark
MarkyMark,
Did you see the comment I made in reply to your comment on that subject?
Learner - you are absolutely correct here. Sex should be seen as a means of procreating as well as something that glues a marriage together ... not simply something to satisfy one's desire at the moment, regardless of marital status.
They're kids for goodness sake. Procreation, what are insane? Pffft, the whole sex thing begins when a child is at home, and their beliefs in what sex is about is well formed BEFORE you find them in such a situation.
I don't envy you at all Learner. I'm merely responsible for four children not a whole student body...
I do know I have mentioned MORE THAN A FEW TIMES to my 4 children as they've been growing up, "A baby is the best thing you can get from unprotected sex!"...
Believe it or not, they understand.
Now it's their choice on what to do with their freedom under my watchful albeit can't be everywhere eye :)
PS. So, when I find condom wrappers in their pockets I do smile knowing they're doing more than I did at their age to keep safe. And in some perverse way, am extremely proud of them for taking action rather than inaction to their primal instincts ;-)
Teenagers, Teen Adults, Adult Children - ugh, no wonder I'm going grey!
Wonder Woman,
I'm glad that I am not responsible for them even though sometimes it feels like it!
Yes, it would seem that our "birth control" choices have made us think that we God-like control over reproduction. The Bible says that the Lord opens and closes the womb. How many people do you know who believe that and act like they do? Lots of great comments on this one.
Hi Jonathan,
Yes, we all like to think we are in control, don't we?
Post a Comment