A recent blog post by Laura Carroll has generated quite a number of comments from her readers and from the Catholic blogger Laura quoted. Though many commenters expressed disagreement with each other, I found the overall tone of the discourse to be respectful, and I credit Laura for setting that tone in her blog. Indeed, Laura and I have differing views on truth and Christianity, yet she has been supportive of the Childfree Christian blog, and I appreciate that. But I digress!
What inspired me today was one of the statements from commenter Annie, that “there are certain things that are objectively unnatural and the child-free choice is one of them.” I think many of us tend to use “unnatural” as a criticism of something we don’t like; I probably uttered something similar when I heard the story of a woman who wanted extensive cosmetic surgery in order to look like a cat. However, I have been asking myself more and more lately, Is unnatural necessarily bad? Does nature always know best? Is God not the author of the diversity we see in nature, allowing for tremendous aberrations from “normal”? Does not God allow us to follow differing paths as we look to God for guidance (Proverbs 3:6)?
Consider our acceptance of the unnatural when it suits us. I have written before about being left-handed, something that could be considered unnatural given the small percentage of the population who favor their left-hand. However, even though lefties are capable of choosing to adapt to right-handedness, these days we are seldom forced to do so. We are generally allowed to continue in our left-handed ways, despite some risks in remaining left-handed.
A person with a (naturally) large nose opts for cosmetic surgery. Someone who has difficulty with weight and limiting their eating chooses a gastric bypass. Doctors administer unnatural pain relief to women giving birth. Humans of all kinds accept unnatural treatments (chemotherapy, being cut open and sewn up, artificial hearts and joints, organ donations, being hooked up to machines to perform basic bodily functions, highly technologically advanced procedures that merge biology and machine, etc.) to artificially extend life or to make life more comfortable. There is little moral outrage over these “unnatural” choices.
There are plenty of other human attempts to thwart nature for our convenience: animal breeders artificially inseminating animals to produce a “better” food supply, pet owners sterilizing their cats and dogs, farmers using unnatural herbicides and pesticides to ensure more bountiful crops, people undergoing fertility treatments, travelers flying in airplanes. Does the unnaturalness of these activities make them immoral, or even odd? Or does unnatural become OK when “everybody else is doing it”?
I understand that some of the examples above do not involve choice in the same way that not having children involves choice, but I think the principle of assigning value to natural versus unnatural still fits. As a Christian, of course, my standard for determining good and bad is the Bible, and I have written several posts describing why I believe childfreedom is, at the very least, not wrong from a biblical perspective. And so even if a lack of desire to reproduce or a choice not to reproduce can be classified as unnatural, so what?
As a bit of a post-script, I feel that some of my ideas in this post could use some refinement or more organization, but I have other pressing responsibilities to attend to right now. I encourage any comments that might give me a chance to clarify or improve my thinking!
