Unwanted

I'm sure you've heard the phrase before: "Unwanted children." In India it is a problem of "gender selection" where girl babies are unwanted and, so, aborted. In China it is a population control problem where anything over one child is eliminated. In America, of course, we're much more civilized. "Unwanted" isn't as crass as that. No, for us they're "unwanted" if they have the potential to be abnormal or if they could possibly harm the mother or if they are just not very convenient.

"Unwanted children" -- the phrase -- is gaining in popularity. Oh, not put that way (mostly), but we see the advantage to making "every child a wanted child". It was at the root of Margaret Sanger's birth control movement in the 1920's. Today our society has begun to look askance at people with "too many kids", where most often "too many" seems to be "more than one ... or two at the most".

Margaret Sanger started out as a nurse in New York. She saw too many poor women dying from self-induced abortions and set out to ease their pain by encouraging birth control (her term). She published a magazine called Woman Rebel with the motto, "No Gods, No Masters." She flaunted the law and custom in both her personal life and her crusade to "secure the freedom of the individual woman" whom she viewed as "a brood animal for the masculine civilizations of the world". Eventually others heralded her for providing a way of "coping with the world's staggering population problem." (This is a stunning phrase, since the article I've referenced was written in 1966 and we've still not actually run into "the world's staggering population problem" in the 21st century.) Yet with all her effort it still wasn't until 1965 that the last U.S. state removed its ban of "birth control clinics". The PPLM (Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts) tried to get contraception legalized in that state as late as 1942 (because public opinion agreed with contraception) and failed. It wasn't until 1966 that doctors in Massachusetts were allowed to prescribe contraceptives. (Note: I notice a discrepancy here. The Time story says that the last state to lift the ban on birth control clinics was Connecticut in 1965. The PPLM article says that Massachusetts didn't allow contraceptives until 1966. You figure it out. The point is that it wasn't until the mid-'60's that this became "the norm".)

So what? Isn't "every child a wanted child" a good plan? I personally find it staggering in its significance. In this scenario, what is the fundamental basis upon which a child would be born? Clearly, if Sanger and the vast majority of birth control advocates had their way, the basic factor that must be present in order for a child to come into the world would be "wanted". Unwanted children, you see, are not a good idea. They should be prevented from ever being conceived if possible, and, failing that, from ever coming into the world. In contrast to the biblical concept that Man is created in the image of God and, as such, has inherent value, this idea reduces humans to the level of "wantedness". If they are wanted, they are valuable; if not, well, too bad. They're expendable.

Where does that stop? If an unborn child isn't wanted and can, either by abortifacient contraceptives or by actual abortion, be killed, why not a child who has been born? What about "birth" eliminates the primary value of "wanted"? If a family should encounter difficulties and the children become a burden, why shouldn't they be allowed to eliminate them as no longer "wanted"? For that matter, when aging parents become a problem, why not let their children declare them "unwanted" and remove them? No, I'm not making the slippery slope argument. I'm simply wondering, having surrendered the ground of "made in the image of God" that makes all humans valuable to "making every child a wanted child", on what basis do we prevent this slide? Worse, since Christians have bought into the "unwanted child" concept by accepting blindly the use of abortifacient contraception, who will hold the line? Without argument or army, it doesn't seem like the fight over human value has a lot of hope, does it?