Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Line drawn

Call me old fashioned, but I find nothing to celebrate about baby creation for relationships which are inherently, by a fundamental and intrinsic fact of biology, inconceivable. (Ha, a pun.)

Here's my simple rule: if you love someone and want a relationship with them, take the biological consequences with it. This applies just as much to heterosexuals as homosexuals, in that they should be ready for the possibility of a baby no matter how well they try and use contraception, and from the other side, they should also accept the possibility that their relationship may turn out to be incapable of producing children.

Yes, this all sounds harsh and unreasonable to everyone under the age of 35, and I speak as relatively late age husband who still managed to have a couple of kids. I'm not a doctor who has to deal with depressed woman crying all day because she can't have a baby naturally.

Sorry, but this is just how things were a mere 40 years ago, and reproductive technology interferes with a fundamental aspect of biology and creates something entirely different from medical technology which merely preserves and improves an already existing life. So don't try to tell me that, if I was consistent, I should be against vaccines, or heart valve operations, or whatever. It's different: I am drawing a line which I consider entirely justifiable. It is not an essential function of any life that it has to have reproduced.

I also have the Pope onside, even though I have to work on his attitude to contraception in at least one respect: neither the rhythm method nor a condom used by a husband and wife can turn sex from moral to immoral. His line drawing needs adjusting too.

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