CW: Pro-life, anti-contraception content follows.
If you’re still here: cool, hi friend, you rock! now, listen, I am just a random layperson who overthinks everything, okay, and this is all just my opinion that I’ve arrived at after a lot of mulling and stewing and prayerfully considering. I’m not trying to teach anyone the actual Catholic faith. I am not a priest or theologian. Please look elsewhere for formal instruction!
The other day I saw a reel from a pro-lifer I follow, responding to the common “pro-choice” argument that women in poverty need access to abortion in order to prevent more children from being born into a life of poverty and misery. Her response was basically this: all humans, regardless of their financial status, are equally valuable. In our society we tend to believe rich people are more important, more worthy, but this is false. We are all created equal, & etc. Then, in the comments, the pro-aborts were clapping back with: “we never said anything about the child’s value! It’s precisely because that child has value that he doesn’t deserve to be born into a life of poverty!”
Which sounds fair – but the thing is (and this is the point which the pro-lifer didn’t bother to make in her response, and I’m not blaming her for that, because it ought to be an absolute no-brainer, and anyone with a sane POV of human life would simply already know this): that child already exists. He lives inside his mom for now, but he is a separate human from her, and his body is not hers. Should we be allowed to drive to poor neighborhoods and just shoot little children on sight because they are poor and don’t deserve to be trapped in that life? Is that a noble and charitable thing to do? Obviously not. You don’t kill a baby who already exists simply because their family is poor.
But should his parents have had sex in the first place? (Obviously I’m not talking about cases where the sex was non-consensual, as in that case it wasn’t the mom’s decision to be open to life. And obviously, even in that case it is immoral to kill the child, who already exists and it’s not his fault he was conceived in such a way, and a second tragedy would not rectify the first. But I’m not talking about abortion or about cases where it was not the mom’s choice to be open to life.) The question this problem brings us to is: is it okay for poor people to be open to life (i.e. have sex at all)? Should poor people reproduce? Is it ethical for people who are poor to grow their family?
I think it’s important here to consider the difference between not having much and being in a lot of debt. You can be poor and living paycheck to paycheck (net zero), but not hopelessly in debt (net deep in the negatives). But having a ton of debt that you’re unable to pay is a different problem. (I think it’s probably okay to have kids while in debt as long as you’re able to make timely payments.) We have a moral obligation to pay off our debts. If you can’t make payments on your debts at all, it might be unwise to get pregnant, because kids cost money and not paying your debts is a sin, so in that case you’d be choosing to sin. So, for the purposes of this post, I am talking about not those couples who are drowning in debt and unable to make payments, but those who simply don’t have a lot.
It goes without saying that birth control is off the table. It is always pure evil (when used for contraceptive purposes; I know some women take it for health conditions). It is the root of so much evil in our modern world, and no one should ever use it – however, NFP (or Natural Family Planning, if you’re not familiar) is, in extreme cases, acceptable. I don’t know if it’s ever a good idea, but at times it might be necessary, like if one of the parents is having serious health issues, or they need to space births for pressing medical reasons. Anyway, for the purposes of this little SITV post, I just wanna make it clear that birth control is not an option, but NFP might be. Is it? I’m not sure.
The best and most morally perfect way to approach family planning is to not plan. As married couples, we should trust God completely with our fertility. After all, He arranged the whole universe, from all the billions of galaxies down to the workings of all the subatomic particles and how they interact; why would I believe that He can do all that, but He can’t figure out my household, oh no, this is too tricky, I better step in and take over here!
I hear a lot of trad women online profess that they live this way. They are Radically Open to Life. NFP is birth control, they say, and therefore it’s not the way to go. They seem to even look down their noses at families who use NFP.
I must say, I kinda agree with those women. I think they are doing it the most perfect way. But I also think they probably have a lot of privilege. They talk about making sacrifices in order to make this lifestyle work, but, I think they are assuming that their level of financial strain, and their specific sacrifices, are exactly as much as any other family would have to endure and give up. I think these women are forgetting that some people out there have bigger financial problems, have debt, and/or have jobs that pay less than six figures. People (myself included) tend to assume their level of “poor” is the same as everyone else’s.
Some people out there aren’t even sure if they will be able to afford the next month’s electric bill. Some people need food stamps to afford groceries. Should these people also be Radically Open to Life?
You might argue that they shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place, if they’re that poor. You should go into a marriage materially and mentally prepared to take care of a family, because that is the purpose of marriage. That is true, and a good priest would probably discuss that with the couple in pre-marriage counseling; but that aside, we’re not talking about “woulda coulda shouldas” here. Plenty of people with troubled financial pasts get married. Maybe they are working hard to increase their income, to achieve financial security. Let’s assume that, for whatever reason, they got married even though they were poor. Maybe unwise, but not a sin, and does not in any way invalidate the marriage; there’s no rule anywhere in Church teaching that says a couple must have x amount of money to get married. So, therefore, it’s still a marriage, which means that the rule still applies, doesn’t it: be fruitful and multiply.
But how fruitful? Should they stop after one or two? Is a poor couple obligated to avoid pregnancy (via NFP, of course) until they are more secure?
I found a super compelling article that argues the contrary. It’s really hard to find anymore. It used to be up on the SSPX website, but for whatever reason it’s not anymore, but I found it on some old forum a while ago. It was written by a priest in the 1940s and it’s called Rhythm: The Unhappy Compromise, or something like that. I really recommend tracking it down if you’re as interested in this topic as I am. Basically this priest argues that even poverty is hardly ever a serious reason for a couple to avoid pregnancy.
Because, think about it: Our Lord was born into serious poverty. He was born in a barn! Those are the circumstances that God, the God of the universe, the great eternal I AM, chose to come into our world in. His family was poor, working class; they had no financial security. Similarly, think of all the great Saints who come from poverty. St. Bernadette, St. Maria Goretti, and others. The author of this article I’m talking about was, himself, one of about twelve or thirteen children from a very poor family.
Our culture really looks down on families who “have more kids than they can afford.” I think some parents out there make all the other ones look bad (my husband used to be a social worker, and he tells me that he would sometimes see moms who would do stuff like sell their children’s food stamps in order to buy a new Xbox, etc. – corrupt, evil, lazy behavior). Not all poor parents are lazy or irresponsible. Many of them are doing the best with what they have, and making hard sacrifices. Making sacrifices, and accepting humiliation of help in the form of government benefits, despite the associated stigma, in order to prioritize bringing new life into the world. Is that so bad? Shouldn’t that be a priority? After all, that is God’s command to married couples, isn’t it? And besides, isn’t life supremely good?
That’s the problem, I think: we as a society do not believe that human life is, in and of itself, good. We believe it’s good only if it serves others, if it doesn’t burden others, if it’s pleasant and comfortable for the individual and those around him. If it’s unpleasant or a burden, it’s bad and should be avoided. We as a society believe that pleasure is the most valuable thing, and that we don’t owe anyone else anything. We’re all islands, free to pursue our own happiness – fuck everyone else, they’re not my problem. This is a very sad and distorted worldview. Human life is always a good thing, and it’s not our place to decide who should live and who should not.
“So Mith, are you saying that a couple who’s lost their jobs and home and is living on the street, literally begging for food, with their eight children starving to death, should continue to be Radically Open to Life?” (Well, for one, this family should look into SNAP if they haven’t already. The US government tries not to let children starve to death. Also, any Catholic church, or pretty much any Christian church that they stumble into, will also help feed them.) But still: should a couple this poor remain open to life? (I mean, for one, where and how would they even have sex if they’re living on the street with eight kids, lol.) I think some circumstances are dire enough to permit postponing pregnancy – but still, wouldn’t it be an amazing expression of faith, if this couple said “we know God will provide” and continued to be open? What a heroic expression of trust, even to the point of apparent lunacy, like Abraham in the Old Testament! He knew that God would take care of him, even when God told him to kill his child, he trusted radically, he did something that looked absolutely insane and wrong– and, because of that, God came through for him. I think radical trust is a great thing in any circumstances.
Not everyone’s faith is that strong, though. We’re not all Old Testament heroes. We are afraid – understandably so. Times are tough. We are weak; God knows this about us, and loves us anyway. So if a couple lacks the degree of faith necessary to radically trust God with their fertility… well, obviously they can still be a good Catholic couple, provided that they are working on improving their faith. But I think the point is, we should all strive to have the kind of faith that trusts radically in God’s loving design.
“Well, then, Mith, why do anything at all? Why wake up and go to work? Why cook and clean, if God will just take care of everything for us? Should we all just sit back and do nothing and wait for His help?” Lol come on now, that’s not how this works. God helps those who help themselves. We plant the seeds in the ground, and we trust that if we water and weed, God will make them grow. In this analogy, using birth control or NFP would be like digging up the seed, trying to manipulate the sprout out of the shell with tweezers, make sure it’s going in the right direction, trying to nip the potentially-bad sprouts in the bud, etc. Doing all that’s just going to kill the plant.
So that’s why I think, even in cases of poverty, openness to life is always a good thing. That being said, I don’t think it’s cool to shame couples who use NFP for serious health-related or financial reasons. (Especially if you’re financially privileged and don’t have to worry about actually affording bills. “We might not get the newest iPhone or take a Disney vacation this year” are not serious sacrifices. These kinds of people have no right to look down their nose at NFP users; they can take several seats.) Humans are frail, and we can’t all be perfect all the time, especially under pressure. NFP is not good, but it’s certainly much less evil than birth control, and it can be a useful tool for couples in dire situations (who are constantly working on deepening their faith, of course).
Human life is always good, and it’s not only permissible, but good, to prioritize having kids over material comforts. Radical trust is good in conjunction with responsibility and hard work. I believe Dostoevesky wrote in The Idiot that “children are the wealth of the poor,” and I believe that is true. Kids are good. We should have more of them. Unless we have solid evidence that a parent is being irresponsible or abusive or lazy, let’s stop shaming and judging families who “have more kids than they can afford.”
Poverty is, needless to say, awful, and it’s truly the mark of a society that has failed. I think we should work on improving our society and caring for each other, rather than just reducing our numbers. Killing poor people (including babies) is not the way to end poverty, I mean, come on now.
Oh, and before you come at me with the “global overpopulation” card, please do some more research. The USCCB and NCR both have articles debunking this myth.
MiTHology (4.0) 