Ideologies Behind Human Reproduction

                                                                                                                               Teresa Barro

 Teresa Barro

          Let us examine one of the most influential ideologies on human reproduction, the one which insists on the need to populate the earth whatever the consequences.

             According to the Roman Catholic Church, the main purpose of marriage is procreation.  A couple should have as many children as possible, such being the will of God.  Neither the will of God should be resisted nor Nature interfered with.  Consequently, the Roman Catholic Church opposes any form of contraception.  In more recent times it has grudgingly accepted the method based on "natural rhythm", which is not only highly unreliable but also the one which most threatens sexual harmony between the couple.

             This inflexible stand against contraception rests entirely on one sentence attributed to Yahweh in the first book of the Christian Bible.  After having made the Universe and man, Yahweh, satisfied with His work, exclaims:: Be fruitful and increase

[Genesis, 1-28 (NEB)] 

            This statement is not, of course, direct revelation, but just part of the recounting of the myth of Creation.  Myths should, in any case, be read as poetry and not as prose, and it would be derisory to extort from them rules and commandments concerning the daily activities of men and women.  Furthermore, as is the case in the story of Adam and Eve, not even a literal interpretation of those words attributed to God could ever lend support to the odd theory of human reproduction sustained by the Roman Catholic Church..

             Yahweh said to Adam and Eve "be fruitful and increase", or "grow and be fruitful" as part of a general blessing to the whole of his Creation.  Those words reflect the joy and contentment of the artist and creator faced by the work of art already finished – finished by Him – but at the beginning of its own life and already with a will of its own.

             There is no reason to assume that when Yahweh recommends to the man and the woman recently created (that is, to the human race) to be fruitful and to grow and be fertile, He is hinting exclusively to their power to beget children.  This particular sentence follows almost immediately the assertion that man and woman were created in the image of God, very like Him and capable, because of their powerful spiritual nature, of administering the physical and spiritual constitution of everything which exists on earth, including their own physical and spiritual nature:

 God made wild animals, cattle, and all reptiles, each according to its kind;  and he saw that it was good.  Then God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness to rule the fish in the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all wild animals on earth, and all reptiles that crawl upon the earth".  So God created man in his own image;  in the image of God he created him;  male and female he created them, "Be fruitful and increase, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea, the birds of heaven, and every living thing that moves upon the earth".

[Genesis, 1, 25-6-7-8]

             Undoubtedly, God's blessing is for the human ability to create and to be spiritually fruitful, as He himself is.  By trying to reduce man's talents and mission in life to mindless reproduction, the Church not only downgraded human nature in general, but also God's nature, since both God's and man's natures are meant to partake of the same quality, the divine ability to create and to make the spirit fructify.

            Yahweh gives man the right to subjugate the earth, which implies that man must learn to make a good use of it and to administer its fruits and products.  Implicit is the assumption that man not only has the right but also the duty to make everything flourish and that he has powers over Nature to do so.  It is inconceivable that, having announced man's authority and talents for the control and administration of life on earth, God would then have required men and women to give free rein to Nature and to let her rule over them in the amount of children to be had.  Surely they were supposed to learn to control and administer that side of nature in themselves?  The unsystematic and haphazard production of enormous quantities of human offspring resulted in the deepest disharmony on earth.  Such disorder is highly detrimental to the well-being of the earth itself and of all living creatures.  Is it likely that a God who was asking for control and good administration of the earth was at the same time demanding from men lack of control and consideration in such a decisive matter as the number of children to be brought to the world?

            The Roman Catholic Church certainly assigned a very odd mission to human beings by pushing them to be recklessly reproductive and to overwhelm the earth with their offspring.  What is more, the stance of the Catholic Church in this matter is inconsistent in more ways than one.  The Church insisted in downgrading marriage by naming as its main purpose the multiplication of the human race.  Not only that, but marriage also acquired a very dubious status following the Church's ideas that it was needed as a lesser evil to the dangers of the flesh.  As a result, marriage came to be seen as inferior to a religious life fully dedicated to God.  Male priests and even nuns deserved far more credit than married men and women.

            Yet, if God had ordered man to multiply above all and regardless of any other consideration, surely this command should apply to all men and women without exception and there would be no room for virginity or chastity.  Therefore, all those who chose chastity and celibacy within the Catholic Church would have been disobeying God's orders to propagate without restraint.

            In this curious ideology, centred in the belief that God wished boundless procreation, it is also assumed that children are a manifestation of the direct will of God and that He somehow sends them to their parents.  Additionally, the poor parents burdened with more children than they could care for, were offered as a solace the conviction that their fertility was a blessing and a definite proof of divine favour.  No one explained where the universally scorned children of single mothers, or those born from adultery, prostitution or rape could fit into this general condition.  Were they also sent directly by God, as the children of marriage?  And if they were, why then did not the Church do more to protect them against unjust customs and laws destined to ostracise them, even if that implied defying society?  Is it not time for the Catholic Church to face up to the tremendous contradictions in its teachings?  Whose are the children, anyway:  God's or man's?  Everything seems to indicate that God blessed in humankind the capacity to grow and fructify spiritually, in order to become more like Him, in His image.  He also appears to have ordered them to control Nature (and even more so their own physical nature) at all times.  Not even animals procreate in a reckless way:  Nature usually intervenes to avoid disorder and imbalance on earth.  Boundless reproduction in humans was willed, not by God, but by some men.  A human surplus was very desirable in a world where slavery was of paramount importance and had to be protected and promoted by all means possible.  And families with more children than they could care for were the perfect breeding ground for providing an endless string of slaves and serfs.

 
 

terbarro@aol.com                                                         Diciembre 2007