Topsy Turvy

One day last week the local news reported a story about a dog attacked by a wolf. In said story, we were told the dog owners have paid $4,000 in medical bills to treat the dog. Also in the recent past, Michael and I have watched, aghast, numerous dog food commercials, one in particular in which we're told you can now find *highly overpriced* but health-conscious dog food in the frozen food aisle of your grocery store (well, maybe not right beside the Edy's ice cream, but you know what I mean).

Clearly something's off here. Since when are animals elevated to human status? Since when did we become more concerned about trees than unborn children? This trend in modernity is indicative that the God-given course of human nature, the divine hierarchy has been utterly reversed in our culture today. The things that we need value are minimized, and the things that need be understood in their proper place are exalted.

This travesty is no more evident than in a string of articles posted on a website meant to "topple" the traditional ideals of lady magazines and women’s lifestyle content (blisstree.com). These articles in particular, entitled "Childfree By Choice: How Young Is Too Young To Choose?" and "Offspring Off Limits: The Real Reasons Doctors Won’t Sterilize Women" describe this subculture of disgruntled women who at a young age insist that they will never want children and heckle their doctors to perform the necessary sterilization procedures. One OB/GYN and author, Lissa Rankin, wrote, "I personally HATE the idea of sterilization and I try REALLY hard to talk people out of it. Why? Because life is long, and even when people say they’re certain of their decision, I know that the only thing certain in life is uncertainty."

 Ironically, many of these same doctors who hesitate to sterilize because of the "uncertainty" of the future will readily perform abortions, an equally life-altering decision in which many women spend the rest of their lives trying to forgive themselves for. As an aside, it's worth noting that Dr. Rankin currently does not perform abortions, although she did so for years and claims that she does not regret the years she spent "serving her patients" in that way.

In the first article mentioned, Childfree By Choice: How Young Is Too Young To Choose, your typical embittered, pro-choice young female vituperates about her doctor refusing to sterilize her. In her defense, she does allow for the possibility of wanting to adopt, but she refuses to admit she might want biological children of her own one day.  This is such an enigma in light of the thousands of women who want nothing more than to exercise pure femininity by bearing children.

Throughout Scripture, the barrenness experienced by Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, and Elizabeth was seen as a sort of curse on them--in their estimation, God had punished them by not opening their wombs. Their earnest prayer in every case was that God would "grant their plea" by giving them children. The pinnacle of blessing was a child.  How tragic that what was once the greatest gift God could bestow is now a curse and what was once seen as a curse is now a blessing, a desirable, a "right" to fight tooth and nail for.