Catholics that say they'd never have any biological children for this reason

[manualman]

In fairness, I should concede that modern testing probably makes it harder by more specifically quantifying risk. I get that, I really do. But it’s still a matter of perception management. Objectively, the couple here has a better outlook for healthy children to reach adulthood than most parents faced in human history. It’s just subjectively harder to see that in the moment.

Similarly objectively, airline travel is far safer than car or bus travel. Never mattered to my grandmother. She refused the plane in shaking fear, but had no qualms riding Greyhound. People are weird.

 

[mek42]

What is your opinion and the churches position on choosing adoption instead of having your children biologically?

Ten pages and not a direct answer to the OP and few references at all to adoption. Apparently many posters in this thread believe that adopting a child is not sufficient to be open to life. What is to prevent an outsider from reading this thread and concluding that the Church considers orphans to be worthless?

 

[manualman]

Ten pages and not a direct answer to the OP and few references at all to adoption. Apparently many posters in this thread believe that adopting a child is not sufficient to be open to life. What is to prevent an outsider from reading this thread and concluding that the Church considers orphans to be worthless?

Hopefully the ability to process thoughts logically would prevent that…

The church has ALWAYS taught that marriage, sexual intimacy and babies are ONE tangled up subject, not three independent subjects. Trying to make them an ala carte menu is the source of so much sin and resulting misery in the world!

As I understand it, the intention NEVER to beget children consists of a defective consent to marriage in the first place. Arguably such a couple is not sacramentally married in God’s eyes. (Yes, I know that sounds mean, but truth either means something or it doesn’t. Niceness can’t trump truth). Nothing in this demeans the value of an adopting an orphan out of love and compassion. It merely rejects the idea that humans can circumvent God and have marriage and sex while thwarting resultant pregnancy with the unexamined assumption that nothing is harmed in the process of so doing.

The criticism here isn’t against adoption, it’s about the use of adoption to attempt to circumvent divine design for human sexuality. Adoption is supposed to be an act of love and mercy for the child (and in most cases it is precisely that). It’s not supposed to be used as a vehicle to avoid procreation. Such an approach risks introducing a subtle attitude of acquiring a child as a possession rather than accepting a loving gift from God. Surely we can all agree that there’s already too much of that in our society?

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Ten pages and not a direct answer to the OP and few references at all to adoption. Apparently many posters in this thread believe that adopting a child is not sufficient to be open to life. What is to prevent an outsider from reading this thread and concluding that the Church considers orphans to be worthless?

Could a couple abort to adopt?

Sometimes an exposition of all the factors is necessary. However we are very off topic indeed!

 

[maryjk]

I never said it wasn’t, I was referring to what Rence said about educated choices. One could read the responses more carefully. God Bless, Memaw

I’m sorry, I must have missed where I said you indicated that it wasn’t.

I was simply stating that NFP is a moral option.

 

[mek42]

So, the couple in question has decided that one TaySachs child would require from them an overwhelming amount of resources. Simple willingness to see a child undergo TaySachs may be one of those resources.

It seems to me to be a better stewardship of resources to adopt a child, perhaps eventually others, and provide said children with a loving home, than to roll the dice and risk parental failure by poorly raising one child with TaySachs. Maybe they would have an unafflicted child, maybe they would find increased strength as parents, but maybe they are correctly assessing their limits.

I do understand the interpretation of marriage validity being discussed here, but greater than that is hope that a loving God would say to them, you took a stranger into your home and called him your own.

 

[Memaw]

Ten pages and not a direct answer to the OP and few references at all to adoption. Apparently many posters in this thread believe that adopting a child is not sufficient to be open to life. What is to prevent an outsider from reading this thread and concluding that the Church considers orphans to be worthless?

Only you are saying that. God Bless, Memaw

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

So, the couple in question has decided that one TaySachs child would require from them an overwhelming amount of resources. Simple willingness to see a child undergo TaySachs may be one of those resources.

It seems to me to be a better stewardship of resources to adopt a child, perhaps eventually others, and provide said children with a loving home, than to roll the dice and risk parental failure by poorly raising one child with TaySachs. Maybe they would have an unafflicted child, maybe they would find increased strength as parents, but maybe they are correctly assessing their limits.

I do understand the interpretation of marriage validity being discussed here, but greater than that is hope that a loving God would say to them, you took a stranger into your home and called him your own.

Who will adopt a TaySachs child?

 

[Rau]

Ten pages and not a direct answer to the OP and few references at all to adoption. Apparently many posters in this thread believe that adopting a child is not sufficient to be open to life. What is to prevent an outsider from reading this thread and concluding that the Church considers orphans to be worthless?

I believe the poster asked about adoption in the light of the circumstances that were leading to a decision to not have children. And the adoption issue was not the OP’s only or even main question. Post #57 responds to the adoption point in that context.

I don’t believe the OP was asking about adoption in general as a substitute for one’s own children. That may make for an interesting thread if you wish to explore…

 

[Rau]

So it’s evidence that we’re “learning, growing and adapting” that the richest, healthiest and lowest risk society in human history no longer even has enough babies to replace themselves on a generation by generation basis? Nonsense.

What’s changed is that people today are focused on their own comfort and pleasures rather than having an outwards, others focused view of life and the world. This is the real reason that over 25% child mortality rates were considered acceptable in former times while today it is considered justification for giving up.

(P.S. It’s not just America. Every western nation today has a sub-replacement total fertility rate. Every single one.)

There is much truth in the first sentence of your 2nd para, but I think the next sentence is wrong. High mortality rates in history were an unavoidable fact, and people in general lacked effective means to limit there pregnancies, and for other reasons canvassed earlier. I don’t think parents of the past would feel any more driven to risk having a Tay Sachs baby (if they could have known of the risk) than would parents today.

 

[Allegra]

What is to prevent an outsider from reading this thread and concluding that the Church considers orphans to be worthless?

Logic? And the obvious fact that adopting children doesn’t preclude a couple from being open to life in their marriage. Many couples do both.In fact, the only couples I personally know who have adopted child who have not also had children naturally are couples that can’t have children naturally.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

There is much truth in the first sentence of your 2nd para, but I think the next sentence is wrong. High mortality rates in history were an unavoidable fact, and people in general lacked effective means to limit there pregnancies, and for other reasons canvassed earlier. I don’t think parents of the past would feel any more driven to risk having a Tay Sachs baby (if they could have known of the risk) than would parents today.

That is quite an accusation to make against historical people.

What I think is an unavoidable fact is that family and children in particular are viewed completely different now than in the past. There is a reason that we live in the hostile environment today. You must be able to see that and to see that it would have an impact on parents today.

So I think it is unfair and presumptuous to assign an attitude to a previous generation that they would have the same attitude as the current one.

 

[Rence]

It amazes me that you think the small procreation numbers today are because we dont have to have 10 to have three survive. I have no idea where or when you think that was commonplace.
Somehow you think a 7-3 ratio is the reason procreation numbers are down.

The small procreation numbers today are for many reasons, among them: we don’t need to have ten for 3 to survive, we don’t need ten to survive, methods to avoid unplanned pregnancies have improved over time, and most telling is that families who have small families are called to do so…just like large families are being called to do so.

Wouldn’t that actually work against your argument? People had large families back in the day and now it is down to less than 2 in some places. So in your logic those people actually gave birth to like 20 something kids just to end up with the 10 that survived.

No, it doesn’t actually work against my logic because you zeroed in on one thing I said, and decided to build from there. There are many reasons why people have less than two, the biggest reason is that they are not called to do so. There is no magic number defined by the Church. In addition, methods to avoid unplanned pregnancies have proven very effective. I never said that the life expectancy of a child was the ONLY reason why families had more kids. It was just one of them.

Despite what you may have been told I just do not know of any evidence to support this claim. If one reads historical books, or even just classic literature one can determine that your view is skewed and has been tainted by revisionists.

Yeah, and you’re entitled to your opinion.

Doesn’t it cross your mind that divorce, rampant sexuality without procreative consequences and an attitude of greed have played more of a part in this than some odd notion that people buried a child as some sort of foreplay back in the “old days”

Sure, but don’t forget about those single chaste people who don’t have kids. I’ve never been married, don’t have rampant sex without consequences, and don’t have kids. If I do get married, it will probably be after menopause and I probably won’t have kids and still enjoy the companionship that marriage brings.

It is as if you and I are living in two completely different worlds.

I respect your right to have the view you have. But I cannot for the life of me understand it.

Yeah, you do live in a completely different world than I do, and I don’t get you either. I wouldn’t have kids if I knew I carried a gene that had a high risk of causing pain and suffering to my children. Thankfully, it doesn’t matter to either one of us what the other thinks.

 

[Rence]

What about moral choices, according to the teachings of the Catholic Church? God Bless Memaw

What about it Memaw? There is nothing immoral about avoiding a pregnancy when there is high risk of disease, disability and suffering for either the mother, or the child. Nothing at all. That’s, in fact, part of “responsible parenthood”.

 

[Rence]

So it’s evidence that we’re “learning, growing and adapting” that the richest, healthiest and lowest risk society in human history no longer even has enough babies to replace themselves on a generation by generation basis? Nonsense.

What is nonsense is the thought that you can make family-oriented decisions for everyone else, when in fact, the only family-oriented decisions you should be making is your own. No one gets to decide how much risk a couple has to, or doesn’t have to take, except each individual family.

What’s changed is that people today are focused on their own comfort and pleasures rather than having an outwards, others focused view of life and the world. This is the real reason that over 25% child mortality rates were considered acceptable in former times while today it is considered justification for giving up.

They were more acceptable back then because there was nothing they could do about it, and they didn’t have the knowledge that we have today, in order to make an informed decision.

(P.S. It’s not just America. Every western nation today has a sub-replacement total fertility rate. Every single one.)

Those who are being called to have large families are doing so. Those who are not being called to have large families are not. Not everyone is meant to have 12 kids. or even 3.

 

[Rence]

I never said it wasn’t, I was referring to what Rence said about educated choices. One could read the responses more carefully. God Bless, Memaw

There is nothing immoral about educated choices. One could read what is being written without reading what is not.

 

[Rence]

Ten pages and not a direct answer to the OP and few references at all to adoption. Apparently many posters in this thread believe that adopting a child is not sufficient to be open to life.

That’s because many posters in this thread DON’T believe that adopting a child is sufficient to be open to life. That shouldn’t have surprised you in the least.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

There are many reasons why people have less than two, the biggest reason is that they are not called to do so…

The biggest reason our society has less than two is because they are NOT CALLED to do so!?

I would think the pharmaceutical profits would disagree with you. I would like to see you back up your assertion that the anti life small family mentality our modern culture has right now is a Calling.

While individual families may not be called to do so I find it quite odd you think that is the biggest reason why western society has so few children these days. Especially considering that most people in the secular world, do not even discern a calling at all.

You have also touted the advances in birth control. Are you saying that birth control by illicit means is part of a calling families are having to not conceive less than perfect children?

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

What is nonsense is the thought that you can make family-oriented decisions for everyone else, when in fact, the only family-oriented decisions you should be making is your own. No one gets to decide how much risk a couple has to, or doesn’t have to take, except each individual family.

They were more acceptable back then because there was nothing they could do about it, and they didn’t have the knowledge that we have today, in order to make an informed decision.

Those who are being called to have large families are doing so. Those who are not being called to have large families are not. Not everyone is meant to have 12 kids. or even 3.

1. How do you know that the reason is that there was nothing they could do about it and they didn’t have the knowledge we have to make an informed decision. Can you cite an example?
2. Again I find issues with the idea that every one or even most people are doing what they are being called to do. I don’t understand why you think that the majority of families in society are being called to abort and contracept. Called by whom? Satan?

 

[jmcrae]

So…does this mean they never have sex?
Or, that they continually use the rhythm method? (because they can get pregnant that way, of course…)

.

I expect they would simply not have sex. That would be the easiest way.