H
Ham1
Guest
Okay, here’s a tough one that I thought up a few years ago…
It has been claimed that the purpose of medicine is to do what Nature cannot do for herself. We know that clearly God has designed the human mother to breastfeed her child and according to His plan this breastfeeding naturally is designed to space children apart. Sheila Kippley indicates in “Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing” that women who “ecologically” breastfeed usually have 11-12 months of natural infertility. This means that children end up being 2 - 2 1/2 years apart just through God’s design.
Now some women unfortunately have 2 or 3 months infertility even though they are nurturing and breastfeeding their children according God’s natural plan. Let’s say that there was a drug (not the pill, not an abortifacient, remember this is hypothetical) that could supply the mother with the hormones that ought naturally to be there during the first 12 months or so. In supplying these hormones, the drug would restore the mother’s body to the condition that God originally intended, a state of infertility. Would it be morally permissible for the mother to take this drug that would give her the infertility that Nature intended?
Please let me know your thoughts on this. Also, please don’t confuse this with an effort to justify all sorts of contraception. It’s not. The example obviously depends on a very narrow use of such a drug, namely to do what nature originally intended.
Thanks in advance for your replies.
It has been claimed that the purpose of medicine is to do what Nature cannot do for herself. We know that clearly God has designed the human mother to breastfeed her child and according to His plan this breastfeeding naturally is designed to space children apart. Sheila Kippley indicates in “Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing” that women who “ecologically” breastfeed usually have 11-12 months of natural infertility. This means that children end up being 2 - 2 1/2 years apart just through God’s design.
Now some women unfortunately have 2 or 3 months infertility even though they are nurturing and breastfeeding their children according God’s natural plan. Let’s say that there was a drug (not the pill, not an abortifacient, remember this is hypothetical) that could supply the mother with the hormones that ought naturally to be there during the first 12 months or so. In supplying these hormones, the drug would restore the mother’s body to the condition that God originally intended, a state of infertility. Would it be morally permissible for the mother to take this drug that would give her the infertility that Nature intended?
Please let me know your thoughts on this. Also, please don’t confuse this with an effort to justify all sorts of contraception. It’s not. The example obviously depends on a very narrow use of such a drug, namely to do what nature originally intended.
Thanks in advance for your replies.