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Guest
When I was in college, I took a bioethics class. As a Catholic, I was one of the few students in class outspokenly skeptical of certain modern medical technologies. Due to past history, the class avoided discussing abortion because discussion was said to “generate more heat than light.” That being said, we did dive into a large array of hot issues, from organ donation to the treatment of people in persistent vegetative states.
One topic area really blew my mind: commercial surrogate pregnancy. That is, when someone contracts with a woman to become pregnant with either (1) artificial insemination or (2) IVF – often with genes from at least one parent. The contract also says that once the birth has taken place, the “surrogate” mother must hand the baby over to the contract parents, who will adopt the baby.
For that issue, I read a paper from a feminist (Elizabeth Anderson, perhaps?) who argued using Marxist philosophy to say that these types of contracts just exploit the surrogate mother and treat her as just a machine to produce the product they want… a baby! This is similar to how Marxists say that factory workers are treated by their employers. The paper argued that the surrogate mother is frequently poor, and as such, are easy to exploit by wealthier people who want to use her body and leave her with just the money she’s able to get through the contract.
When I read that article, my mind was truly blown. It seemed to me that this author, from a strictly feminist and leftist perspective, was saying almost exactly the same thing that our Church says about commercial surrogate pregnancy, but using different words. “Don’t use people,” Catholic moral theology and feminist bioethics both seemed to be saying. In more recent years, I’ve come to think that the New Evangelization could use language that captures Catholic moral teaching, but not in formal theological terms.
For example, how many people at a night club are still looking for a date for the night at last call? Those people may be looking for sex, but what they really want is love. Our culture says that sex is a necessary toll to pay on the road to true love, and I’ve heard enough people say that they thought that when they decided to have sex outside marriage for the first time. So [suspend disbelief for a second] if we’re reaching out to the people in the night club who are drunk and looking for someone to take them home for the night, what do we say? Catholic moral theology says that what they’re trying to do is wrong. But is that the way we should talk to them? I say no. To me, they need to hear that we’re there for them. That we want to know who they really are, not because we are hoping to get them in the sack, but because they are a person who deserves a friend who will be there for them. We can say that going home with a sexy person you met 20 minutes ago isn’t the path to happiness. “What are you really looking for?” is a question to ask. Most people really want connection to another person who accepts them as they are. To me, that’s the way to bring people into the Church. Talking about our own mistakes, and how we thought that they would make me happy, would also help to talk to someone. How people have used us and disappointed us. How we’ve used others, thinking that it was the thing to do. Even if we’ve not made similar mistakes as theirs in our own past, we offer the sinner a sympathetic friend who will lead them to take the first step on the real path to holiness.
Another example: contraception. Rather than saying it’s wrong, say that NFP is so awesome because it results in greater intimacy in the emotional side of the relationship, in addition to better sex! I’m sure there are other issues we could use this way, but I’m already writing too much!
To sum it up, talking about the positive side of Catholic morality is a better strategy than the negative side. Thoughts?
One topic area really blew my mind: commercial surrogate pregnancy. That is, when someone contracts with a woman to become pregnant with either (1) artificial insemination or (2) IVF – often with genes from at least one parent. The contract also says that once the birth has taken place, the “surrogate” mother must hand the baby over to the contract parents, who will adopt the baby.
For that issue, I read a paper from a feminist (Elizabeth Anderson, perhaps?) who argued using Marxist philosophy to say that these types of contracts just exploit the surrogate mother and treat her as just a machine to produce the product they want… a baby! This is similar to how Marxists say that factory workers are treated by their employers. The paper argued that the surrogate mother is frequently poor, and as such, are easy to exploit by wealthier people who want to use her body and leave her with just the money she’s able to get through the contract.
When I read that article, my mind was truly blown. It seemed to me that this author, from a strictly feminist and leftist perspective, was saying almost exactly the same thing that our Church says about commercial surrogate pregnancy, but using different words. “Don’t use people,” Catholic moral theology and feminist bioethics both seemed to be saying. In more recent years, I’ve come to think that the New Evangelization could use language that captures Catholic moral teaching, but not in formal theological terms.
For example, how many people at a night club are still looking for a date for the night at last call? Those people may be looking for sex, but what they really want is love. Our culture says that sex is a necessary toll to pay on the road to true love, and I’ve heard enough people say that they thought that when they decided to have sex outside marriage for the first time. So [suspend disbelief for a second] if we’re reaching out to the people in the night club who are drunk and looking for someone to take them home for the night, what do we say? Catholic moral theology says that what they’re trying to do is wrong. But is that the way we should talk to them? I say no. To me, they need to hear that we’re there for them. That we want to know who they really are, not because we are hoping to get them in the sack, but because they are a person who deserves a friend who will be there for them. We can say that going home with a sexy person you met 20 minutes ago isn’t the path to happiness. “What are you really looking for?” is a question to ask. Most people really want connection to another person who accepts them as they are. To me, that’s the way to bring people into the Church. Talking about our own mistakes, and how we thought that they would make me happy, would also help to talk to someone. How people have used us and disappointed us. How we’ve used others, thinking that it was the thing to do. Even if we’ve not made similar mistakes as theirs in our own past, we offer the sinner a sympathetic friend who will lead them to take the first step on the real path to holiness.
Another example: contraception. Rather than saying it’s wrong, say that NFP is so awesome because it results in greater intimacy in the emotional side of the relationship, in addition to better sex! I’m sure there are other issues we could use this way, but I’m already writing too much!
To sum it up, talking about the positive side of Catholic morality is a better strategy than the negative side. Thoughts?