Pregnant "Men":
Recently reported, is the Female couple who are having a baby together. The Newspapers carry the sensational headline "Man" having a Baby!" In actual fact, the person involved still retained all her female sexual organs. This is really just another example where people demand the right to “choose” their own reality. Their psycholgical experience becomes the sum total of their reality... often in outright denial of their physical reality. In contrast, Christians believe in the inseparable unity of our spirit, mind and body (this is why the physical resurrection is so important to us... apart from our body, we have no future!).
Our world no longer only demands freedom from other people, but freedom from their physical selves and external constrains.
How should the Christian respond to this story. We need to figure out what our world view means for both the couple and their child.
Firstly, the practice of "gender re-assignment". The Christian can certainly understand that there are at times severe contradictions between how we feel about and view ourselves on the one hand, and the sometimes painful reality that constrains us on the other. Many of us have the feeling that reality somehow doesn't truely represent who we feel we should be. But the Christian hope is not found in denying these painful contradictions in favour of creating our own reality. Instead the Christian hope is focused on the day in which the painful contradictions of our reality (even gender confusion) will be wiped away leaving our self image and our physical bodies in perfect unity. But such a completely unified self awaits the new creation. Surgery and hormone treatments will never achieve this unity.
Firstly, the practice of "gender re-assignment". The Christian can certainly understand that there are at times severe contradictions between how we feel about and view ourselves on the one hand, and the sometimes painful reality that constrains us on the other. Many of us have the feeling that reality somehow doesn't truely represent who we feel we should be. But the Christian hope is not found in denying these painful contradictions in favour of creating our own reality. Instead the Christian hope is focused on the day in which the painful contradictions of our reality (even gender confusion) will be wiped away leaving our self image and our physical bodies in perfect unity. But such a completely unified self awaits the new creation. Surgery and hormone treatments will never achieve this unity.
In regards to the child - The tragedy is not just that he or she will have confusion surrounding the birth and parents, but that he/she will be brought forth as project of their "parents" will, rather than as a gift from the one true Creator. The Child will be "made" rather than "begotten", and what is "made" is always somehow, in one way or another, viewed as inferior to its maker.
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3 comments:
In relation to the child... aren't they in the same situation as same lesbian couples who undergo IVF... or in fact, any other IVF baby... ?
VC
Hey there,
In some cases yes, in some cases no and in some cases maybe.
Gender re-assignment is a tricky issue (see comments in blog). But in many ways it does have almost the same issues as a lesbian couple deciding to either inseminate themselves or use IVF. In this case IVF was not used. Sperm was just "inseminated" artificially.
It may or may not have the same issues that surround other couples undergoing IVF. Most often IVF is used to overcome a medical problem, that prevents conception occurring naturally. In this case IVF is a "treatment". In the case of the pregnant "man" this is clearly distinct. Wile there may or may not be medical issues surrounding the individuals desire for gender reassignment, their inability to conceive is not a medical condition that results from a fallen world. Its a physical limitation of the Good world as God created it. The physiology of Two women can not result in conception. There has been serious debate as to whether or not lesbian couples should have access to medical funding to conceive through IVF for this very reason - that it can not properly be termed "treatment". This is a significant difference that can distance the validity of same-sex couples using IVF from husband and wife using IVF. A significant difference indeed.
Having said that, your comment still has legs. It is certainly possible for a heterosexual couple to use IVF for sake of convenience, to screen out (and discard) embryos that are likely to carry illnesses or undesired Characteristics. In such cases there is clearly a very similar risk of the Child being viewed as a "creation" simply of the parent's will.
In contrast to this, the parents who create embryos, determined to give them all a chance at life, metaphorically throw open their arms to whomever those children are that God provides. I think that Parents in such situations are far more likely to view their children as "begotten" rather than "made".
Unfortunately the technology that for many enables them to receive the child that God blesses them with, has also promoted what I think is a fundamental change in the way that our society now views children. This attitude can be a problem even for couples who "make babies" without IVF assistance. But I guess the technology has helped to set in stone to modern "children as a project" way of thinking.
Great question. hope the answer is OK as well.
Steve
Thanks for your reply Steve.
The area (rights of gay/lebsian/bisexual/transgender people) is one that's been coming up fairly regularly for me of late. Heavy going stuff...
VC
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